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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 8: Part II--God’s Language, including the essays “The Source of Self-Regard” through “Invisible Ink: Reading the Writing and Writing the Reading”.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Race Matters," what word does Morrison call an unsatisfying and shallow ending for Beloved?
(a) Remember.
(b) Audacity.
(c) House.
(d) Kiss.

2. In "Literature and Public Life," Morrison opens by joking that because she was once a student at the place she is now speaking, what might happen after her speech?
(a) She will have to defend her speech before an academic committee.
(b) She will be charged tuition for the time she spent on campus giving the speech.
(c) The university will decide to take her degree away.
(d) She will be accused of plagiarizing the writer Toni Morrison.

3. According to "Harlem on My Mind," the term "postblack" refers to whom?
(a) Black artists who distance themselves from Blackness by identifying with white culture.
(b) Critics who refuse to evaluate Black art according to the aesthetics of the Black community.
(c) Black artists who want their art to be evaluated by aesthetic standards only--not classified according to their race.
(d) Critics who make race the key factor in their analysis of works of art.

4. In "Introduction to Peter Sellars," Morrison says that Sellars wanted what kind of introduction?
(a) Humorously elaborate.
(b) Scholarly but clear.
(c) Extremely brief.
(d) Off-topic.

5. In "Grendel and His Mother," what claim does Morrison make for Beowulf?
(a) It functions as a mirror for our own time.
(b) It is an artifact of an irrelevant time.
(c) It equals our modern knowledge of reality.
(d) It exposes how values have shifted in Western culture.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison compares the restriction of the canon by traditional Western standards to what?

2. In "The Nobel Lecture in Literature," Morrison compares the old woman in the story to what?

3. In "A Race in Mind," Morrison asks for more thoughtful work from what group?

4. In "The Future of Time," Morrison uses repetition of what phrase?

5. In "Faulkner and Women," what does Morrison say is characteristic of Black art?

(see the answer key)

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