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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 is Venus compared to when she hears the sound of the hunting dogs baying?

2. What does Venus tell Adonis will be the cause of him tripping and falling?

3. Which two colors dominate the description of Adonis's body?

4. What type of human does Venus compare the boar to?

5. Besides being goddess of the moon and the hunt, what significant power was Cynthia believed to possess?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. How does Adonis contrast love and lust?

3. Why does Venus say that nature should be convicted of treason, and what is Cynthia's plan to thwart what nature has done?

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. What does Venus suggest Adonis do if he insists on hunting on the following day?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Venus's apostrophes to death are not the only apostrophes in the poem. Where else is this technique used in the poem? What impact do the apostrophes have on tone? How is the use of apostrophe related to the way that Helios, Mars, Diana, and other figures are referred to, as if they are nearby but not directly interacting with Venus or Adonis? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the larger purpose of the poem's apostrophes. 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 2

A year after he published Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare published his only other epyllion, The Rape of Lucrece. Does this poem seem as heavily influenced by drama as Venus and Adonis? Read enough of this second epyllion to have a sense of its style. Then, write an essay that compares and contrasts these two mini-epics, focusing your analysis on the extent to which the poems emphasize dialogue and immediate action. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from both poems, and cite any quoted language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Venus and Adonis is notable for its reliance on dialogue, especially long monologues by Venus. Choose one of Venus's monologues to analyze. Write an essay in which you first explicate the meaning of the monologue--including the ideas conveyed in any figurative language--and then contextualize the monologue by analyzing its place in the overall poem. Discuss what this monologue conveys about Venus's character, the relationship between her and Adonis, and the values the poem either endorses or condemns. Support your explication and analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from your chosen monologue. Be sure to cite any quoted material in MLA format.

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