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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 does Abbé Suger say about how spirits can raise themselves to eternal things in the epigraph to Part 6?
(a) That it happens on its own.
(b) That it requires renunciation of the world.
(c) That it requires symbolic death, again and again.
(d) That it requires symbols of beauty.

2. What does the dome of the Pantheon proclaim according to Boorstin?
(a) Man's ability to fill a void with his own creation.
(b) Man's ability to provide houses for his gods.
(c) Man's ability to defy gravity in building.
(d) Man's ability to enclose a sacred precinct.

3. What is Boorstin's subject in The Creators?
(a) How mankind has invented itself.
(b) How mankind has progressed through the ages.
(c) How mankind has manipulated its environment.
(d) How mankind has come to face the question of its own survival.

4. What does Auden say about books in the second epigraph to Part 5?
(a) That none are undeservedly remembered.
(b) That the future is full of meaningless books.
(c) That most deserve to be forgotten.
(d) That undeserving books are often remembered.

5. Of what is The Odyssey a parable according to Boorstin?
(a) The mystery of death.
(b) The mystery of creation.
(c) The mystery of warfare.
(d) The mystery of language.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was unique about the first literary work in Boorstin's account?

2. What does Boorstin say man discovered in Section 24: The Birth of the Spectator?

3. What did Saint Ambrose invent?

4. What does Paul Valery say the artist's business is in the epigraph to Book 1?

5. What does Boorstin say Moses introduced into Western culture?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Boorstin describe the difference between tragedy and comedy?

2. How does Boorstin describe the birth of hymns?

3. What was St. Augustine's contribution to imaginative culture according to Boorstin?

4. How does Boorstin say the Japanese differ from Westerners in their architectural approach?

5. What is the purpose of life in Buddhist teachings?

6. What does Boorstin say is the importance of megaliths?

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

8. How does Boorstin characterize Shakespeare's role in the development of imaginative works?

9. How does Boorstin characterize the Confucian teachings?

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

(see the answer keys)

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