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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What practice did Emerson begin in college?
(a) Holding dinner parties for intellectuals.
(b) Keeping a journal.
(c) Sending money to his mother.
(d) Writing poetry.

2. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's perspective on approaching Europe?
(a) He became a free-floating individual without a country.
(b) He became a 'defensive American.'
(c) He abandoned his identity.
(d) He became a citizen of the world.

3. When did Emerson meet Lydia Jackson?
(a) 1829.
(b) 1836.
(c) 1834.
(d) 1832.

4. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's household in 1835-1836?
(a) Quiet with illness.
(b) Bustling with ideas.
(c) Shaken by crisis.
(d) Quiet with work.

5. How was Emerson's 1837 speech at Harvard on the American Scholar received?
(a) With hostility.
(b) With gifts.
(c) With relief.
(d) With celebration.

6. What was Emerson like as a student?
(a) Distinguished.
(b) Exceptional.
(c) Middling.
(d) Unsuccessful.

7. Who was Emerson reading at the time he fell in love with Lydia Jackson?
(a) Hume.
(b) Fuller.
(c) Goethe.
(d) Hegel.

8. What was the title of Emerson's first sermon?
(a) "Pray without Ceasing."
(b) "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
(c) "Self-Reliance."
(d) "The Wreck of All Earthly Good."

9. What was Emerson's family's economic status when Emerson was in college?
(a) Poor but distinguished.
(b) Wealthy and well-recognized.
(c) Illustrious.
(d) Poor and unknown.

10. What troubled Emerson during his travels to the South?
(a) His divinity studies.
(b) His engagement to Ellen Tucker.
(c) Slavery.
(d) His religious faith.

11. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's feelings about the changes he made after Ellen's death?
(a) Exhilaration and vision.
(b) Moderation and deliberation.
(c) Depression and doubt.
(d) Fear and freedom.

12. What 1837 event related to slavery does Richardson say affected Emerson's emotional state?
(a) The Missouri compromise.
(b) The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law.
(c) The murder of an abolitionist.
(d) The removal of the Cherokee.

13. In what movement does Richardson say was Lidian ahead of Emerson?
(a) Advocating the independence of American thought.
(b) Abolition.
(c) Women's suffrage.
(d) Opposition to the Indian Removal.

14. What influence does Richardson say has helped Emerson's writing?
(a) His public speaking.
(b) His travels.
(c) His reading.
(d) His loss of Ellen Tucker.

15. What view was reaffirmed, for Emerson, in reading Jakob Boehme's "Aurora?"
(a) That Freedom is limited by Fate.
(b) That divine grace is real.
(c) That God is in one's own heart.
(d) That experience is man's only freedom.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Richardson characterize Emerson's reaction to Ellen's death?

2. Where does Richardson say Emerson's interest in religion came from?

3. According to Richardson, what religious belief did Emerson turn toward while Ellen Tucker was dying?

4. What does Richardson say likely caused Emerson's eye problems?

5. How does Richardson characterize the beginning of Emerson's relation with Margaret Fuller?

(see the answer keys)

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