Deck 20: The Age of Early Modernism

Question 1

Women, in the Second Industrial Revolution, experienced which of the following?

A) They had no opportunities to advance in education.
B) They were unable to get themselves organized around certain common goals, such as property rights and divorce laws.
C) They found new careers, including teaching, nursing, and retailing.
D) They joined labor unions in larger numbers than their male counterparts.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Western Europe in the Age of Early Modernism

A) moved closer to political unity.
B) witnessed the growing political power of the middle class.
C) came increasingly under the influence of American culture.
D) launched a moral crusade against modernism.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Nietzsche's life and thought are ironical in what way?

A) Despite his anti-Christian views, many Christians admired him.
B) Although he was an opponent of a strong German state, his writings were later taken up by the Nazis, who advocated a unified Germany.
C) A popular thinker during his lifetime, he ceased to have any influence after World War II.
D) While he glorified socialism, the West's individualistic artists made him one of their heroes.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

One of the major causes of late-nineteenth-century imperialism was

A) that the balance of power in Europe needed to be redressed.
B) that the industrialized nations required new markets.
C) the rise of India as a great industrial power.
D) a decline in surplus capital.

Question 5

Unlike Germany and France, Great Britain during the 1871-1914 period

A) was beset with violence at home.
B) saw the rise of militant socialist parties.
C) had more success reforming the living conditions of the poor.
D) witnessed the decline of its middle class.

Question 6

Jazz was influenced by

A) Gregorian chants.
B) baroque opera.
C) Indian sacred music.
D) West African and African-Caribbean rhythms.

Question 7

Which countries comprised the Triple Entente?

A) France, Great Britain, and Russia
B) Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy
C) Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia
D) France, Great Britain, and the United States

Question 8

The immediate cause of World War I was a quarrel between

A) Germany and Russia.
B) France and Germany.
C) Austria and Serbia.
D) Austria and Russia.

Question 9

Modernism was a cultural movement that

A) marked the end of the Middle Ages.
B) rejected both Greco-Roman classicism and the Judeo-Christian tradition.
C) began with the Renaissance.
D) shared the revolutionary ideas of Marxism.

Question 10

Comparing the First Industrial Revolution to the Second Industrial Revolution, which of the following is correct?

A) The pace of urbanization slowed in the Second Industrial Revolution.
B) The Second Industrial Revolution found no new forms of energy and still relied on coal and water.
C) Great Britain had no competitors and continued to be the leader in the Second Industrial Revolution.
D) Scientific research played a larger role in the Second Industrial Revolution than in the First Industrial Revolution.

Question 11

Between 1871 and 1914, most European nations

A) treated domestic and foreign affairs as equal in importance.
B) turned their attention exclusively to domestic matters.
C) shifted their interests from domestic to foreign affairs and the global economy.
D) dismantled their military machines.

Question 12

Early modernism's optimism about the future was reinforced by

A) a renewal of Christianity.
B) advances in science and technology.
C) the spread of Marxism.
D) an upsurge in the arts.

Question 13

Which of the following can be considered a social change that occurred between 1871 and 1914?

A) the passing of laws giving women the right to vote
B) the establishment of public school systems
C) the creation of a bill of rights for peasants in eastern European states
D) the founding of a social welfare system in Russia

Question 14

Early modernism was characterized by

A) an admiration for medieval thought and art.
B) a desire to reinvent the past through painting and music.
C) the needs of many artists and thinkers to identify with the new rich classes.
D) a yearning to move to an uncertain but exciting future.

Question 15

Life in the growing cities of the late nineteenth century

A) was much better for the working class than for the middle class.
B) moved at a slower pace than life in the country.
C) provided women new opportunities for jobs.
D) blurred the lines between the wealthy and the poor.

Question 16

Who developed a theory of a universal, collective unconscious?

A) Freud
B) Jung
C) Nietzsche
D) Émile Zola

Question 17

In the period 1871-1914, many Europeans moved to the cities because

A) urban jobs paid better than those in the country.
B) the cities promised free social benefits to their citizens.
C) city life was more spiritual than were isolated rural areas.
D) urban school systems were better than those in the countryside.

Question 18

What three major forces of the late nineteenth century laid the foundation for much of twentieth and twenty-first century history?

A) Christianity, feudalism, and manorialism
B) war, famine, and plague
C) imperialism, militarism, and nationalism
D) overpopulation, pollution, and class violence

Question 19

The city that epitomized modernism during this period was

A) Vienna.
B) Budapest.
C) Rome.
D) Prague.

Question 20

What was the most striking feature of expressionist music?

A) lyricism
B) atonality
C) word painting
D) pounding rhythms

Question 21

Niels Bohr

A) established the quantum theory of radiation.
B) proved that the Newtonian system was still valid.
C) explained the behavior of electrons at the subatomic level.
D) discovered X-rays.

Question 22

One example of expressionism in literature is

A) Chekhov's The Three Sisters.
B) Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
C) Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.
D) Strindberg's The Dream Play.

Question 23

Whose groundbreaking research was rediscovered by three researchers in 1900 and became the basis for the new science of genetics?

A) Planck's
B) Curie's
C) Bohr's
D) Mendel's

Question 24

Kafka's novel The Trial has which modernist theme?

A) a person brought to a tragic end for having broken the universe's moral code
B) a person overwhelmed by the spiritual forces of nature
C) a person victimized by forces beyond the individual human's control
D) a person forced to choose between conscience and the laws of the state

Question 25

The first scientist to win two Nobel Prizes for science was

A) Albert Einstein.
B) Madame Curie.
C) Max Planck.
D) Gregor Mendel.

Question 26

Ibsen's A Doll's House is written in which style?

A) naturalism
B) decadence
C) expressionism
D) realism

Question 27

Kate Chopin can be described as

A) one of the most important of the romantic authors.
B) a writer whose work reflected the trend away romanticism and toward realism and naturalism.
C) the last of the naturalistic writers.
D) a poetess who caught the meaning of nature in her verse.

Question 28

Max Planck is credited with

A) discovering X-rays.
B) establishing the quantum theory of radiation.
C) formulating the theory of dominant and recessive genes.
D) explaining the behavior of electrons at the subatomic level.

Question 29

Which of the following is characteristic of expressionist music?

A) music that is harmonious and soothing
B) an absence of a harmonious frame of reference
C) music that offers an idealized view of the world
D) a text unrelated to the musical sounds

Question 30

Among the leading painters of postimpressionism were

A) Monet, Renoir, and Morisot.
B) Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh.
C) Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.
D) Courbet, Manet, and Millet.

Question 31

The impressionists were influenced by the

A) neoclassical painters.
B) baroque painters.
C) pre-Raphaelites.
D) romantic painters.

Question 32

Zola's novels express naturalism by

A) being set in the countryside.
B) ignoring details and focusing on impressions.
C) exploring serious social issues.
D) dealing with the power of nature.

Question 33

Renoir's painting style can be described as

A) pioneering the tradition that led to cubism.
B) moving beyond impressionism to a greater concentration on form.
C) experimenting constantly with various styles.
D) restoring classical principles to art.

Question 34

Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise

A) was embraced by the critics as a great work of art.
B) helped bring him to lead the impressionist cause.
C) caused him to change his style of painting.
D) immediately influenced the traditional art schools in France.

Question 35

One of the results of the impressionist movement was that

A) a single international style now emerged.
B) content now became more important than form in art.
C) myth, literature, and history became the subjects of art.
D) art was freed to move in many directions.

Question 36

One example of decadence in literature is

A) Kafka's The Trial.
B) Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
C) Ibsen's A Doll's House.
D) Zola's Germinal.

Question 37

Impressionist painters were innovative because they

A) painted out of doors, not in their studios.
B) created the first abstract paintings.
C) were concerned with precise forms and lines in their works.
D) worked from many carefully drawn sketches and plans.

Question 38

Freud thought that human personality was

A) shaped by the environment and therefore could be altered by changing the situation.
B) determined by what God had implanted in each person and was thus unchangeable.
C) the product of an inescapable struggle between inborn instincts and a culturally-created conscience.
D) free and spontaneous and could change at will.

Question 39

The hero in Huysmans's Against Nature expresses what decadence means by

A) cultivating unfashionable and exotic pleasures.
B) embracing materialism.
C) escaping to a tropical island.
D) becoming a devotee of mass culture.

Question 40

The three styles of early modernist literature are

A) realism, impressionism, and romanticism.
B) naturalism, decadence, and expressionism.
C) functionalism, organicism, and constructivism.
D) fauvism, cubism, and surrealism.

Question 41

What were the guiding purposes and characteristics of impressionism? Use the paintings of Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, and Morisot (choose two) as the basis of your discussion.

Question 42

Describe the nature of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, and briefly identify which European nations claimed what territories around the world.

Question 43

What is meant by the Second Industrial Revolution? How did it affect European society?

Question 44

What ideologies began challenging enlightenment ideals after 1871? Why did they appear on the scene?

Question 45

What advancements were made in biology, chemistry, and physics between 1871 and 1914? Identify the major participants and their contributions.

Question 46

Discuss the influence of Nietzsche and Freud on the modernist movement, giving specific examples of their impact on arts and ideas.

Question 47

Which impressionist artist was the first to imitate ukiyo-e prints?

A) Claude Monet
B) Auguste Renoir
C) Mary Cassatt
D) Berthe Morisot

Question 48

Cézanne's paintings pointed the way to the twentieth century's

A) primitivist art.
B) abstract art.
C) expressionist art.
D) surrealist art.

Question 49

In van Gogh's work, the term expressionism meant

A) using the work to serve as a vehicle for his private emotions.
B) finding a painterly vocabulary to symbolize music.
C) capturing the fleeting play of light on humans and objects.
D) working with geometric shapes.

Question 50

What beliefs of Western thought were questioned by the early modernists? How were these doubts manifested in literature and the arts?

Question 51

Van Gogh launched the postimpressionist trend in painting called

A) abstraction.
B) fantasy.
C) expressionism.
D) primitivism.

Question 52

What is meant by postimpressionism? Who were its leading painters? Describe how the works of Seurat, van Gogh, Gauguin, or Cézanne expressed this style.

Question 53

Discuss early modernist literature, focusing on the styles of naturalism, decadence, and expressionism. Identify at least two representative works from each style in your essay.

Question 54

What forces were leading to war during the uneasy peace between 1871 and 1914? How did the period's culture reflect this ambiguous time?

Question 55

What were the patterns of industrial growth in central and eastern Europe, and how did the countries in those regions deal with the economic changes between 1871 and 1914?

Question 56

Which architect coined the phrase "form follows function"?

A) Louis Sullivan
B) Frank Lloyd Wright
C) Auguste Rodin
D) Georges Seurat
Essay Questions