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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 is Venus saying when she asks the world "what canst thou boast/ Of things long since, or anything ensuing" (lines 1077 and 1078)?
(a) The relationship between the past and the present is not as clear as people pretend.
(b) The world has no right to brag about itself if it would allow Adonis to die.
(c) The world is a cruel place that does not allow love to grow naturally.
(d) Any time before Adonis's birth or after his death is worthless.

2. To whose dismayed surprise does the speaker compare Venus's astonishment when Adonis leaves her?
(a) Someone whose lamp blows out when they are walking in the woods at night.
(b) Someone who is accidentally struck by a careless hunter's arrow.
(c) Someone who is walking across unknown terrain and falls into a bog of quicksand.
(d) Someone whose pampered pet suddenly slips outside and runs away.

3. Which two colors dominate the description of Adonis's body?
(a) White and red.
(b) Black and purple.
(c) Purple and white.
(d) Red and black.

4. Which technique is used in line 1151, "It shall be raging mad, and silly mild"?
(a) Paradox.
(b) Verbal irony.
(c) Juxtaposition.
(d) Oxymoron.

5. What does Venus refer to as "ugly, meagre, lean"?
(a) Lust.
(b) Death.
(c) Love.
(d) Life.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Venus say the boar is looking for with its "downward eye" (line 1106)?

2. What is Venus's motive for flattering death?

3. Which techniques are used in line 838, "love is wise in folly foolish witty"?

4. What technique is used in lines 815 and 816, "Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,/ So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye"?

5. What technique is used in lines 647 and 648, "My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,/ But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the pun in lines 827 and 828, when after Adonis leaves, the speaker says of Venus, "Even so confounded in the dark she lay,/ Having lost the fair discovery of her way."

2. Describe the details of Venus's vision of Adonis and the boar.

3. How does Adonis contrast love and lust?

4. What happens to Venus's eyes when she first sees Adonis's dead body?

5. What does Venus tell Adonis about the relationship between jealousy and her foreboding?

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

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

8. What is ironic about the description of the colors around the boar's mouth?

9. How does Venus portray Adonis having sex as a kind of selfless action and his choosing chastity as selfishness?

10. What is conveyed by the personification and the simile in the passage where Venus runs through the brush toward the sounds of Adonis's hunting party?

(see the answer keys)

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