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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What modern problem does Marx take as emblematic of man's treatment of nature?
(a) Pandemics.
(b) Wars.
(c) Industrial agriculture.
(d) Pollution.

2. What was Daniel Webster's feeling about pastoralism?
(a) He set out national parks to preserve pastoral spaces.
(b) He thought it could co-exist with technology.
(c) He thought it would heal industrialism.
(d) He thought it would corrupt America's soul.

3. Who does Marx offer as examples of 'complex pastoralism' in America literature?
(a) Fitzgerald and Faulkner.
(b) Dos Passos and Hurston.
(c) Salinger and Bukowski.
(d) Eliot and Pound.

4. What should man do in nature, in Thoreau's vision?
(a) Study the ruthless ways of men.
(b) Contemplate eternal laws.
(c) Oppose industrialism.
(d) Learn the ways of the animals.

5. How does Marx say most American writers described industrial expansion?
(a) As a torment.
(b) As a force of nature.
(c) As a crime.
(d) As a form of art.

6. What thinkers does Marx say followed Carlyle's critique of industrialism?
(a) Derrida and Foucault.
(b) William James and John Dewey.
(c) Lenin and Stalin.
(d) Hegel and Marx.

7. Which term describes the title of Marx's epilogue?
(a) Synecdoche.
(b) Apostrophe.
(c) Personification.
(d) Paradox.

8. What was the general feeling about industrialism in America, as it expanded?
(a) Caution.
(b) Doubt.
(c) Positivism.
(d) Optimism.

9. What was Daniel Webster's take on industrialism?
(a) He embraced the new power.
(b) He lamented the changing structure of society.
(c) He used it to his profit.
(d) He loathed the railroad.

10. What does the ocean symbolize in Melville's Moby Dick?
(a) Nature's danger.
(b) Man's creativity.
(c) Man's redemption.
(d) A provident god.

11. What criticism did Carlyle make of American industrialism?
(a) He decried the disruption of nature.
(b) He complained about the decline of marriage in cities.
(c) He lamented the death of wildlife.
(d) He protested the destruction of indigenous societies.

12. What type of society was America (in the time of Marx's writing)?
(a) Urban.
(b) Suburban.
(c) Rural.
(d) Non-agrarian.

13. How would you classify Marx's 'The Machine in the Garden'?
(a) Literary criticism.
(b) Psychological report.
(c) Cultural criticism.
(d) Scientific study.

14. What is Huck Finn lamenting at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn?
(a) Tom Sawyer's punishment.
(b) His current civilized state.
(c) Jim's incarceration.
(d) His loss of his father.

15. What else does Marx say about people who live pastoral lives?
(a) They are rich.
(b) They are Indians and blacks.
(c) They are poor.
(d) They are powerless.

Short Answer Questions

1. What skill did Twain idealize?

2. What forces have led to the urbanization and industrialization Marx describes?

3. How did Thoreau describe modern man?

4. What does Marx say about man's hopes for nature?

5. How did Emerson describe the relationship between the east and the west?

(see the answer keys)

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