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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 do Maud and Roland do when they find other scholars have followed the trail to France?

2. Who has the knight in THE FAIRY MELUSINE killed?

3. What spiritual group does Blackadder discover Christabel was a part of?

4. How long have Maud and Roland been in France before the other scholars arrive?

5. What is Sir George's attitude toward Maud after he sees his lawyer?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where has Euan located Cropper and Hildebrand?

2. How does Ellen Ash feel about Christabel?

3. What is the result of the knight drinking the cup offered to him by Melusine?

4. What happens at Sabine's house when Christabel disappears?

5. What are all the things Ellen puts in the box?

6. How does Blackadder feel about talking about Ash on television?

7. How does the subject of Christabel and Ash's letters come up at the race track?

8. Describe Cropper's lectures.

9. What are Cropper's relationships with the Ash family like?

10. How does Ash show Christabel that she is not a possession?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, reading is an active experience, which is greatly influenced by not only the writer's perspective but the reader's perspective. Discuss the role of the reader's bias in the novel.

1) How does Roland's life influence how he interprets Ash? How does this dynamic cause Blackadder, Roland, and Cropper to all have distinctive experiences of Ash?

2) How do the characters' readings of Ash and LaMotte change over the course of the novel, not because of what they learn about the poets, but because of changes in themselves? How do the characters' personal experiences and biases prevent objective understandings of the authors' intentions?

3) How do formal perspectives, like feminism, create a group bias in the reading of LaMotte? What other examples of this dynamic are there in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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