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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 is the library at Seal Court like?

2. What does Roland accidentally see?

3. What poem does Roland think shows Christabel was in Yorkshire?

4. When is the poem Swammerdam set?

5. What are the first letters between Christabel and Ash like?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Roland feel at the prospect of reading Christabel and Ash's letters?

2. What is Swammerdam's situation at the end of his life?

3. How does Swammerdam's family treat him?

4. Who are Ask and Embla?

5. What is Roland's initial reaction to the letters?

6. How do Christabel and Ash feel about meeting secretly?

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

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

9. What does the child ask the apparitions that come to him on his journey?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, scholars are in competition with each other, but they also must cooperate to find truths. Discuss competition versus cooperation in the novel.

1) Why do the characters keep information to themselves, as a possession? Why does Roland keep the letters, and why does Cropper "steal" photos of other letters of Ash? How does secrecy affect knowledge, both of the individual and society?

2) Why is Roland and Maud's picture of Ash and LaMotte incomplete without information from others? If they did not go to other scholars for cooperation, how would their final knowledge be different?

3) How does Cropper's attitude toward cooperation and competition differ from the other scholars in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

In many ways, the novel is a mystery. Discuss the aspects of mystery in the novel.

1) How do the characters gather clues in order to unravel the story? How is this similar to a traditional detective story, and how is it different?

2) What mysteries do the characters resolve in the course of the story? What remains a mystery? Why are parts of the mystery left unsolved?

3) How is literature a kind of puzzle in the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the novel.

1) Why and how does the novel use letters, excerpts of poems, and journal entries in its telling of the story?

2) How does the novel gradually reveal the story of Ash and Maud?

3) How do the characters of Roland and Maud change over the course of the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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