Medieval/Renaissance Exam

Humanities 302
Medieval/Renaissance Final Exam
Dr. Michael Ebenezer Delahoyde
Washington State University

MALACODA

Questions will be drawn from the material covered since the last exam: that’s most of Dante’s Inferno on through to the end of all Renaissance materials thereafter.

I. IDENTIFICATIONS. [Total 26 points.]

On the designated day for this second exam of the semester, you will rely on the breadth and depth of your absorption of the class materials in order to answer an assortment of questions, primarily but perhaps not exclusively identification based: maybe identify the punishment for thieves, or who painted the Mona Lisa, or identify the originator of the “Petrarchan” sonnet — that kind of question, only a bit more difficult. This portion of the exam will be inflicted on you at the beginning of the last Wednesday class period, November 29th.

II. QUOTATIONS. [Total 50 points; 5 points each.]

A combination of identification and significance questions will follow quotations from the literature, art images, musical tracks, and the other relevant materials selected for their representativeness of our discussions on key points ever since the previous exam. “Santa knows that we’re God’s children and that makes everything right.”

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

The essay should be an original and virtuoso piece of glory, with a unified perspective and fine critical thinking, manifested in impressive eloquence, with facile reference to specifics from the class materials, and amounting to three (3) or more pages, double-spaced.

  • WWDT?
    (What Would Dante Think?)
    We have been examining the aesthetic shift from the medieval period to the “renaissance” (or the “early modern” period), including the question if there even was one. What do you imagine Dante, as a representative of the medieval outlook, would think if he had gotten the glimpses that we have had in this class of the later artists, authors, and characters?

Inclusion of mini-reports on “Humanism” or other canned and spurious concepts, detached from any of your own authentic relationships with the class materials, will fail. Once again, this was not a history class. The essay is due in hardcopy form on exam day to accompany the other in-class components of the exam.


BIG DAY: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29th, 2017; 1:10 PM.