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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. What career paths was Emerson torn between?

2. How are we introduced to Emerson in the Prologue?

3. What does Richardson say likely caused Emerson's eye problems?

4. How long did Ellen Tucker and Emerson know each other before they were engaged?

5. What was the Transcendental Club?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Emerson support himself after Harvard?

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

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

4. How was the period surrounding Emerson's marriage a time of mixed blessings?

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

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

7. Why did Emerson break with the church?

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

9. How close was the Emerson family after Emerson's return from Europe?

10. How does Richardson describe Emerson as a child?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How did Emerson distinguish himself from the writers and thinkers around him? What individuality and uniqueness did he call upon to accentuate the difference between himself and Jones Very? Thoreau? His brothers and forefathers? His Aunt Mary? Carlyle?

Essay Topic 2

What role did death have to play in making Emerson the writer he became? Whose deaths really impacted him, and what did he take from each experience of grief?

Essay Topic 3

How did Emerson overcome the grief and loss he experienced so many times? What counterbalanced the sorrow and misery? What emotional, spiritual or personal reserves did he draw on?

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