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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. According to Burke, what parts of the mind do beautiful things engage, and how?
(a) Our dreams, through a sense of wonder.
(b) Our defenses, through a sense of mistrust.
(c) Our fears, through a sense of terror.
(d) Our hearts, through a sense of loveliness.

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

3. What quality of mind does Burke find in women that he thinks is analogous to fragility?
(a) Vapidity.
(b) Curiosity.
(c) Timidity.
(d) Forthrightness.

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

5. What does Burke term "simple abstract" words?
(a) Those words which represent human emotions.
(b) Those words which comprise oaths and curses.
(c) Those words which indicate political affiliations.
(d) Those words which stand for one straighforward idea.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are the three effects of words Burke identifies?

2. Which example does Burke use to support his argument regarding the nature of darkness?

3. What is John Locke's theory concerning darkness?

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

5. What examples does Burke use to prove that human proportionality does not necessarily equal human beauty?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Burke define deformity?

2. According to Burke, how does the human eye work?

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

4. What types of sounds, smells, and tastes can be considered beautiful, according to Burke?

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

6. Paraphrase Burke's definition of beauty and the distinction he makes between love and lust or desire.

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

8. Why, according to Burke, is proportion not the cause of beauty in vegetation and animals?

9. What does Burke propose to study in Part IV? What caveat does he offer his readers?

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

(see the answer keys)

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