View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What secondary plot does Marx see as important for his purposes?

2. What does Marx say is the central theme of pastoral literature?

3. What does an individual gain by passing through these three spatial stages?

4. What allowed America to preserve Jeffersonian ideals for 100 years after Jefferson wrote about them?

5. What were Beverly's sources for his history of Virginia?

Short Essay Questions

1. When did the pastoral ideal become a part of American culture?

2. How does Shakespeare demonstrate the impossibility of the pastoral ideal?

3. What ideal does the conclusion to Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' suggest, in Marx's interpretation?

4. What contradiction marks the early accounts of the New World, according to Marx?

5. When did complex pastoral ideology begin to appear in American culture?

6. How does Marx describe the ambiguity of existence Beverly hit on?

7. What view typified the opposite of the bountiful-Edenic image of the New World?

8. How does Marx describe the value of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' in 'The Machine in the Garden'?

9. What is the consequence of the pastoral ideal?

10. How did colonists see America?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Marx define the term pastoral ideology, and how does he describe the terms' uses? What uses does the term have, if it can be used for everything from social activities to government policies to literary themes? Is pastoralism always the same phenomena, or is it different depending on its application?

Essay Topic 2

In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson argues for keeping the factories in Europe. What role did pastoralism play in American nationalism, and how did it distinguish America from Europe? How was American pastoralism different than European pastoralism?

Essay Topic 3

From driving to National Parks, or seeing wildlife in zoos or managing environments for the sake of wildfires or endangered species, Americans seem to be able to reconcile a high level of science and industry with a high sense of nature and pristineness. What arts or cultural developments have allowed Americans to endure the paradoxes of their industrial lifestyles?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 740 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample