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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Richardson say was revealed by the publication of Nature?
(a) That modern culture was confirming ancient religious knowledge.
(b) That American religion was pantheistic.
(c) That American religion was essentially capitalistic.
(d) That new ideas of religion were coming from modern culture.

2. Where does Richardson say Emerson and his brothers got their most profound education?
(a) Harvard.
(b) Ruth Haskins.
(c) Their father.
(d) Mary Moody Emerson.

3. What imagery filled Emerson's prose and poems in 1836?
(a) Travel and arrival.
(b) Illness and death.
(c) Health and insanity.
(d) Forging and birth.

4. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's second wife?
(a) Tender and passionate but sometimes anxious.
(b) Wryly humorous and occasionally depressed.
(c) Reserved and self-critical.
(d) Devout and lyrical but sometimes full of doubts.

5. Why was Emerson's meeting with Carlyle a "white day in his years"?
(a) He and Carlyle challenged each other to define a new philosophy for the modern age.
(b) He and Carlyle became fast friends.
(c) He and Carlyle discovered a deep and productive antagonism.
(d) He and Carlyle discovered that they were related.

6. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's reaction to Ellen's death?
(a) He says that he never got over it.
(b) He says that he realized that he had not really been in love.
(c) He says that it made him start a life-long search for religious meaning.
(d) He says that it gave him absolute faith in the beneficence of the creator.

7. What stance did Emerson take on American literature?
(a) He treated it as a narrow branch of British literature.
(b) He said that it needed to learn its history from British literature.
(c) He said that it began with him.
(d) He celebrated it.

8. In what author did Emerson find guidance during Ellen Tucker's death?
(a) Gerondo.
(b) de Staël.
(c) Hume.
(d) Wordsworth.

9. How did Emerson describe Ellen Tucker?
(a) Strong-willed and supportive.
(b) Beautiful, with a vibrant spirit.
(c) Rhapsodic and angelic.
(d) Sensitive and religious.

10. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's exterior personality?
(a) Turbulent.
(b) Calm.
(c) Outspoken.
(d) Passionate.

11. What was the title of Emerson's first sermon?
(a) "Self-Reliance."
(b) "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
(c) "Pray without Ceasing."
(d) "The Wreck of All Earthly Good."

12. What was Emerson's family's economic status when Emerson was in college?
(a) Wealthy and well-recognized.
(b) Illustrious.
(c) Poor but distinguished.
(d) Poor and unknown.

13. What idea of Emerson's influenced Richardson's biography?
(a) That men can only be known through their historical context.
(b) That some men's lives define the extremes of human experience.
(c) That the lives of great mean can tell us about all men.
(d) That men are best described by the women in their lives.

14. What limitation does Emerson describe in Christianity in his Divinity School Address?
(a) That historical Christianity is founded on the Bible, not human nature.
(b) That the church was corrupt.
(c) That priests were frequently hypocritical.
(d) That no institution can interpose between man and God.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What topic did Emerson lecture on after returning home from Europe?

3. How does Richardson characterize Emerson as a reader?

4. How does Richardson characterize the beginning of Emerson's relation with Margaret Fuller?

5. In what religious sect was Edward Taylor active?

(see the answer keys)

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