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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. Because he believed in earthly salvation, what did Beta argue?
(a) History has no force in man's present struggles.
(b) Anyone opposing mankind's happiness is evil.
(c) Only man can bring about his own happiness.
(d) Promises of heavenly salvation are false.

2. In light of Beta's poetry, how does Milosz treat the modern artist's potential?
(a) He follows the artistic traditions of former eras.
(b) He can never know rest or inactivity.
(c) He is condemned to inactivity.
(d) He works best without established equilibrium.

3. Apart from his poetry, what was Delta's personality?
(a) Sly and gloomy.
(b) Optimistic and cheerful.
(c) Sly and fearful.
(d) Completely deceitful.

4. What happened when Beta's artistic talent moved to the furthest boundaries of communist dictates?
(a) The words he wrote were the only things he knew.
(b) Words could no longer move him to action.
(c) It could not be satisfied, and he left the party.
(d) Words and individual man lost all meaning.

5. After two years, Delta returned again to favor, and how did his future look?
(a) He could not be assured that it will last.
(b) He could be assured that it will last.
(c) He was given a ten-year contract.
(d) He was returned only for the translation of a Shakespeare poem.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Chapter 8, how does communism define the reactionary?

2. How was Delta's cheerful poetry treated?

3. During Gamma's youth, Poland gradually separated along what lines?

4. In Chapter 8, how does the party treat whatever is not expressed?

5. In the concentration camp, what kind of life does Beta lead?

Short Essay Questions

1. Milosz states that the goals of the workers are far different from those of the state. How is this so?

2. How were Beta's stories a fitting insight into his nihilist worldview?

3. Nearly six years of Nazi rule had radically changed people's ideas of private property. Did this help or harm the communist idea of common property?

4. How are the peasants, in several ways, the most helpless class of people?

5. How were Beta and the people of his generation fallen into dark hopelessness?

6. Milosz calls Beta's reaction to the concentration camp life sadistic. How is this true?

7. How could Delta, who was not racist, write such violently anti-Semitic material?

8. Delta, in wandering the roads in France, met people from many different nations. How did this universal migration prepare the way even more for communist rule?

9. How was Delta able to play the game that the center demanded of him--and be better at it?

10. Eventually Delta's poems became something of a dream, unreal. How was this inevitable?

(see the answer keys)

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