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. Which of these concerns did NOT burden Emerson in 1847?
(a) Financial problems.
(b) Family matters.
(c) Health problems.
(d) Endless obligations.

2. What idea of the author's does Richardson say Emerson followed "surprisingly far?"
(a) Doubt about the possibility of transcendent experience.
(b) Faith in evolutionary processes.
(c) Respect for historical determinism.
(d) Disregard for individuality.

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

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

5. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's response to his son's death?
(a) He was assured of an afterlife.
(b) He was inspired.
(c) He was destroyed.
(d) He was devastated.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Andrews Norton review Emerson's Dartmouth lecture?

2. What did Emerson turn his house into?

3. In what realization of Pythagoras' was Emerson interested?

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

5. What was Emerson's hobby?

Short Essay Questions

1. To what use does Emerson put great men in Representative Men?

2. What were Emerson's impressions of England when he traveled there in 1848?

3. Who was Jones Very?

4. What was the significance of Emerson's first daughter's name?

5. What was Emerson's relationship with abolition?

6. How does Richardson characterize the importance of Emerson's friendships after his return from Europe?

7. What was Fourier's influence on Emerson's thinking?

8. What was Emerson's talk in Dartmouth like?

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

10. How did Emerson balance writing and editing?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 800 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample