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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What large part of text has Burke added between the First and Second editions?
(a) An Autobiographical Epilogue.
(b) An Introduction on Taste.
(c) An Afterword on Terror.
(d) A Publisher's Foreword.

2. What problem does Burke see with the contemporary notion of "taste?"
(a) It's principles have not been made uniform.
(b) Everyone pays too much attention to taste and not enough attention to reason.
(c) Nobody Burke knows seems to have taste.
(d) The concept of taste is misunderstood and badly defined.

3. What does Burke note about youth, as related to taste?
(a) That sensory pleasure is great while judgment is inaccurate.
(b) That although judgments may not be sound, taste is excellent.
(c) That youth is the province of true wisdom.
(d) That innocence does not equal ignorance.

4. How does Burke define "strength?"
(a) As "wild freedom."
(b) As "careful concentration."
(c) As "earned glory."
(d) As "natural power."

5. Which medium does Burke feel arouses the passions most effectively?
(a) Architecture.
(b) Poetry.
(c) Sculpture.
(d) Painting.

6. How do all emotions and passions affect the human mind?
(a) With unpredictable, greatly varying effects.
(b) By natural, uniform, predictable principles.
(c) By forcing the mind to yield to the heart.
(d) With scarring, searing effects.

7. What is the state between pleasure and pain, according to Burke?
(a) Joy.
(b) Indifference.
(c) Anger.
(d) Confusion.

8. What example does Burke offer to show his ideas on the effects of tragedy?
(a) A mother and father losing their infant to an early death.
(b) The shocking regicide of the monarch.
(c) A mass-murderer terrorizing the city.
(d) London being destroyed by an earthquake.

9. According to Burke, why is procreation pleasurable?
(a) To connect humans and animals in the realm of the senses.
(b) Because without some form of pleasure, society would devolve into warfare.
(c) To incite people to engage in it, since it is necessary to survival.
(d) Because the rest of life is terrible, and there must be at least one pleasurable thing in life.

10. What will be Burke's focus in "A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"?
(a) The beautiful and sublime as they relate to contemporary politics.
(b) The origins of our ideas of the beautiful and sublime.
(c) The full meanings and social impacts of the beautiful and sublime.
(d) The beautiful and sublime as they appear in Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

11. What does Burke assert is necessary for the success of "A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"?
(a) To demonstrate his expansive knowledge of the passions.
(b) To make his readers agree with him.
(c) To debunk all outmoded notions of the sublime.
(d) To establish the principles of taste.

12. What is this creative power of the mind incapable of producing?
(a) Anything truly new.
(b) Anything passionate.
(c) Anything of great consequence.
(d) Anything captivating.

13. Which method of teaching does Burke think best?
(a) Lecturing the learner on the subject.
(b) Allowing the learner to investigate the subject.
(c) Testing the learner on the subject.
(d) Referring obliquely to the subject in conversation with the learner.

14. How do smells and tastes become sublime most effectively?
(a) When mediated through art.
(b) When they occur when one is in a dreaming state.
(c) When moderated through narrative and description.
(d) When combined with eating and drinking.

15. According to Burke, what will the result be of the long, close study of an object?
(a) A decreased interest in the object.
(b) A decreased feeling of pleasure.
(c) An increased sense of anxiety.
(d) An increased sensibility of taste.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Burke define sympathy?

2. Which two ideas does Burke often find confused with one another?

3. What two aspects comprise Burke's "artificial infinity?"

4. How does Burke define solitude?

5. What kind of colors are unfit to produce what Burke terms "grand images?"

(see the answer keys)

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