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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Tribute to Romare Bearden," Morrison focuses her attention on the relationship between what and Bearden's art?
(a) Her own writing.
(b) Music.
(c) Black nationalism.
(d) History.

2. "The Trouble with Paradise" is mostly about what?
(a) The language needed to describe paradise.
(b) The difference between older and more modern ideas of paradise.
(c) Characterization difficulties Morrison had while writing Paradise.
(d) The plot of Morrison's novel Paradise.

3. In "Tribute to Romare Bearden," Morrison says that early scholarship on creating a canon of Black art tended to focus on what?
(a) Nation building.
(b) Cross-genre analysis.
(c) Assimilation.
(d) The Western cultural aesthetic.

4. In "God's Language," Morrison says that she does not keep a writer's notebook because of what?
(a) Her novels serve the same purpose as a writer's notebook.
(b) She is afraid that people would want to read it.
(c) Her process does not work with a writer's notebook.
(d) She thinks writer's notebooks are an excuse to avoid actual writing.

5. In "The Trouble with Paradise," Morrison says that writers must hold "an unblinking gaze into the realm of" what?
(a) Difference.
(b) Sorrow.
(c) Inequality.
(d) Death.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. In "Grendel and His Mother," Morrison notes that Beowulf is a part of Western literature's characterization of evil as what?

3. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison brings up Bernal's two models of Greek history in order to illustrate what point?

4. In "Goodbye to All That," to what other group's struggle does Morrison compare the struggle of Black writers to claim territory that is both identity-specific and identity-neutral?

5. In "Goodbye to All That," Morrison uses examples of literary partings between Black and white women to demonstrate what?

Short Essay Questions

1. In “The Trouble with Paradise," what does Morrison mean when she says that fiction writers have to stare unblinking into the "realm of difference"?

2. What point is Morrison trying to illustrate when she brings up the origins of Ancient Greece in “Unspeakable Things Unspoken"?

3. In “Tribute to Romare Bearden," Morrison praises Bearden's work as a dialogue between artists; how does she see his work impacting her own?

4. In “Invisible Ink," Morrison proposes that current ways of thinking about the interaction between reader and text are missing an element: the "invisible ink" that can manipulate the reader. Explain what she means by this.

5. In “Introduction of Peter Sellars," what are the main points of Morrison's praise for Peter Sellars as an artist?

6. In “Academic Whispers," what does Morrison say used to annoy her about being asked to speak about racism?

7. In “The Source of Self-Regard," what does Morrison say made her uncomfortable about the letters she received from students, and why did it make her feel this way?

8. In “James Baldwin Eulogy,” what does Morrison describe as Baldwin's contribution to language?

9. In “Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," Morrison says that the two responses to chaos are "renaming" and "violence." What does she mean by this?

10. In “God’s Language," what does Morrison say is the problem with trying to use modern language to describe Biblical concepts?

(see the answer keys)

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