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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who influenced Emerson during this turning point?

2. What was Emerson like as a student?

3. Who did NOT join Emerson where he was writing in 1834?

4. How did Emerson characterize Samuel Taylor Coleridge?

5. What does Richardson say was happening as Emerson and his brother Charles grew closer?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Richardson describe the birth of American Transcendentalism?

2. Describe Emerson's relationship with Thoreau.

3. How does Richardson describe Emerson as a child?

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

5. How did Emerson describe Ellen's death?

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

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

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

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

10. What was the 'immovable anchor' in Emerson's thinking, according to Richardson?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Emerson wrote essays on love and spiritual laws, but never marriage. Why not, do you think?

Essay Topic 2

Richardson says that Emerson was surprised by his reaction to Lincoln. Where else did Emerson surprise himself, and what value did he attach to being surprised? Was it something he sought out, or something he protected himself against? How did he do each of these things?

Essay Topic 3

Emerson advocated first-hand experience of life, and yet his life was a fairly stable, conventional life, with a wife and children, and steady adherence to work. Do you think Emerson's work suffers for its lack of more extreme or unconventional experiences?

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