English III: American Romantic Literature
Part One Assessment: Transcendentalism (Individualism and Nature)
Unit Test Study Guide
I.
Unit Introduction and Class Notes: Romanticism Literary History
1. How American Romantic writers feel about the state of cities?
2. Why did American Romantic writers reject rationalist ideas?
3. What is the best way to characterize “the journey” in American Romantic literature?
4. Which philosophies were combined to provide the foundation for Transcendentalism?
5. What was the metaphorical cost of the physical expansion the United States under the “manifest destiny” policy?
6. What was a negative effect of the Industrial Revolution?
7. What did writers of the 1800s value instead of intellect and reason?
8. How did Romantic writers involve themselves with the need for social reform in the 19th century?
9. What aspects of the natural world did Romantics celebrate?
10. What are the characteristics of the Transcendentalist philosophy?
11. What is an aphorism?
II. Text Analysis Workshop: The Art of the Essay (Holt text pages 366-367; class assignment/worksheet)
1. What is an essay?
2. Discuss the origin of the word essay.
3. Discuss the difference between formal and informal essays.
4. Which two 19th century authors are considered to be masters of the American essay?
5. List the four purposes an essay may serve.
6. List the four elements most essayists rely upon to express their ideas.
III. from Self-Reliance and Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Holt text pages 368-376; class assignment/worksheet)
1. According to Emerson, why is the person who can truly see nature like a child?
2. What does Emerson mean by the following aphorism in Nature? “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
3. Emerson’s main purpose in both of these essays is to express the importance of believing in oneself. Provide two
examples from each essay where he discusses this idea.
4. According to Emerson, what is the most sacred aspect of a person?
5. What does it mean to be self-reliant?
6. What is a nonconformist?
7. Explain Emerson’s aphorism: Trust thyself: Every heart vibrates to the iron string.”
8. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson indicates that genius is something that comes from where?
9. In “Self-Reliance”, what does Emerson assert that society encourages people to do?
10. Emerson says, “You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.”
What is he attempting to explain?
11. Explain the following aphorism from Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”: “There is a time in every man’s education when
he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for
worse as his portion…”
IV. “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau (Holt text pages 390-401; class assignment)
1. Explain what it means to be “civilly disobedient”.
2. Thoreau’s main purpose in this essay is to persuade other people to follow their individual consciences even if it
means one must face consequences. Provide two examples from this essay where he discusses this idea.
3. In Thoreau’s view, what is the practical reason the majority rules in a democracy?
4. How did Thoreau describe his attitude toward government after he was jailed?
5. According to “Civil Disobedience,” when do people become “wood and earth and stones”?
6. Why did Thoreau feel pity toward the state for putting him in prison?
7. What was Thoreau’s main objection to a standing government, according to “Civil Disobedience”?
8. What other authors and human rights activists were influenced by Thoreau’s ideas of “polite rebellion”?
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