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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 economic consequence does the sentimental pastoral ideal engender?

2. Why did Beverly feel as he did by the end of his work?

3. What form of art had reached a peak in Thomas Jefferson's time?

4. What is the second stage of life that Marx describes through Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'?

5. When did a uniquely American pastoral image emerge?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What view did the colonists take of the New World in the early years of colonization?

3. How did Robert Beverly describe the New World in his History?

4. How did Jefferson describe the frontier in his Notes on Virginia?

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

6. How had Shakespeare learned about conditions in America?

7. How did colonists see America?

8. What is the pastoral ideal?

9. Why was Beverly ultimately disappointed in the New World?

10. How long does Marx say the pastoral ideal has endured?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Read the dialogue between Tityrus and Meliboeus in Virgil's Eclogues, and describe what makes American pastoralism uniquely American. Is pastoralism really an eternal theme in civilized culture, or is there a uniquely American strain to it?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

How do women experience the pastoral ideal? Are men's and women's experiences of nature and the simple life different? What is it in male or female nature or in Western culture that accounts for the difference?

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