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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. Does Ash think that Christabel can be both a muse and a poet?

2. In what condition is the book Roland is studying?

3. Who came to see Ellen while her husband was away?

4. What is in the box Maud finds?

5. Does Roland show Maud the letters?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Maud tell Beatrice about the importance of what she finds in Ellen's journal and papers?

2. What do Roland and Maud do on their day trip?

3. How does Swammerdam's family treat him?

4. Where did Maud get the pin that she is wearing in her turban?

5. What does Sir George plan to do at the end of the chapter?

6. Who is responsible for ending the affair between Christabel and Ash?

7. How does Cropper feel about Blackadder?

8. What is Roland researching at the library?

9. How does Roland react to Maud's idea of how to go about reading the letters?

10. What, in her own life, does Val compare Roland's work to?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss understanding a text through an intermediary, such as Cropper's biography of Ash.

1) How does Cropper create a different reality of Ash, by imposing himself in Ash's story?

2) How does Maud interpret The Great Ventriloquist? How does she separate Cropper from Ash in what she reads? What meanings does the title The Great Ventriloquist take on in this context?

3) How do Blackadder's writings on Ash differ from Croppers? How does Blackadder try to keep his personal self out of his interpretive readings, and is this possible?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss communication in the novel.

1) How does literature and poetry function as communication in the novel? How does a reader or scholar know that he or she is communicating with an author like Ash or LaMotte?

2) How do the characters communicate with each other? How do they often not communicate, and exist at cross-purposes with each other?

3) How does communication build knowledge in the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the metaphoric meanings in LaMotte and Ash's poems and stories as presented in the novel.

1) What is the meaning of "The Threshold," and why is it placed where it is in the story?

2) What is the meaning of the portion of "The Fairy Melusine" in the novel, and why is it placed where it is?

3) What are the meanings of the portions of "Mummy Possest" and "Swammerdam" in the novel, and why are they placed where they are?

(see the answer keys)

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