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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. According to Burke, why is sweetness pleasing?
(a) Because sweetness is a rare, and thus satisfying, sensation.
(b) Because sweetness produces much saliva in the mouth.
(c) Because of the regularity and smoothness of the form of sugar.
(d) Because the first milk of infancy is sweet, and accustoms us to the taste.

3. What has Burke personally observed about human beauty?
(a) That both beautiful and ugly people might be considered proportionate.
(b) That beauty is only skin-deep.
(c) That proportionality does indeed coincide with beauty.
(d) That only a minority of people are not beautiful.

4. What does Burke criticize about the patrons of proportion?
(a) That they are not clear enough in defining proportionality.
(b) That they view their own works and views as superior to nature.
(c) That they have not expanded their architectural projects enough.
(d) That they are disproportionate and ugly.

5. Which of the following does Burke assert about beauty?
(a) That it has nothing to do with proportion.
(b) That proportion is critical to it.
(c) That it combines with proportion to create the sublime.
(d) That beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

6. To what does a "clear" expression relate?
(a) To one's passions and one's feelings.
(b) To one's will and one's desires.
(c) To one's soul and one's intellect.
(d) To one's understanding and to reality.

7. What sense does Burke use to illustrate the artificial infinite?
(a) Sight.
(b) Touch.
(c) Sound.
(d) Smell.

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

9. How does this body part produce the sense of the sublime, according to Burke?
(a) By becoming full and corpulent with the immensity of the sublime.
(b) By vibrating more or less depending on the sublimity of the object.
(c) By stretching to its fullest extent in response to fear.
(d) By contracting and relaxing due to electrical stimuli.

10. To what does Burke refer when he introduces physiognomy as part of beauty?
(a) The height of the individual.
(b) The elegance of one's steps.
(c) The facial features.
(d) The shape of the bust.

11. What type of poetry operates by imitation?
(a) Dramatic poetry.
(b) Elegiac poetry.
(c) Epic poetry.
(d) Lyric poetry.

12. To what does Burke oppose delicacy and fragility?
(a) Dignity and fortitude.
(b) Whining and crying.
(c) Robustness and strength.
(d) Courage and honor.

13. Why is darkness shocking, according to Burke?
(a) Because darkness is inherently evil and the opponent of goodness.
(b) Because darkness is unnatural and unwelcome.
(c) Because the human brain cannot compensate for darkness.
(d) Because the eye and the body do not expect nor appreciate it.

14. What does Burke term "compounded abstract" words?
(a) Those words which stand for literary ideas.
(b) Those words which determine scientific nomenclature.
(c) Those words which indicate natural phenomena.
(d) Those words which represent complex ideas.

15. What, to Burke, is "great and amazing beyond conception?"
(a) That which can be the most effectively represented in painting or sculpture.
(b) The depth of feeling in one particular person about one particular issue.
(c) The idea that the human eye can see essentially to infinity.
(d) Two strong, but abstract ideas not representable by images, but only by language.

Short Answer Questions

1. What, according to Burke, is the state of a man whose teeth are set and whose forehead is wrinkled?

2. Which kinds of words do not produce mental images, according to Burke?

3. How should the eye move, in order to qualify as beautiful, according to Burke?

4. According to Burke, what is the mechanical reason darkness is terrible?

5. What example does Burke use in his argument that perfection is not the cause of beauty?

(see the answer keys)

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