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Quiz sample answer
1: What are the main features of a specific piece of philosophical or critical writing? DO NOT repeat material you have used in the group project.
The best way to answer this question is to define the general features of a type of writing, and then provide an example. This is an exam, so you cannot go into great detail with the example, but some sort of reference to a specific text is a good idea – it gives your answer focus. In fact, if you do not provide a specific example, you are likely to lose some points because your response will be too general.
Example of Socrates in the “Ion”
The Socratic dialogues were published by Plato, a student of Socrates, and the second of the major classical Greek philosophers. The form of the dialogues is literary; they represent a conversation between Socrates and at least one other person. These encounters may have actually taken place, but even so the form is at least a fictionalized version of events. This is important becomes it means that right from the outset, philosophical enquiry is linked with literary techniques. According to Plato, Socrates was always striving to enquire after higher truth, which he assumed to precede our inferior world in a hierarchy. This can be seen in the Ion when he discusses how a poet is able directly to represent an ideal world that is not normally available to us. Socrates solves this issue by taking the poets literally – they are indeed inspired, possessed by the Muse, to fulfil their function. This representation of a higher reality is the birth of idealist philosophy.
Comments on sample answer: you will have seen that I do not give a very precise reference or quotation from this dialogue. I give a rough idea of the cultural and historical moment of the Socratic dialogues, and then a definition of its elements. The example of the Ion itself is in the form of a short description.
2: Provide an example of what happens when a culture comes into contact with ONE aspect of another culture’s heritage. Choose from architecture; philosophical/critical writing; or myth and folklore.
This question allows you to choose ONE of the three main areas covered in the course, with an emphasis on a cultural encounter. So, choose an example that shows a culture engaging with something from somewhere else. As with the other answers, an example gives your response a focus; not to include at least a short reference to a specific instance will probably cost you marks.
Example of the suppression of Scottish Gaelic culture
The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 almost succeeded in replacing the Hanoverian dynasty on the throne of the recently instituted United Kingdom, which came into existence as a result of the unification of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707. Both countries had a shared monarch ever since the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England as well in 1603, but they remained separate countries. The direct line of the House of Stuart to which James belonged was forcibly removed from the British mainland in the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, but their possible return remained a potent force in British politics, especially in Scotland. Their final defeat resulted in a brutal repression of the culture of the Scots highlands and islands in an attempt to stamp out any dissension once and for all. Traditional highland dress was banned and the language was made illegal. This whole situation represented an attempt by an English-speaking elite to remove the threat posed by an alternative culture. That governing elite was comprised of both Scottish and English elements.
Comments on sample answer: you don’t have to discuss something as combative as this. Cultural encounters can be peaceful too. This one fits into the category of myth and folklore because of the importance of the folk culture of the Scottish highlands and islands. I chose this as an example because it shows how you can include historical material in an exam answer. The precise reference to an aspect to another culture comes with the short example of clothing and language.
3: Discuss an example of what happens when a culture looks back on an aspect of its past. Choose from architecture; philosophical/critical writing; or myth and folklore.
This question allows you to choose ONE of the three main areas covered in the course, with an emphasis on cultural difference or change. So, choose an example that shows a culture engaging with previous elements from its own heritage. As with the other answers, an example gives your response a focus; not to include at least a short reference to a specific instance will probably cost you marks.
Example of the Shah-nameh
The Shah-nameh, or Book of the Kings, is the Iranian national epic and was composed over a period of roughly thirty years by Fardusi in the decades around the beginning of the tenth century CE. It covers the mythic and legendary history of the Iranian kings up to the emergence of Islam, and so contains much earlier material that has been rewritten for a later readership. This means that a great deal of the time, especially in the parts of the poem that deal with the earliest mythic history, Fardusi has to include elements that are not Islamic in a way that makes some sense to his contemporaries. For example, the great adversary Ahriman is not really explained in purely Zoroastrian terms, but more as a principle of opposition to the righteous Shahs; he even has a race of servitors, the Divs, who initially seem to be almost a form of demon, but who become a kind of rival civilization as the poem progresses. This kind of revisioning of an earlier phase of culture and belief shows the much later poet reworking the myths for his own culture.
Comments on sample answer: I decided to use this one rather than something like, say, the colonial encounters between European settlers and the indigenous North American peoples because I wanted to show you how you could relate a cultural moment to much earlier parts of its own history and heritage. As with all three earlier questions, this one gives a definition and an example; it’s just that this one is about change and difference in one of the three main topics of the course.
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