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Humanities 251 Final Exam Prep, Fall 2008

Part I (1 point each)

  1. What is a scop?
  1. What is the parable of the sparrow and its significance?
  1. Who is Attila the Hun? When did he sweep through Europe? What was the historical significance of that sweep?
  1. What did Agammenon do to anger Achilles?
  1. What is a thane?
  1. What did the Germans do if a woman was worried about their fate in an impending battle?
  1. Why were the Pre-Socratic thinkers important? In other words, what was their contribution, overall?
  1. Archaic Period of Greece and brief description
  1. Classical Period of Greece and brief description
  1. Hellenistic Period of Greece and brief description
  1. Caesar invaded Gaul
  1. Caesar assassinated
  1. Reign of Octavian Augustus Caesar
  1. Tacitus writes his Germania
  1. WesternRomeFalls
  1. Rome adopts Christianity and why
  1. Charlemagne declared Holy Roman Emperor, and its significance
  1. wergild
  1. Founding of Islam by Mohammed
  1. What is contrapposto? What period is it most associated with?
  1. Who are Romulus and Remus?
  1. Date Rome allegedly founded
  1. Proto-Geometric period and its chief characteristic
  1. Geo-metric and its chief characteristic
  1. Antigone written this century
  1. Pre-socratics thinking this century
  1. Death of Socrates
  1. Illiad written this century, referring to historical events in this other century?
  1. Explain the medieval Germanic concept of frei dom and consider why it is important to us today.
  1. Identify three enduring Roman contributions to Western culture.
  1. Who is Unferth?
  1. How did Beowulf die?
  1. Punic Wars. When were they. Who fought them?
  1. Pelopponesian Wars. When were they? Who fought them?
  1. What is a mead hall?
  1. What is the Hejira?
  1. Who is Charles Martel and what did he do of significance? Where? When?
  1. What are the 12 Tables, and when were they promulgate?
  1. When was the fall of Eastern Rome?
  1. What did Gregory the Great do, in what century, and why important?
  1. When was Clovis, King of the Franks, baptized?
  1. What is a comitatus and how does it function? What work do we find it operating in?
  1. Thought fire was the essential element of the universe.
  1. Thought water the essential element of the universe.
  1. What is a “rood?”
  1. Why was the Battle of Maldon lost by the British comitatus?
  1. Whose wife was Helen?
  1. What did Achilles do with the body of Hector?
  1. What rivers run by Troy?
  1. What key event occurred in Rome, Christmas Day, 800 AD.?

Part II Essay

Directions: Please respond to the following essays in depth. Be specific and thoughtful. Use the texts to support your assertions. Remember to set up with an introduction where you identify your Issue, then introduce your Thesis (what you wish your reader to believe about the issue), and then paragraph according to ideas supportive of your thesis, using specific details from the texts and good common sense reasoning. end with some thoughtful statement about what you have written, linking it to the greater world.

Short Essay I (25 pts) (2 pages in length each.)

1. In our readings in Tacitus’ Germania, Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood, and the Battle of Maldon, we are given an historical look at the Germanic peoples inhabiting Northern Europe over a span of roughly 1000 years. Using at least three of these texts, consider the three or four chief characteristics of the Germanic people, and provide specific textual evidence to support your assertions. Further, compare and contrast these character traits to generic human traits of people living in the 21st century, in Minot, as you see them, and speculate about the significance of what has changed, and what has remained the same. Be thoughtful, specific, and organized in your response.

2. Using our Greek and Roman readings, create a thoughtful question you have considered, and write and essay asserting and supporting your answer. Further, consider the significance of what you have asked and then answered, for us today, living in the 21st century. Use no more than three texts and no less than two, and make sure that at least one is Greek, or one Roman. Be specific, thoughtful, and precise.

3. The Germanic peoples lived by a strict set of laws or cultural codes. In the literature, we see the heroes judged in relation to what has come to be referred to as the Heroic Code for behavior. Identify at least three aspects of this Heroic Code as you find evidence for them in Gallic Wars, Germania, and Beowulf. Further, compare and contrast these character traits to generic traits for our own understanding of Heroic behavior for men and women today, living in the 21st century, in Minot, as you see them, and speculate about the significance of what has changed, and what has remained the same. Be thoughtful, specific, and organized in your response.

4. Review the role of women as you find them in our works this term in Greek, Roman, and Northern European culture (you will have to infer a sense of the role of women in Roman culture through their adoring link to the Greeks, and by the way they envy the role of women in German culture as shown in Tacitus). What changes, from culture to culture, and what remains the same? How do you see these past representations of the roles of women in relation to the role women play in our own culture, here in the 21st century? Be specific, thoughtful, and extend your thoughts.

5. Write an essay where you discuss the various relationships that Greek, Roman, and Germanic people to their Gods, and speculate as to how things have changed in that relationship through time and space, and how they have remained the same. Compare and contrast those changes and consistencies with our general relationship to the Gods as you see it today, here in the United States, in the year 2008.