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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 are the first letters between Christabel and Ash like?

2. What was the purpose of Ash's trip, which Roland and Maud suspect Christabel accompanied him on?

3. What is the title of the story told in Chapter 9?

4. Where is the largest collection of Ash's books housed?

5. What kind of car does Cropper drive?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are Maud and Roland concerned might happen to their find in Christabel's room?

2. How do Beatrice Nest's students view her?

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

4. What is the weather like on Roland and Maud's day trip away from Ash and Christabel?

5. How does Cropper feel about Blackadder?

6. How does Swammerdam's family treat him?

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

8. What does Roland like about the library?

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

10. What is Maud's dilemma about Leonora?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The novel is subtitled "a romance." Discuss the ways in which the novel is a romance.

1) How is intellectual investigation a kind of romance? How are the characters obsessed and entranced by what they are investigating?

2) How do the characters make romantic connections with each other? What is romance, in the context of the novel?

3) How is the novel a romance, in the sense of being a fantasy?

Essay Topic 2

Compare Ash and LaMotte's relationship to Maud and Roland's.

1) How are the two couples' experiences in Yorkshire similar? How are they different? What does this show about the characters?

2) What allows Maud and Roland to come together in a relationship, while Ash and LaMotte's relationship can only be fleeting and secret?

3) What compels Ash and LaMotte together? What needs do they fulfill in each other? How does this compare to Maud and Roland, and the forces that compel them toward each other?

Essay Topic 3

In the novel, the characters are scholars who study two Victorian poets. Discuss the importance of poetry in the novel.

1) Why does Roland decide to write poems, and find a poetic voice, at the end of the novel? How is writing poetry different than studying and analyzing it?

2) What do poets accomplish with their poems in the novel? Who are the poems written for?

3) What causes poetry to persist over time in the novel? Why do the characters study poetry that is written far in the past?

(see the answer keys)

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