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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Boorstin characterize the autobiography as a form?

2. What was startling about Leaves of Grass in Boorstin's account?

3. Whom does Boorstin say was the first biographer?

4. What does Boorstin say was combined in the skyscraper?

5. What did Bondone create according to Boorstin?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Boorstin say is Rousseau's contribution to the art of autobiography?

2. How did dance change during the transition into modernity?

3. What is the place of the essay in the history Boorstin is describing?

4. What is Coleridge's importance in imaginative literature according to Boorstin?

5. Where does Boorstin put Kafka in his portrait of imaginative thinkers?

6. When does Boorstin say authors became the subject of their own writing?

7. What innovation does Boorstin say Leonardo da Vinci made in imaginative art?

8. How does Boorstin describe the evolution of the orchestra over time?

9. What does Boorstin say Pickering and Prescott have in common, and what is their role in the development of the Western imaginative consciousness?

10. How does Boorstin characterize Johann Sebastian Bach's contribution to human imaginative work?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Evaluate your own reading of The Creators--did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 2

From what perspective could the narrative described here--of an art that came to approximate the condition of lived individual experience--be described as a falling away into false life and pseudo-awareness? How else could this narrative be described? What would a person have to believe in order to make a different characterization than Boorstin makes?

Essay Topic 3

Why do women play so small a part in The Creators? Analyze the text to describe Boorstin's ideas about women and women's contribution to Western culture and the development of the imagination. Are they principally muses instead of creators? Are they principally biological creators instead of artistic creators? How does Boorstin describe women's roles in culture?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 800 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample