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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why did Oscar Wilde lose his scholarship?
(a) He returned to school late at Easter term.
(b) He failed his divinity examinations.
(c) His grades were not good enough.
(d) He was in a fight with another student.

2. What kind of run does "Vera" have in America?
(a) Unspectacular, but moderately successful.
(b) Short and disappointing.
(c) Short but meteoric.
(d) Long and successful.

3. Oscar Wilde moved in with an artist after he graduated from Oxford. What kind of art did this artist make?
(a) Miniature street scenes.
(b) Bronze sculpture.
(c) Female portraits.
(d) Surreal oil paintings.

4. What is the theme of Oscar Wilde's first play?
(a) Modernity and war.
(b) Socialism and nihilism.
(c) Homosexuality and art.
(d) Marriage and manners.

5. How does Oscar Wilde resolve the conflict between progress and authority in his reading?
(a) He adhered to social conventions.
(b) He located the seat of moral reasoning in the individual.
(c) He invented his own morality.
(d) He resisted conforming to convention.

6. What is the outcome of Oscar Wilde's travels and lectures in America?
(a) Oscar Wilde was embraced by west coast intellectuals.
(b) Americans successfully repudiated Oscar Wilde's aesthetic theories.
(c) Oscar Wilde's name had become a household word.
(d) Oscar Wilde established himself as one of Britain's best artists.

7. With which American writer does Oscar Wilde meet in Philadelphia while he is making his first set of American lectures?
(a) Margaret Fuller.
(b) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
(c) Walt Whitman.
(d) Nathaniel Hawthorne.

8. Which item is part of each course during the dinner Oscar Wilde has in Leadville, Colorado?
(a) Partridges.
(b) Whiskey.
(c) Wine.
(d) Cheddar cheese.

9. What does Robert Harborough Sherard do for Oscar Wilde?
(a) He produced "The Duchess of Padua."
(b) He published Wilde's first book.
(c) He produced Wilde's first play.
(d) He wrote Wilde's biography.

10. Which intellectual invokes disciplined restraint?
(a) Pater.
(b) Ruskin.
(c) Mill.
(d) Arnold.

11. How does Oscar Wilde's wife handle the news of Wilde's homosexuality?
(a) She divorced him because of it.
(b) She ignored it.
(c) She discussed it openly.
(d) She tried to cure him.

12. Who cables Oscar Wilde with an invitation to lecture?
(a) Walt Whitman.
(b) Richard D'Oyly.
(c) President Garfield.
(d) James McNeill Whistler.

13. Who moves to London after Oscar Wilde graduates from Oxford?
(a) Florence Balcombe.
(b) James McNeill Whistler.
(c) Oscar Wilde's father.
(d) Oscar Wilde's mother.

14. Where does Oscar Wilde first publish?
(a) The Oxford Review.
(b) The Irish Times.
(c) The Dublin University Magazine.
(d) The Frankfurt Times.

15. As Oscar Wilde watched how the French interpreted aestheticism, what did he see coming from aesthetic ideas?
(a) Fascism.
(b) Materialism.
(c) Existentialism.
(d) Decadence.

Short Answer Questions

1. What group did Oscar Wilde join in 1875?

2. With whom does Oscar Wilde move in when he goes to Paris?

3. Oscar Wilde's mother was a strong supporter of which political cause?

4. What is Oscar Wilde's first publication?

5. What is Robert Harborough Sherard's first impression of Oscar Wilde?

(see the answer keys)

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