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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. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's relation to other writers?
(a) He assimilates the best part of each work, and discards the rest.
(b) He is terrified before each of them, and has to figure out how to defend himself against their work.
(c) He is afraid of his own attraction to others' ideas, and learns to protect against his identification with others.
(d) He is greater than them, and finds himself in each of them.

2. What trouble did the Emerson family encounter around the time of Emerson's engagement?
(a) His brother had a mental breakdown.
(b) His father died.
(c) His mother fell ill.
(d) His brother died of tuberculosis.

3. Where does Richardson say Emerson's interest in religion came from?
(a) His brothers.
(b) His father.
(c) Mary Moody Emerson.
(d) His mother.

4. What did this turning point do for Emerson?
(a) It centered his attention on his own experience.
(b) It introduced him to people who could forward his career.
(c) It gave him the confidence to pursue his studies.
(d) It filled him with knowledge of the classics.

5. Where did Emerson move, in advance of writing Nature?
(a) His step-grandfather Ezra Ripley's house.
(b) His brother's house.
(c) Mary Moody Emerson's house.
(d) His mother's house.

Short Answer Questions

1. What practice did Emerson begin in college?

2. What does Emerson say reality is masked by?

3. What publication did Emerson call a "living leaping Logos"?

4. What does Richardson say Emerson felt after the birth of his son?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe Emerson's relationship with Thoreau.

3. What was Emerson's relationship with Margaret Fuller?

4. What was Emerson's relationship with the Abolition movement?

5. Why did Emerson travel to the South?

6. How was Emerson's "American Scholar" talk received?

7. What was Emerson's view of American literature?

8. Why did Emerson break with the church?

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

10. What view of Jakob Boehme's did Emerson pick up?

(see the answer keys)

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