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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is one of the primary causes of words influencing the passions?
(a) Our forceful imaginations' shaping of our emotions and desires.
(b) Our skepticism of and disdain for the emotional state of others.
(c) Our reliance on judgment and will to shape our passions.
(d) Our sympathizing with and identifying with the passions of others.

2. To what does a "strong" expression relate?
(a) To one's intellect and to one's education.
(b) To one's experience and one's fears.
(c) To one's soul and one's beliefs.
(d) To one's passions and one's feelings.

3. According to Burke, why is sweetness pleasing?
(a) Because sweetness is a rare, and thus satisfying, sensation.
(b) Because the first milk of infancy is sweet, and accustoms us to the taste.
(c) Because sweetness produces much saliva in the mouth.
(d) Because of the regularity and smoothness of the form of sugar.

4. What visual example does Burke FIRST offer in his explanation of succession and the sublime?
(a) A field of grain.
(b) A large cathedral.
(c) A colonnade of pillars.
(d) A grove of trees.

5. Which example does Burke use to support his argument regarding the nature of darkness?
(a) A solar eclipse that frightened townsfolk.
(b) A blind boy who regains his sight.
(c) A person who grew afraid of his own shadow.
(d) A dim, murky forest fraught with danger.

Short Answer Questions

1. What examples does Burke use to illustrate authority vs. affection?

2. What quality of mind does Burke find in women that he thinks is analogous to fragility?

3. Which two effects are often combined and alternated under the passions mentioned in question 7?

4. Which of the following passions show the same effects as pain?

5. What is another word for the "fitness" of objects about which Burke writes?

Short Essay Questions

1. What, to Burke, is the most affecting type of language in poetry and literature?

2. Briefly summarize the three classes of words that Burke identifies.

3. What is the "real" cause of beauty, according to Burke?

4. How does Burke use women as examples to demonstrate some of the aspects of beauty?

5. To what effect does Burke use the example of Campanella?

6. What is unique about the historical figure of Campanella, as related by Burke?

7. What does Burke mean by "fitness," and why is fitness not, according to him, the cause of beauty?

8. In his discussion of proportionality among human figures, what censure does Burke lay upon advocates proportion-as-beauty?

9. Why are small objects more suited to the beautiful and large objects more suitable to the sublime, according to Burke?

10. How can pain be a cause of delight, in everyday life and in effecting the sublime?

(see the answer keys)

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