View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What did Emerson witness in Europe?
(a) Famine and poverty.
(b) Modern warfare.
(c) Severe economic crisis.
(d) Revolutions in England and France.

3. How does Richardson characterize "The Dial?"
(a) As mostly comprised of Emerson's work.
(b) As Emerson's mouthpiece.
(c) As the work that inspired Emerson.
(d) As forward looking but also memorializing the dead.

4. By what work of Emerson's was Jones Very impassioned?
(a) The Divinity School Address.
(b) Circles.
(c) Nature.
(d) The American Scholar.

5. What took Emerson to New York?
(a) Publishing.
(b) Lecturing.
(c) Travel for pleasure.
(d) Utopian schemes.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's response to his son's death?

3. What does Richardson say is Emerson's last characteristic book?

4. How did Emerson see his personal history, according to Richardson?

5. What does Richardson say Emerson found in Whitman?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Emerson's son's death and its effect on him.

2. How does Richardson describe Emerson's friendship with Thoreau after returning from England?

3. What political events did Emerson witness during his trip to Europe?

4. How does Richardson characterize the change that took place in Emerson after Waldo's death?

5. What was Emerson's relationship with abolition?

6. Describe Emerson's lecturing career.

7. What does Richardson say was Emerson's last characteristic book?

8. Who was Jones Very?

9. How did Emerson balance writing and editing?

10. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's fame?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 852 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample