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Midterm #2 : Essay Questions

Parts I, II, III


ESSAY EXAM PART I AND II (66 Points)

Answer TWO of the following questions in a full and conceptual manner. Move from your facts into concepts and your ideas - and the importance of the subject.  I will be looking for knowledge (read the material, gone through helpful parts of the Web and and/or seen a movie), your thinking and pondering.  I will not grade on grammar and spelling.

1. AGE OF DISCOVERY
Tell me and explain 3 "things" that ENABLED this age (made it possible).
Tell me and explain 3 "things that CATALYZED this age.
Most important, explain to me at least 5 reasons why all this discovery business at great human cost and danger and excitement? Why did they do it? The explorers, the Kings, the nations? Why?
This question is written briefly, but it requires a good deal of thought and analysis.

2. LIFE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES

In my regular lecture class I said: " It was a time of war and civil war, revolts in the towns, heresies within the Church. A time full of bitter conflicts at home and abroad, when men began to take their fate into their own hands." I also noted: " It is a time of change, of new economies, new powers, the shaping of a new kind of state, a time of transition, dynamic. On the other hand, it is also full of the same old horrors: endless wars, grinding poverty, deadly plagues. You would not want to live there."

3.  REFORMATION
In my day class I said: "A great religious revival sparked by a man driven to the edge of despair, an explosion of social unrest and bitter political conflict, together they gave old enemies new battle cries and shook Christendom to its very core."
  • Quickly, define the Reformation in its broadest sense.
  • What was Martin Luther really thinking about or upset about. How important a figure in human history and why?
  • Then, analyze: what kinds of "things" catalyzed it? And to what helped spread it so fast and so far? What was its significance and its results?
  • Was the Reformation a fundamentally religious phenomenon or a generally broader development? Quickly, one paragraph
  • In no more than 3 sentences, tell me what this means: "The 3 great elements of modern Western civilization coming together: gunpowder, printing and the Protestant religion."

4.  RENAISSANCE.
You are lecturing in a large hall on the Renaissance. BE THAT PERSON.  (Use "I" for example).  You must put yourself in it.
  • First, you address THE ISSUE: Was the Renaissance the beginning of a new modern world, a world of imagination, action, enterprise; or was it the culmination of the Middle Ages which had lasted for nearly a thousand years; or was it a bit of both? Take a stand and tell your students why you say so. (DO IT)
  • BUT when you are finished in your lecture to these almost sleeping students (they are cold and hungry), a student stands up and says, "I think too big a deal was/is made about the Renaissance. There was 'lots of good stuff' that happened in the Middle Ages."
  • YOU respond to him with your strong answer which is really a conclusion to your lecture.  (DO IT)
5. CHANGE
Analyze (do not just list) the major changes that occurred between the feudal age beginning and the Renaissance. Be sure you use at least 3 categories such as political, social, economic, living, cities, trade, inventions, etc. Your choice.
  • Now, why do you think it took so longggggg to get to the Renaissance?
  • What do you think were the 2 most important "things" that had to happen first?  Analyze.

6. SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE

ESSAY EXAM PART III (33 points) - TWO CHOICES

7.   Pick an area, a subject in this time period - a subject that you have been "surfing" and thinking about, that interests or intrigues you.  Or an area in which you have many impressions or a vivid impression from your surfing and reading.  
Write your own SUPERB question and then YOUR SUPERB answer it or integrate your impressions into a thoughtful, analytical or creative SUPERB essay. If you find yourself answering it in less than TWO full pages, you are on the wrong track.  You are graded as much for your question as your answer.  Last exam, many gave less attention, time, space to this question than the "non-creative" question.  They lost valuable points.  Be sure to treat this question fully and in the same format as the others - WITH HEADINGS.  If it is not going to be a SUPERB question and response, then go on and write on #8.

OR

8. The Two Great Movements of the 15th and 16th Century - What do you Think?
"The Renaissance and the Age of Discovery were two peaks of achievement - One of imagination, the other of action."
I need you to write a serious essay combining thought and examples - either in the order I have proposed or as a creative whole of your own, but being sure to cover the issues:

a. These two peaks of achievement, did they have anything in common? Is it possible to say that Erasmus wrote and Raphael painted, and Bartholomeu Diaz ventured past the Cape of Storms in obedience to a similar impulse?
b. And was this impulse derived from the urge to discover new lands and the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance have any connection? Did the broadening of geographical horizons have any impact on the mental horizons of the people at home or the other way around? What about human aspirations?
c. Did the explorers reflect a new Renaissance mentality?