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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What world literature did Emerson include in "The Dial?"
(a) Accounts of ecstatic religious experiences.
(b) Scriptures.
(c) Poems.
(d) Histories.

2. How did Margaret Fuller Ossoli die?
(a) Childbirth.
(b) Shipwreck.
(c) Murder.
(d) Illness.

3. According to Richardson, what feeling would stay with Emerson for the rest of his life, after the Norton affair?
(a) Doubt about his talents.
(b) The pride of accomplishment.
(c) The taste of public censure.
(d) The flush of success.

4. What did Lidian name her first daughter?
(a) Mary.
(b) Ruth.
(c) Ellen.
(d) Lydia.

5. What did Emerson say about women's rights?
(a) That they should have them, but that they did not want them.
(b) That women had already proved themselves more than capable of equality with men.
(c) That they should acquire them slowly and patiently.
(d) That advocacy was the only obstacle to full recognition; but that advocacy sapped every cause.

6. What did Emerson turn his house into?
(a) A hotel.
(b) A boardinghouse.
(c) A restaurant.
(d) A library.

7. Who does Emerson say he had always considered his best friend?
(a) Ellen.
(b) Thoreau.
(c) Fuller.
(d) Lidian.

8. How does Richardson say Emerson felt in response to the work he did for Carlyle?
(a) Afraid of failure and competition.
(b) Humbled so that he could not write.
(c) Motivated to write his own essays.
(d) Inspired to write poetry.

9. How does Richardson characterize 1844 in Emerson's life?
(a) A year of losses.
(b) A year of transition.
(c) A year of beginnings.
(d) A year of endings.

10. How did Emerson portray great men?
(a) As heroes.
(b) As demi-gods.
(c) As educators.
(d) As proto-Americans.

11. What event threw Emerson into despair in 1840?
(a) The death of Mary Moody Emerson.
(b) Lidian's illness.
(c) The death of his son Waldo.
(d) The death of his brother Charles.

12. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's response to his son's death?
(a) He was destroyed.
(b) He was devastated.
(c) He was assured of an afterlife.
(d) He was inspired.

13. How did Emerson's views on individuality and idealism respond to the immense cultural changes of the 1840s, according to Richardson?
(a) They became more optimistic.
(b) They were tempered by doubts.
(c) They became more realistic.
(d) They stayed the same.

14. Where did Emerson travel after returning from Europe?
(a) The American South.
(b) The American West.
(c) Canada.
(d) Mexico.

15. What was the subject of Emerson's speech at Dartmouth?
(a) The inadequacy of American creativity.
(b) The danger of contamination by British thought.
(c) The debt Americans owed to Britain.
(d) The superiority of American literature to British poetry.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what cause did Emerson involve himself?

2. What does Richardson say crowds expected from Emerson?

3. Which of these concerns did NOT burden Emerson in 1847?

4. Who was Hafiz?

5. What idea of the author's does Richardson say Emerson followed "surprisingly far?"

(see the answer keys)

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