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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 7: Part II--God’s Language, including the essays “The Trouble with Paradise” through “Faulkner and Woman”.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," Morrison says that she was told that the two responses to chaos are what?
(a) Critique and acceptance.
(b) Imagination and reshaping.
(c) Despair and hope.
(d) Naming and violence.

2. What does the title "Academic Whispers" refer to?
(a) Rumors circulating in the Princeton English Department about Morrison's refusal to participate in literary scholarship.
(b) Morrison's belief that there is a quiet conversation taking place about the purpose of African American literature.
(c) Echoes of past racism in modern literary criticism.
(d) The secret agreement to exclude Black professors from tenure at Princeton.

3. In "Moral Inhabitants," Morrison says that the ability to make fine distinctions shows what?
(a) Morality.
(b) Prejudice.
(c) Ignorance.
(d) Intelligence.

4. In "Race Matters," Morrison says that when she was younger she found something in writing that she could not find in life itself--what was it?
(a) Immortality.
(b) Sovereignty.
(c) Justice.
(d) Love.

5. Who was James Baldwin?
(a) A visual artist.
(b) A writer.
(c) Toni Morrison's partner.
(d) A civil rights leader.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to "Harlem on My Mind," why did the 1969 exhibit by the same name fail?

2. "The War Against Error" is a fifteenth and sixteenth century effort to eliminate what kind of error?

3. In "Cinderella's Stepsisters," Morrison points out that in the original Grimm's version, the stepsisters were what?

4. In "The Individual Artist," what does Morrison find interesting about the feud between literary critics from different schools of criticism?

5. In "Hard, True, and Lasting," Morrison says that what feeling is the first one writers feel when they begin to write?

(see the answer key)

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