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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When Venus shakes her head and then Adonis's hand, looks at him and then at the ground, what is it most reasonable to infer about her motivation?
(a) She is too distraught to know how to proceed.
(b) She is attempting to distract Adonis from her real intentions.
(c) She is too shy to explain to Adonis exactly what she wants from him.
(d) She is having second thoughts about her confession of love.

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

3. Which is the best interpretation of "sick-thoughted Venus" in line 5?
(a) Venus's thoughts are evil.
(b) Venus cannot think clearly because she is ill.
(c) Venus's thoughts are unnatural.
(d) Venus is sick with love for Adonis.

4. What does Venus call "heavenly moisture" in line 64?
(a) Her own kisses.
(b) Adonis's breath.
(c) Adonis's tears.
(d) The dew on the flowers.

5. 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 sickly green shade of his skin.
(c) The beginnings of a mustache.
(d) The residue of her own tears.

Short Answer Questions

1. What colors are most prominent in the first 36 stanzas of the poem?

2. What technique is used in line 432, "Ear’s deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding"?

3. Which is the best interpretation of line 600, in which Venus is said "To clip Elysium and to lack her joy"?

4. What technique is used in lines 19 and 20, "not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,/ But rather famish them amid their plenty"?

5. Which is the best definition of "even" in Venus's question "What hour is this? or morn or weary even" (line 495)?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the comparison the speaker makes between Adonis's horse and one created by an artist.

2. Describe the stanza form in Venus and Adonis.

3. What point is Adonis making with the metaphor "Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?" (line 416)?

4. How does Adonis eventually end up kissing Venus?

5. What does Venus tell Adonis will "buy" her heart (line 514), and how does she propose that he "seal" the bargain (line 516)?

6. What does Venus tell Adonis he can learn from his horse?

7. What does Venus convey in the speech about her senses that begins in line 433, "Had I no eyes but ears"?

8. Explain the epic simile about an eagle in lines 55-60.

9. Explain the conceit that Venus uses when she compares herself to a park.

10. As Adonis vacillates "’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale" (line 76), what is the speaker saying Venus feels in lines 77 and 78, "Being red she loves him best, and being white, / Her best is better’d with a more delight"?

(see the answer keys)

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