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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where was Emerson going on Christmas Day, 1832?
(a) Boston.
(b) New York.
(c) South Carolina.
(d) Europe.

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

3. According to Richardson, what religious belief did Emerson turn toward while Ellen Tucker was dying?
(a) Paganism.
(b) Pantheism.
(c) Methodism.
(d) Calvinism.

4. How does Richardson characterize the beginning of Emerson's relation with Margaret Fuller?
(a) Instantaneous respect.
(b) Wary distrust.
(c) Love at first sight.
(d) Shaky.

5. The Mind on Fire is the story of what?
(a) Emerson's literary development.
(b) Emerson's family.
(c) Emerson's marriage.
(d) Emerson's intellectual career.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Richardson say was revealed by the publication of Nature?

2. What was Emerson's first son's name?

3. What career paths was Emerson torn between?

4. What did Emerson do when he returned from the South?

5. Who came to live with Emerson after his brother Charles died?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Richardson describe Emerson as a child?

2. How was Emerson's intellectual interest changed by Ellen's illness and decline?

3. Why did Emerson break with the church?

4. What was the Transcendental Club?

5. What was Emerson's relationship with tuberculosis?

6. How did Emerson describe Ellen's death?

7. What Quaker belief of Mary Rotch's did Emerson find compelling?

8. How does Richardson characterize Lidian, Emerson's second wife?

9. How did the birth of Emerson's first son change Emerson's intellectual interests?

10. How did travel change Emerson's intellectual interests?

(see the answer keys)

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