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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What technique is used in lines 401 and 402, "Who is so faint that dare not be so bold/ To touch the fire, the weather being cold?"
(a) Symbolism.
(b) Oxymoron.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Personification.

2. What is the "jennet" that appears in line 260?
(a) A flower.
(b) A fox.
(c) A bird.
(d) A horse.

3. What is Venus referring to when she tells Adonis that "The tender spring upon thy tempting lip/ Shows thee unripe" (lines 127-128)?
(a) Beads of sweat.
(b) The beginnings of a mustache.
(c) The residue of her own tears.
(d) The sickly green shade of his skin.

4. What is Adonis being compared to when the speaker says he is "Like a dive-dapper" (86)?
(a) A fish.
(b) A duck.
(c) An osprey.
(d) A swimmer.

5. What colors are most prominent in the first 36 stanzas of the poem?
(a) Purple and blue.
(b) Blue and red.
(c) White and purple.
(d) Red and white.

6. What technique is used in line 111, "Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obey’d"?
(a) Epimone.
(b) Epizeuxis.
(c) Anaphora.
(d) Polyptoton.

7. What is Adonis planning to do when he is accosted by Venus?
(a) Nap.
(b) Pick flowers.
(c) Hunt.
(d) Eat lunch.

8. What color is most prominent in the description of Venus kneeling before Adonis and putting her hand on his cheek?
(a) White.
(b) Red.
(c) Blue.
(d) Purple.

9. What is the definition of "recketh" in the line "What recketh he his rider’s angry stir" (line 283)?
(a) Considers.
(b) Ruins.
(c) Angers.
(d) Ignores.

10. When Venus and Adonis are on the ground kissing in lines 547-558, what is Venus being compared to?
(a) A predatory wild animal.
(b) A destructive storm at sea.
(c) A greedy child at the table.
(d) A soldier on the field of battle.

11. What does Venus compare Adonis to in line 8?
(a) A flower.
(b) The sun.
(c) A stag.
(d) A stallion.

12. Which is the best definition of "stillitory" in line 443, "For from the stillitory of thy face excelling"?
(a) A lecture instilling religious belief.
(b) A vessel used in distillation.
(c) A place where statues are displayed.
(d) Perfumed breath.

13. What does the speaker compare to a grinning wolf and a bullet?
(a) Cupid drawing his bow.
(b) The words Adonis intends to say.
(c) Adonis's stallion's seduction of the mare.
(d) Venus's lustful thoughts.

14. Who or what is being described when the word "fetlocks" is used in line 295?
(a) The mare.
(b) Venus.
(c) The stallion.
(d) Adonis.

15. What technique is used in lines 254 and 255, "Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;/ The time is spent, her object will away"?
(a) Parallelism.
(b) Imagery.
(c) Apostrophe.
(d) Paradox.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which technique is used in lines 221 and 222, "And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak/ And now her sobs do her intendments break"?

2. What technique is used in line 470, "For sharply he did think to reprehend her"?

3. Which techniques are used in lines 267-268, "The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds/ Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder"?

4. Which technique is used in line 218, "And swelling passion doth provoke a pause"?

5. When Adonis tells Venus "Remove your siege from my unyielding heart," what metaphor used earlier in the poem does this recall (line 423)?

(see the answer keys)

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