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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. What does Venus mean when she says, in lines 649 and 650, "For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy/ Doth call himself affection’s sentinel"?
(a) When a person is in love, jealousy sounds frequent alarms.
(b) Love is stronger than jealousy and can preserve affection against it.
(c) Love upsets jealousy because it considers affection more important.
(d) When a person is ruled by love, other relationships suffer.

2. Which is the best summary of the meaning conveyed by the stanza that describes Venus's competing feelings of hope and despair?
(a) Both of these extreme emotions are ridiculous and problematic for Venus, but she cannot help vacillating between them because she is in love.
(b) The fear of loss makes it almost impossible to hold on to hope, but part of being in love is allowing oneself to be vulnerable and take emotional risks.
(c) Venus is making a spectacle of herself by wildly veering between hope and despair, and her lack of common sense implies that what she calls love is more likely lust.
(d) Because Venus does not know the outcome yet, it is best for her to focus on hope, because at least in the interim she has one last chance to be happy.

3. Why does Venus ask Adonis whether he saw her grow pale and tremble when he mentioned hunting boar?
(a) She hopes he will be aroused by her display of feminine "weakness."
(b) She considers this evidence that she is not lying about her fear.
(c) She hopes he will feel sympathy for her.
(d) She is stressing that she knows what she is talking about.

4. What technique is used in line 645, "Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright"?
(a) Antistrophe.
(b) Chiasmus.
(c) Parallelism.
(d) Anadiplosis.

5. What is the most reasonable interpretation of what Venus means when she asks "Where did I leave?” and Adonis replies “No matter where" (line 715)?
(a) She is asking what she was saying before her train of thought was interrupted.
(b) She is asking where she and Adonis were when she first told him that he could leave for the night.
(c) She is asking Adonis to explain what he means when he accuses her of wanting to leave.
(d) She is asking where Adonis intends to go once he leaves her that evening.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Venus know that the dogs are barking at a boar, bear, or lion?

2. What technique is used in line 640, "They that thrive well, take counsel of their friends"?

3. What technique is used in lines 819 and 820, "Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,/ Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend"?

4. What technique is used in lines 693 and 694, "Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled/ With much ado the cold fault cleanly out"?

5. What technique is used in lines 1123 and 1124, "She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;/ She takes him by the hand, and that is cold"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to Adonis's body at the end of the poem, and how does Venus respond?

2. What trick do Venus's eyes play on her after she has been looking at Adonis's body for a few minutes?

3. How does the construction of line 832, "Passion on passion deeply is redoubled," mimic the sense of what is happening in this passage?

4. What conclusion does Venus reach about why the boar killed Adonis, and what does this cause her to reflect about her own behavior?

5. What is the meaning of Venus's comments about veils and bonnets after Adonis's death?

6. What does Venus say about death when she thinks that Adonis has died?

7. How does Venus contrast the behavior of fish and birds with the behavior of the boar?

8. What does Venus tell Adonis about his beauty and the boar?

9. How does Venus's attitude toward death change when she believes that Adonis is alive?

10. What criticism does the speaker make of lovers' stories?

(see the answer keys)

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