Love in the Arts: Exam 1

Humanities 410 — Summer 2011
Washington State University

Love in the Arts:
Exam 1


I. IDENTIFICATIONS. [Total 26 points.]

Short identification questions from all materials of the first three weeks of the course may involve matching Column A with Column B; or identifying what “is a certain inborn suffering”; or naming the poet whose work is considered “Emotion recollected in tranquility” — that kind of question. These “dulcet diseases” will take place during the scheduled class period: Friday, May 27th.


II. QUOTATIONS. [Total 50 points; answer 10 for 5 points each.]

A combination of identification and, more importantly, significance questions will follow quotations from the plays and other relevant materials, extracted for their representativeness of our discussions over key points during these first weeks. This is not trivial pursuit. If you have read the plays and paid attention in class, only a close review of notes is necessary for preparation. My website notes may be of use also, with a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino.


III. TAKE-HOME ESSAY. [Total 24 points.]

Answer the following question thoroughly and precisely, to about two (2) pages, double-spaced, with reference to an assortment of our works from the first weeks of class. Answers should be virtuoso pieces of brilliance manifested in impressive eloquence, with facile reference to specifics from the works.

Scientific or social science studies on “love” are apt to seem peculiar or intriguing because of a kind of assumed mismatch between the approach and the subject. Yet in the arts and humanities, love is a, and maybe the, predominant subject. The question then is this: why is “love” (whatever you think “courtly love” or “amor” really is) so much at home in the arts?

This essay is due as a hard-copy at the start of class on exam day: Friday, May 27th, 10:30 am. It will be stapled to the back of the in-class portions of the exam. “He whom the thought of a love exam vexes eats and sleeps very little.”


SAMPLE QUESTIONS

IDENTIFICATIONS
Identify the character or thing referred to (underlined) in the following.

“The boy colored, and love of the maiden entered into every limb of him, although he had never seen her.”

                           _________________________________

“I set him every day to woo me.”

                           _________________________________

“A fool, a fool! I met a fool I’ th’ forest,
A motley fool.”

                           _________________________________

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* * *

QUOTATIONS
Answer completely but concisely the following.

“Foweles in the frith,
The fisses in the flod,
And I mon waxe wod.
Mulch sorw I walke with
For beste of bon and blod.”

If this lyric is set in the spring, what is the nameof the medieval literary tradition in which it partakes?
Translate this lyric into modern Englishand identify two (2) possible examples of wordplay.




Love Index