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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. How does Boorstin say Muslims see creativity?
(a) As an echo of God's creation.
(b) As innate to human beings.
(c) As usurping Allah's prerogative.
(d) As dangerous.

2. Of what is Dionysus the god according to Boorstin?
(a) Craft and technology.
(b) Drama, dance and music.
(c) Hunting and weaponry.
(d) Warfare and strife.

3. What does Boorstin say man seeks in making art?
(a) Gain.
(b) Immortality.
(c) Fame.
(d) Rebellion against God.

4. What does Boorstin say Christianity got people to see?
(a) Time as cyclical.
(b) Heaven.
(c) The nature of divinity.
(d) The future.

5. What does Paul Valery say the artist's business is in the epigraph to Book 1?
(a) To do God's will.
(b) To create gods.
(c) To make something out of nothing.
(d) To free man from God.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Virginia Woolf say, in the second epigraph to Part 7, about writing?

2. What is a dithyramb?

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

4. What metaphor does Boorstin say permeates Christian literature?

5. In what does Boorstin say Rabelais' book was an act of faith?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What innovation did Dante introduce to Western culture?

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

4. What contribution did the Egyptians make in building the pyramids?

5. How does Boorstin describe the birth of drama?

6. How do Muslims differ from Greeks and Christians in their approach to making images?

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

8. What is a dithyramb and what is its place in imaginative culture?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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