6) Mid 19th Century Fiction I

Question 1

What is a romance?

Answer 1

Subgenre of novel, popular in the first half of the 19th century, stress on imagination, not truthfulness, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land

Question 2

Who was the grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne?

Answer 2

Judge in the infamous Salem witch trails

Question 3

What was Brook Farm?

Answer 3

Utopian experiment of Nathaniel Hawthorne inspired by transcendentalism

Question 4

Which collections of short stories did Nathaniel Hawthorne write?

Answer 4

Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse

Question 5

Name Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novels

Answer 5

The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun

Question 6

Name Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories

Answer 6

Young Goodman Brown, Robert Malvin’s Burial, The Birthmark, Rapaccin’s Daughter, The Minister’s Black Veil, Wakefield

Question 7

What is Young Goodman Brown about?

Answer 7

Set in Puritan Salem, witches, hypocrisy

Question 8

What is Rober Malvin’s Burial about?

Answer 8

Frontier setting, past sins affecting the present

Question 9

What is The Birthmark about?

Answer 9

Scientist, beautiful wife with a small birthmark on her cheek, he decides to remove it

Question 10

What is Rapaccin’s Daughter about?

Answer 10

Set in Italy, woman like a flower, poisonous, deadly

Question 11

What is The Minister’s Black Veil about?

Answer 11

Puritan minister, covers his face with a veil for no reason

Question 12

What is Wakefield about?

Answer 12

Set in London, a man leaves home for no apparent reason, rents a place next to his home, lives there for twenty years

Question 13

Which book is considered the first genuine great American novel?

Answer 13

The Scarlet Letter

Question 14

Characterize Hester Prynne

Answer 14

Strong female character, independent, despite being ostracized by the community, she becomes an important part of it, she is not sorry for her sin

Question 15

What is Allegory?

Answer 15

Literary device, but also a genre, abstract ideas or principles represented by symbolic characters, situations, events, etc., unambiguous- the meaning is clear

Question 16

What is Symbol?

Answer 16

Literary device, an object standing for something else, usually an abstract idea, often ambiguous- the meaning is not clear at first sight, it may change and develop