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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is used when, in line 108, Venus says that Mars made "my arms his field, his tent my bed"?

2. How does Adonis view romantic love?

3. Which is the best characterization of the connotations of Venus's description of "fountains" (line 234) and "rising hillocks" in her description of the park (line 237)?

4. What techniques are used in lines 25 and 26, "With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,/ The precedent of pith and livelihood"?

5. Which is the best definition of "bootless" in the context of line 422?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Venus tell Adonis would happen if their positions were reversed?

2. 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"?

3. What is Venus's purpose in talking about her relationship with the god of war?

4. How does Adonis eventually end up kissing Venus?

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

6. What plan does Adonis share with Venus just as she is finally about to let him leave her, and how does Venus react?

7. Why does the speaker compare Venus's eyes to "the moon in water seen by night" (line 492)?

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

9. What happens when Adonis tries to get back on his horse and leave?

10. In lines 131 and 132, what does Venus mean when she tells Adonis that "Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime/ Rot, and consume themselves in little time"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the impact of the repetition and parallelism used in Venus and Adonis? The poem is notable both for the variety of these techniques--anaphora, alliteration, assonance, antanaclasis, epistrophe, polyptoton, chiasmus, antimetabole, and antithesis, among others--and for their frequency. How do these techniques create emphasis and highlight the relationships among ideas? In a broader sense, how do they establish ethos and impact the poem's tone? Write an essay in which you analyze the impact that the frequent and varied use of techniques of repetition and parallelism has on the poem's overall effect. Support your arguments with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, making sure to cite any quoted language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

What is the theme of Venus and Adonis? What is the poem saying about lust, love, power, virtue, and mortality? Consider symbolism, the speaker's tone, the characterizations of both Venus and Adonis, the action of the poem, and the choices Shakespeare made in adapting the original story to his own uses as you craft your position on the meaning of this poem. Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the theme of Venus and Adonis. Support your arguments with both quoted and paraphrased evidence drawn from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite any quoted language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

You are aware that Shakespeare borrowed from Ovid and that Ovid borrowed from Ancient Greek stories in order to tell the tale of Venus and Adonis. But did the Ancient Greeks also borrow from other sources? Do some research into the Sumarian figures of Dumuzi and Inanna, the Babylonian figures of Tammuz and Ishtar, and the Phoenician figures of Adon and Astarte. What elements of the story stay the same, and what elements change over time? What do you suspect causes the changes in the story as it spreads from society to society? What light does this shed on Shakespeare's choices and the society that he was living in? Write an essay in which you take a position about how the gradual changes in this very old story shed light on the cultures that tell the story--including the culture of Elizabethan England. Support your assertions with evidence from Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and your online historical research. Cite all sources in MLA format.

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