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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is Dante described as the founder of modern literature in Boorstin's opinion?

2. How does Boorstin characterize Hindu religion?

3. What should be the outcome of art according to the Byron epigraph?

4. What governs the relationship between mankind and Moses' God?

5. What did St. Augustine give men in City of God?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Boorstin describe the Hindu contribution to imaginative culture?

2. How do Muslims differ from Greeks and Christians in their approach to making images?

3. What innovation did Dante introduce to Western culture?

4. How do Greek depictions compare with Egyptian symbols?

5. What contribution does Boorstin say Boethius made to imaginative culture?

6. How does Boorstin characterize Chaucer's Canterbury Tales?

7. How does Boorstin describe the birth of prose?

8. How does Boorstin characterize the Confucian teachings?

9. What does Boorstin say is the Koran's position on imaginative culture?

10. How does Boorstin describe the birth of hymns?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Would you recommend The Creators? For what purposes would you recommend The Creators, and what kinds of readers would you not recommend it? What book would you recommend that would cover the same material or provide the same emotional experience in a different way?

Essay Topic 2

From what perspective could the narrative described here--of an art that came to approximate the condition of lived individual experience--be described as a falling away into false life and pseudo-awareness? How else could this narrative be described? What would a person have to believe in order to make a different characterization than Boorstin makes?

Essay Topic 3

Why do women play so small a part in The Creators? Analyze the text to describe Boorstin's ideas about women and women's contribution to Western culture and the development of the imagination. Are they principally muses instead of creators? Are they principally biological creators instead of artistic creators? How does Boorstin describe women's roles in culture?

(see the answer keys)

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