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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 is the name of the knight in THE FAIRY MELUSINE?

2. What do Sabine and her father worry might happen?

3. What time do Cropper and Hildebrand leave for the cemetery?

4. Does the medium say that the apprentice has mystical powers?

5. Who does Fergus tell that he thinks Roland has found some unknown letters?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do Maud and Roland react to Euan's phone call?

2. What are Cropper's relationships with the Ash family like?

3. What does Roland start to do at the end of Chapter 26?

4. How does the subject of Christabel and Ash's letters come up at the race track?

5. What do Roland and Maud decide to do at the end of Chapter 18?

6. What does Beatrice Nest overhear?

7. What do Leonora and Blackadder do when Cropper's Mercedes passes them on the road?

8. How does Blackadder feel about his work?

9. How do Roland and Maud feel about each other?

10. How does Blanche Glover feel at the end of her life?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The characters pursue knowledge, but they find only an interpretation, not an objective truth. Discuss objective reality in the novel.

1) How do the characters judge the relationship of their knowledge to objective truth? Can the characters ever know that they've accessed objective truth, and how might they?

2) Does objective truth have meaning to the characters? Which is more powerful in affecting the characters' lives, objective truth or the accepted understanding of reality that the characters' share?

3) How does the characters' literary investigation compare to a scientific investigation?

Essay Topic 2

The novel follows two parallel stories, one in the past and one in the present. Discuss the relationship of the past and the present in the novel.

1) How is communication possible between the past and the present?

2) What drives the characters to try to understand the past? Why does Roland study the past?

3) What do parallels between the past and the present say about human experience?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the novel.

1) Why and how does the novel use letters, excerpts of poems, and journal entries in its telling of the story?

2) How does the novel gradually reveal the story of Ash and Maud?

3) How do the characters of Roland and Maud change over the course of the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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