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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Poems on Love.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Rilke comment in the excerpt from the Introduction that Eros "cannot be"?
(a) Faithful.
(b) Ugly.
(c) Joyful.
(d) Fair.

2. One of the shortest of the love poems consists of the following two lines: "Also to affirm even ______ / like a thing."
(a) Woman.
(b) Rapture.
(c) Lust.
(d) Love.

3. The translator claims that the poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" deserve to take their place alongside whose great love poems?
(a) Ovid's.
(b) Dante's.
(c) Shelley's.
(d) Byron's.

4. What does Rilke write that he holds to be "the highest task of a bond between two people"?
(a) That they must live closely.
(b) That they should stand alone.
(c) That they should each stand guard over the solitude of the other.
(d) That they should hold no limits to their connection.

5. What term describes the following example from "The Seven Phallic Poems"? "Daring landscape, such as an inner-seer/beholds in a crystal ball."
(a) Simile.
(b) Prose.
(c) Irony.
(d) Contrast.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Part IV of "The Seven Phallic Poems," the poet writes, "You don't know ______, with your diffidence."

2. From what language has the author translated the poems and prose excerpts of "Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties"?

3. In what year was Rilke born?

4. What literary term applies to the following: "exhaust yourself like a spring"?

5. In what year did Rilke write "The Seven Phallic Poems"?

(see the answer key)

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