Which previous figure was mentioned more prominently in Lecture 7?
a. Michel de Montaigne
b. Francesco Petrarca
c. Scipio Africanus the Great
d. Genghis Khan
Which human trait seemed to be central to the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries?
a. emotion
b. speech
c. reason
d. imagination
Science has become such a force in modern life is because it is
a. visible
b. physical
c. practical
d. all of the above
Which scientist proved in the 16th century that the Earth was not at the center of the cosmos?
a. Galileo Galilei
b. Isaac Newton
c. Friedrich von Leibniz
d. Nicolaus Copernicus
Arguably the greatest achievement of the Enlightenment was
a. the founding of America
b. the discovery of electricity
c. the authoring of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”
d. the discovery of America
What does “The Declaration of Independence” say about happiness?
a. We have the right to happiness.
b. We have the right to pursue happiness.
c. All people have the right to be equally happy.
d. None of the above
Why did America keep slavery when the country was founded on equality for “all men”?
a. Slaves weren’t seen as equal to others.
b. Southern slaveowners were unwilling to give them up.
c. Northerners against slavery needed Southern support in the Revolution, and so they compromised.
d. All of the above
What was notable about the ideas of such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes and Frances Bacon?
a. They thought emotions were the way to truth.
b. They were highly skeptical of religion and tradition.
c. They thought reason was the way to truth.
d. both b and c
Which group of 19th Century writers and artists, in particular, reacted against The Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason?
a. The Existentialists
b. The Romantics
c. The Cubists
d. The Transcendentalists
What spiritual practice has its roots partly in the 19th Century?
a. Buddhism
b. Sufism
c. Wicca
d. Taoism
The more apparent meaning of Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” seems to be what?
a. the beauty of the desert
b. the promise of a new beginning
c. a lover mourning a loss
d. the impermanence of human civilization
Lord Byron’s poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib” seems capture what trait mentioned in Lecture 10 and suggested by scholar L.J. Swingle?
a. hope inspired by loss
b. clever metaphor for living
c. disturbance and doubt
d. none of the above
According to Lecture 9, The Romantic poets and artists had what attitude toward the ancient past?
a. They despised it and was glad it was over.
b. They cherished it but seemed to recognize it was over.
c. They wished they were living in the past.
d. They had no real feelings either way.
In this way, to which figures were they similar?
a. Thomas Hobbes and Frances Bacon
b. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington
c. Francesco Petrarca and Michel de Montaigne
d. none of the above
According to Lecture 9, what seemed to have been the first type of musical instruments?
a. wind instruments
b. percussion instruments
c. stringed instruments
d. none of the above
According to one of my former professors, what was Europe in the late 17th to early 19th centuries producing while England was producing great poets?
a. great dancers
b. great sculptors
c. great musical composers
d. great novelists
What has been one way people have thought of the Great Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)?
a. they couldn’t have been built by humans
b. they were a stunning representation of human accomplishment
c. they may have required brutal power to build them
d. all of the above
Scholar Walter Stephens offers what other way to look at Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”?
a. as an expression of wonder
b. as a reflection on conquest
c. as a metaphor for love
d. none of the above
According to Lecture 10, both Romantic poets and Enlightenment thinkers seemed to share what trait?
a. a sense of uncertainty and/or skepticism
b. a love of the past
c. confidence in the progress of science
d. deep Christian faith
Not one of the poems assigned, but appearing in Lecture 10, the stanza from William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” (the poem not named in the lecture), suggests what kind of feeling?
a. trust in the future
b. a longing for the past
c. trust in fellow humans
d. the fear that good people will let injustices happen, while bad people commit injustices as much as they want