View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In one untitled love poem, Rilke writes, "Drinking would seem too much, too ____, to me"?
(a) Loving.
(b) Plain.
(c) Overwhelming.
(d) Lustful.

2. In Rilke's one-line poem of the love poems, he writes, "This is the mute-mouthed mounting of the ______."
(a) Silence.
(b) Kiss.
(c) Woman.
(d) Phalli.

3. In what amount of time did Rilke write over 1,600 lines of poetry plus a major essay during "the great giving"?
(a) Three weeks.
(b) Six months.
(c) Six weeks.
(d) Three months.

4. In the introduction to "Rilke's Poems on Love," the commentator states that Rilke's imagery is all what?
(a) Unnatural.
(b) Surreal.
(c) Heavenly.
(d) Earthly.

5. Writing of one of his principle motifs, the poet writes, "Transform stamen on stamen, / fill your interior _____."
(a) Pitcher.
(b) Rose.
(c) Heart.
(d) Death.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Rilke, there is "scarcely anything more difficult" than what?

2. What does the translator comment in the Prologue that his translations of Rilke are?

3. Rilke writes in his letters, "Why have they made our sex _______, instead of making it the place for the festival of our competency?"

4. Who does Rilke say is incapable of such loving as he calls for?

5. The poem "Gong" makes use of what literary technique?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 213 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample