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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. Fictional characters come into the world more like what than human beings?

2. Forster says that Virginia Woolf is a what?

3. What is the occupation of the husband Moll loves deeply in the novel?

4. How does Forster say he would answer the question, "What does a novel do?"

5. Which author does the critic Percy Lubbock feel does not do a good job with point of view?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Forster believe to be the flaws in Sir Walter Scott's writing?

2. What are the guidelines William George Clark requests for the lecture series he began at Trinity College?

3. What does Forster mean by a "sense of space" in War and Peace?

4. William George Clark was known as a Shakespearean scholar, but he also published two books on other subjects. What other books does Clark publish?

5. What is one of the reasons that love is "unduly prominent" in novels, according to Forster?

6. Why does Forster illustrate through the novel Moll Flanders?

7. What is striking about the funerals described in the excerpts by H.G. Wells and Charles Dickens?

8. What are the two sides of a human being as described by the French critic Alain?

9. Why are flat characters sometimes referred to as humorous characters?

10. What does Forster mean when he says that novels give us the "illusion of perspicacity"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss whether or not Forster showed significant difference between the story and the plot as aspects of the novel. Use examples both from Forster and modern novels.

Essay Topic 2

What is the distinction Forster makes between prophecy and preaching? Why is this an important distinction to the overall quality of a novel?

Essay Topic 3

How is Forster's exploration of the aspects of fantasy and prophecy at the core of his overall philosophy on the novel? What is the fine line between these two aspects?

(see the answer keys)

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