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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 the most important thing in Emerson's life?
(a) His children.
(b) His marriage.
(c) His writing.
(d) His friendships.

2. What does Richardson say is Emerson's last characteristic book?
(a) Essays 1844.
(b) His book on England.
(c) The 1844 Essays.
(d) Representative Men.

3. Whose book impressed Emerson during his travels?
(a) Hegel.
(b) Margaret Fuller.
(c) Carlyle.
(d) Quetelet.

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

5. How does Richardson characterize Sufism?
(a) As the first modern religion.
(b) As the first building block of all subsequent religions.
(c) Eastern Pragmatism.
(d) Not a religion but religion.

6. In what cause did Emerson involve himself?
(a) Women's suffrage.
(b) Preventing Cruelty to Animals.
(c) Indian affairs.
(d) Anti-slavery.

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

8. What does Emerson try to connect ecstasy to in his essay on ecstasy?
(a) Nature.
(b) Language.
(c) Sex.
(d) History.

9. What did Emerson begin to write about after returning to America?
(a) Getting older and facing death.
(b) The political events he witnessed.
(c) The realizations he had in the Paris Jardin des Plantes.
(d) His trip to England.

10. With what view of Emerson's did his friends disagree, according to Richardson?
(a) His positive view of business.
(b) His focus on writing above all else.
(c) His isolationism.
(d) His positive view of Indian removal.

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

12. Whose coffin did Emerson open toward the end of his life?
(a) Mary Moody Emerson's.
(b) Ellen's.
(c) His mother's.
(d) Waldo's.

13. Who was Hafiz?
(a) An Egyptian philosopher.
(b) A Persian poet.
(c) A Turkish governor.
(d) A Malaysian philosopher.

14. In what realization of Pythagoras' was Emerson interested?
(a) That everything is spirit.
(b) That change was the only constant.
(c) That not everything was in flux.
(d) That all things are made of material.

15. How did "The Dial" change Emerson's writing?
(a) He was writing longer essays.
(b) He stopped writing almost completely.
(c) He was writing shorter works.
(d) He was writing less.

Short Answer Questions

1. What took Emerson to New York?

2. In what way did many of Emerson's friends affect him in the 1860s and 70s?

3. What does Richardson say motivated Emerson's feelings about Brook Farm?

4. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's fame?

5. What does Richardson say were Emerson's feelings about marriage?

(see the answer keys)

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