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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. What vision did Emerson have in the Jardin de Plantes in Paris?
(a) He saw the cruelty of evolution.
(b) He saw the life of culture.
(c) He saw the unity of all life.
(d) He saw the future of science.

2. Who influenced Emerson during this turning point?
(a) Edward Channing.
(b) Samson Reed.
(c) Edward Everett.
(d) Mary Moody Emerson.

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

4. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's perspective on approaching Europe?
(a) He abandoned his identity.
(b) He became a 'defensive American.'
(c) He became a free-floating individual without a country.
(d) He became a citizen of the world.

5. 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.

Short Answer Questions

1. What vow does Richardson say Emerson made to himself while he was writing Nature?

2. What influence does Richardson say has helped Emerson's writing?

3. What does Richardson say his book illustrates in Emerson's life?

4. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's feelings on returning to America?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Emerson describe Ellen's death?

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

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

4. What is Emerson doing when Richardson introduces us to him?

5. How did Emerson support himself after Harvard?

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

7. Why did Emerson travel to the South?

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

9. What turning point did Emerson reach in his junior year of college?

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

(see the answer keys)

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