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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. In Chapter 6, how did Groddeck describe illness?

2. In Chapter 5, what was another notorious disease of the 19th century that was contracted by having sex with a carrier?

3. In Tommaso Landolfi's science-fiction tale, what did he call a spaceship?

4. What illness did Cresseid have in The Testament of Cresseid?

5. In what work did Dickens describe TB as a "great constitutional weakness?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the nineteenth century, what did disease have to do with the will?

2. Why was cancer thought to be an inapprorpriate disease for a romantic person in contrast to TB?

3. In Death in Venice, how did disease affect Gustav von Achenbach?

4. What did Joseph Severn write was done to Keats' room a couple weeks after his death?

5. In Chapter 5, what example does Sontag present of how cancer was viewed as a disease that caused a person to finally behave well?

6. Why was syphilis and its origin not mysterious?

7. Why was syphilis limited as a metaphor?

8. What do some researches assert about cancer and a cure?

9. How does cancer take its controlling metaphors from the language of warfare?

10. What did Kant say about passion and cancer?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis changed over time. How did the metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis change over time? What does etymology reveal about those changes?

Essay Topic 2

Both TB and cancer were depicted as diseases of passion. Why were TB and cancer both depicted as diseases of passion? How was the passion that led to TB and that led to cancer in opposition? How did the myths about TB and cancer depict both diseases as diseases of passion?

Essay Topic 3

Juxtaposition is a literary device used to compare and contrast things and concepts. How does Sontag use juxtaposition to compare concepts, especially in Chapter 5?

(see the answer keys)

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