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Name at least two characteristics of Romanticism.
What is the meaning of the word sublime?
What literary character types emerged during this period?
What is the meaning of the term “Fireside Poets”?
“The Devil and Tom Walker” is a variation of what kind of legend?
What does Tom Walker in “The Devil and Tom Walker” want?
Who actually gives the devil a hard time, adding a bit of humor to “The Devil and Tom
Walker”?
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Name the author of “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Name one other work he wrote.
What is the author’s purpose in writing “The Devil and Tom Walker”?
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What does Longfellow suggest is the key difference between humans and nature in his
poem “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”?
What is the meaning of the word “Thanatopsis”?
According to the poem “Thanatopsis,” when should a person “Go forth, under the open
sky, and list / to Nature’s teachings”?
According to the poem “Thanatopsis,” what is there about death that we should take
comfort in?
According to the poem “Thanatopsis,” how should one approach his grave?
What was the literal situation that prompted the writing of “Old Ironsides”?
What literary technique(s) is used in the following line:
“The harpies of the shore shall pluck / the eagle of the sea!”
Name 2 differences between Rationalism and Romanticism
Define Transcendentalism.
What is the “oversoul” to the Transcendentalist?
Where did the Transcendentalist movement begin?
How do Dark Romantics differ from those identified as Romantics?
Name 2 authors who qualify as Dark Romantics and say why.
What is “The Song of Hiawatha” about? Why is this a particularly American story?
Name at least 3 Gothic elements.
What is the symbolic meaning of the black veil in “The Minister’s Black Veil”?
What specifically Gothic elements are found in “The Fall of the House of Usher”?
What does the Raven symbolize in Poe’s “The Raven”?
What literary technique is found in the following line:
“This and more I sat divining, / with my head at ease reclining”
How does Moby Dick qualify as a Dark Romantic work?
What did Poe seek to create in every one of his works?
In “The Raven” what literary technique is present with the use of the line “Quoth the Raven
‘Nevermore.’”
In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” what does the narrator mean by, “I now proposed to myself
a sojourn of some weeks.”
What is Poe’s purpose in “The Raven”?
What is the Transcendental Club’s unofficial statement of belief?
What is the meaning of the following quotation from “Self-Reliance”: “A foolish consistency is
the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines”?
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What does Thoreau mean when he says, “I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
What is the purpose of Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”?
What does Emerson mean when he says, Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the
blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
eyeball . . .” (from “Nature”)
In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson claims, “Imitation is suicide.” What does he mean by this? Be as
specific as you can.
What is Thoreau objecting to in “Civil Disobedience”?
What does Thoreau ask his readers to do about the government at the end of the essay “Civil
Disobedience”?
How is the name Ishmael symbolic for the narrator of Moby Dick?