View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Children of the Fire.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was Emerson reading of Bronson Alcott's, after settling down with Lidian?
(a) Theories of education.
(b) Philosophy.
(c) Views of childhood.
(d) Poetry.

2. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's feelings on returning to America?
(a) Anxious about finding his family well.
(b) Despairing about finding a career.
(c) Depressed about coming home.
(d) Impatient to begin new work.

3. In what movement does Richardson say was Lidian ahead of Emerson?
(a) Women's suffrage.
(b) Opposition to the Indian Removal.
(c) Abolition.
(d) Advocating the independence of American thought.

4. Who does Richardson credit with the birth of American Transcendentalism?
(a) Jones Very.
(b) Frederic Hedge.
(c) Bronson Alcott.
(d) Emerson.

5. What view was reaffirmed, for Emerson, in reading Jakob Boehme's "Aurora?"
(a) That divine grace is real.
(b) That experience is man's only freedom.
(c) That God is in one's own heart.
(d) That Freedom is limited by Fate.

Short Answer Questions

1. How was Emerson's 1837 speech at Harvard on the American Scholar received?

2. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's exterior personality?

3. According to Richardson, what religious belief did Emerson turn toward while Ellen Tucker was dying?

4. What vision did Emerson have in the Jardin de Plantes in Paris?

5. How did Emerson describe his experience of Ellen's death?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 247 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample