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90 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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Why is Wang Lung's ten-year-old second daugther crying?
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Because her feet are bound (and they hurt).
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If you were Chinese, and a girl, what would cause you pain?
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Why does the doctor suddenly change the fee for curing O-lan from five hundred to five thousand pieces of silver?
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He sees that her condition is incurable, and so he charges more than Wang Lung can afford to avoid trying to cure her and failing (which invokes penalties).
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Doctors are punished if they cannot cure their patients.
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What does Wang Lung buy in town when he sees that O-lan is dying?
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A coffin (and another for his father).
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What do you have to do after someone dies?
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What does O-lan insist should happen before her death?
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Her oldest son should get married.
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Why, after O-lan dies, does she rest in her coffin in the temple for three months before burial?
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They are waiting for a lucky day to bury her.
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What regret does Wang Lung especially feel at O-lan's funeral?
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That he took away her two pearls.
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Why are the dykes not mended, so that the land floods?
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Because the man who was in charge of mending them had spent the money on himself.
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What is Wang Lung's oldest son's idea for getting rid of Wang Lung's uncle and his family?
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He proposes that they push them into the water so they'll drown.
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What way do they actually find to keep Wang Lung's uncle's family under control?
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They supply them with opium.
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What finally pushes Wang Lung to take action to control his uncle's family?
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The uncle's son takes liberties with Wang Lung's thirteen-year-old daughter.
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What news does Wang Lung's oldest son tell him as they are walking over their land after the flood recedes?
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That Wang Lung will soon have a grandson.
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What does Wang Lung buy with the profits made from lending money after the flood?
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Slaves.
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What suggestion does Wang Lung's oldest son make so they won't have to endure living with the uncle's family any longer?
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He suggests they move into town and live at the House of Hwang.
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They have already supplied them with opium.
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Who does Wang Lung choose to find a wife for his second son?
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Ching.
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Since neither Wang Lung, his youngest son, nor Ching is up to cultivating much of his land, what does Wand Lung decide to do with the land?
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He decides to rent it to others.
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What does Wang Lung's uncle's son decided to do rather then stay on the land?
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He decides to go to war.
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Why doesn't Wang Lung bury Ching next to his father and O-lan?
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Because his sons think Ching is too low-statues to be buried with a family as great as theirs.
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What does Wang Lung's second son complain about when they have moved to the House of Hwang?
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That they are spending too much money?
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What does Wang Lung plan for his third son to do with his life?
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He intends him to work on the land.
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What does Wang Lung's uncle's wife ask Wang Lung to do for their son if he returns after they have died?
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To find him a wife.
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Why does the price of grain rise suddenly while Wang Lung is living in the House of Hwang?
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because of the war
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Why doesn't Wang Lung dare to throw out his uncle's son and his comrades when they come to stay?
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Because they are all carrying knives.
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What do they decide to do to keep the uncle's son from bothering the women in the compound?
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They decide to give him his own slave.
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What happens to the woman who bears a child by Wang Lung's uncle's son?
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She is married off to a local man.
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Which two people in the family compound especially do not get along?
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The wives of Wang Lung's two oldest sons
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What does the youngest son decide he wants to do with his life?
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He wants to be a soldier
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What one thing might keep the youngest son from leaving to be a soldier?
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if he could have Pear Blossom
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What does Pear Blossom promise to do after Wang Lung's death?
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take care of the "poor fool"
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Where does Wang Lung live in his final days?
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back in his earthen house on the land
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What do Wang Lung's sons secretly plan to do when Wang Lung has died?
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sell some of the land
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What century was Confucius born in?
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the 500s B.C. (the 6th century B.C.)
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In "The Good Earth", Wang Lung asks his grandchildren if they are studying Confucius. What specific work or works does he ask about?
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the Four Books
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What does the title "I Ching" mean?
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"The Book of Changes"
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What is the name of the dynasty of 206 B.C. - A.D. 220, whose early years saw a flourishing of literature and the founding of a state university?
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the Han dynasty
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What is the name of the dominant form of Chinese poetry in the Han dynasty and many centuries afterward?
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the fu
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What did the Music Bereau do in the time of the Han dynasty?
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It collected folk songs.
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What is the name of the author of "I Watered My Horse at the Long Wall Caves"?
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Ch'en Lin
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What is the typical subject matter of later songs in the "yueh-fu" style? (the u in yueh has two dots over it)
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the lives of soldiers of farmers (and/or criticism of the government)
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What written document does the speaker quote in "I Watered My Horse at the Long Wall Caves"?
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a letter to his wife
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In "I Watered My Horse at the Long Wall Caves," how does the wife respond to the husband's advice that she should remarry?
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She rejectes the idea.
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What is the name of the Chinese dynasty known for song lyrics and emperors who embraced poetry?
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The Tang Dynasty
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What century did Li Po live in?
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the 700s A.D. (the eighth century A.D.)
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There are two reasons Li Po might have had to be away from his children. One is that the emperor sent him away on public business. What is the other possible reason?
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He was in exile (possibly for drunkenness).
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What English-language poetic movement has Li Po's work been compared to?
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the Romantics
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How did Li Po and poets like him come to the attention of the emporer?
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through the civil service exam
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In "Sent to My Two Little Children in the East of Lu," what object forms the central image of the poem, situated "just east of the tower"?
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a peach tree
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In "Sent to My Two Little Children in the East of Lu," who are the two people walking by the tower?
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the little boy and little girl, the poet's children
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In "Sent to My Two Little Children in the East of Lu," what does the poet contemplate doing with the silk on which his thoughts are written?
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sending it floating down the river
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In "Sent to My Two Little Children in the East of Lu," the actions of what creatures first call to mind the length of the poet's separation from his children?
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the silkworms
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What dynasty is considered the great age of Chinese poetry?
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the Sung dynasty
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What century was Su Tung Po born in?
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the 1000s (eleventh century) (A.D)
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What led Su Tung Po to be exiled three times?
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He criticized the government
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What two schools of thought did Su Tung Po use to cope with his misfortunes?
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Daoist thought and (Zen) Buddhist thought
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What did Su Tung Po do to the "tz'u" form of verse that provoked criticism?
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He freed it from its previous attachment to music.
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What weather marks the beginning of "The Terrace in the Snow"?
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rain
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What creature or creatures are pictured taking refuge from the snow in "The Terrace in the Snow"?
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the ciccadas
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In "The Terrace in the Snow," the poet performs what single action to counteract the snow?
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He sweeps the terrace
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In "The Terrace in the Snow," the cold leads the poet to feel he has lost what ability?
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the ability to write
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In "The Terrace in the Snow," what weapons are depicted in the imagery of the final lines?
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swords (icicles thought of as swords)
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Why did the abolition of the Chinese civil service exam have an effect on poetry?
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Because the civil service exam included composing poetry.
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What year did Communists take over China?
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1949
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What important influence did Hu Shih have on Chinese literature?
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He promoted the use of everyday language in literature
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What is "pai hua"
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the vernacular, the everyday language of people
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What is distinctive about "Menglongshi" poems?
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They are very obscure or difficult to understand.
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What is the name of the movement in modern Chinese poetry that focuses on the exploration of the individual psyche?
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the Newborn generation or school
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How has poetry written by Chinese women changed in modern times?
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Women write on a larger range of subjects (and produce more poems)
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What important event in Chinese history caused Wang Xiaoni and her family to live in the countryside from 1969 to 1972?
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the Cultural Revolution
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In "Half of Me is Aching," the poem opens with the image of a bug gnawing at what?
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the speaker's tooth
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In "Half of Me is Aching," the speaker says that she uses the half that is not aching to do what?
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to love ("to adore you")
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What century was Samuel Taylor Coleridge born?
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the 1700s (the eighteenth century)
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Coleridge produced the "Lyrical Ballads" in collaboration with what other poet?
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Wordsworth
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What did Coleridge take to counteract the pain of his rheumatic gout, on which he became increasingly dependent?
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Laudanum (opium)
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How did Coleridge's views on the language of poety differ from Wordsworth's?
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Wordsworth believed that the language of poetry was essentially the same as the language of prose; Coleridge believed that the language of poetry was essentially different.
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What kind of literature had Coleridge been reading before he fell asleep and dreamed "Kubla Khan"?
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Travel literature ("Purchas's Pilgrimage")
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How was Kubla Khan related to Genghis Khan?
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Kubla Khan was Genghis Khan's grandson.
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What famous explorer first brought back reports of Kubla Khan's court?
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Marco Polo
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Why, according to Coleridge, did the poem "Kubla Khan" remain unfinished?
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Because a visitor interrupted him as he was writing it down (having composed it in a dream).
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What is the special feature of the caverns in the pleasure-dome in "Kubla Khan"?
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They are ice-caverns
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In the last line of "Kubla Khan," Coleridge depicts the poet, full of poetic inspiration, having fed on honey-dew and drunk the milk of what?
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paradise
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What famous poem did T.S. Elliot dedicate to Ezra Pound?
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"The Waste Land"
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What is the name of the literary movement that replaced Romanticism and called for precision in writing and economy of language?
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Imagism
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What is the title of Pound's most famous and ambitious work?
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The Cantos
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What did Pound do that made him liable to charges of treason?
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He made anti-American (pro-Mussolini) broadcasts (from Italy).
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Where was Pound placed rather than facing trial for treason?
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in an insane asylum
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Who was the author of the original of "The River-Merchant's Wife," adapted into English by Pound?
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Li Po
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What is the meaning of the term "epistolary form"?
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something written in the form of a letter
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The critic Ronald Bush has suggested that contemporaries would have understood "The River-Merchants Wife" not as a love-poem from a wife to a husband, but actually as a love-poem from whom to whom?
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from the husband to the wife
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How old was the speaker of "The River-Merchants Wife" when she married "My Lord you"?
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fourteen
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What thing did the river-merchant and his wife play near when they were children, where the moss has grown deep now?
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the gate
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In "The River-Merchants Wife," what does the wife see in pairs, the sight of which makes her sad?
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butterflies
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