World Lit: Prose – Flashcards
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In prose, the ____ tells the topic
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plot; plot = cause and effect
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Herodotus - when?
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484-425 BC
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What is the significance of Herodotus' time frame?
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it was the beginning of democracy
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Herodotus - where?
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Turkey/Greece
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What is Herodotus frequently referred to as? Why?
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the father of history; no one had ever really written the truth about events down - so much had happened in Greece, he felt he had to write them down
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How is his history different from other ancient "history"?
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leaves out the gods - uses human logic
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When could it be said that the world of myth ends?
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after the Trojan War
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How does Herodotus claim the Trojan War started?
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...
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Who is Solon?
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law maker, very wise; he wrote the laws for Greece and then he left (they had to use his laws for ten years before they could change them without his approval)
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Who is Croesus?
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king of the Lydian empire; filthy rich
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What does Croesus want from Solon?
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for Solon to tell him that he is the happiest man in the world; he continues to ask him who the happiest person on earth is
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When asked by Croesus who the happiest person is, what does Solon say in response?
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he gives him the names of people who were dead - people who had died good and noble deaths
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How does Croesus die?
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nemesis - divine retribution
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In the debate about political reforms, what did Otanes promote?
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democracy - if a king is really bad then non one can stop him
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What political position did Megabyzus take?
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oligarchy - those that have the most knowledge should be in power, those who use authority for the best
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What position did Darius take?
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monarchy
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In the debate on political reforms, who "won"?
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Darius - he became the king
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Which author just wanted to write down his thoughts and wrote mostly about himself?
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Montaigne
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Montaigne - when?
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1533 - 1592
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Who was still considered to be a Renaissance figure?
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Montaigne
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Montaigne - where?
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France
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This author had a bad memory and frequently misquoted
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Montaigne
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involved in politics because he never tools sides
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Montaigne
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What was Montaigne's education like?
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he was tutored from a young age by a German; his father wanted him to be educated because he was not
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What was Montaigne's native language?
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Latin
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had to leave his world travels because he was elected to be mayor of Bordeaux
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Montaigne
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What was the big event between the time of Petrarch to Montaigne?
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Black Death
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What was one of the most influential events going on at the time of Montaigne?
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Columbus finding the New World in 1492
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What invention made a huge impact during around the time of the Renaissance?
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between the beginning of the Renaissance (1300s) the printing press was created
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What was one of the most heated debates going on that Montaigne frequently had to mediate between?
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Protestant verses Catholic
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What does essais mean?
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trials or attempts
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Who was Marie de Gornay?
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became like a daughter to Montaigne - she went to his conventions and published the last edition of his works where she went through and added the marginal notes
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Why does Montaigne quote so frequently?
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related his point; to show his familiarity with the works
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Claimed that you have to keep your mind in use or it will waste away
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Montaigne
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Compared the mind to a wandering light
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Virgil - but used in Montaigne's works
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What is the format for Montaigne's essays?
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gives the subject/idea, then supports it with a quote, then lastly writes personal opinion
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Boccaccio is known for what work?
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the Decameron
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Boccaccio - when?
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1313 - 1375
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Brought the short stories to Europe
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Boccaccio
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Was going to burn his writings because the Church told him to, but then this person told him not to
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Boccaccio; Petrarch
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What does "Decameron" mean?
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10 days, 10 stories = 100 stories
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What work is the Decameron very similar to?
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the Canterbury tales - Chaucer
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What is the structure of the Decameron called?
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frame - meaning that it is stories within a story
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What is the frame of the Decameron?
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7 people fleeing from the Plague
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What was significant about the Plague?
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it leveled the playing field and showed no discrimination - it attacked all classes of people
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Where were the stories of the Decameron told? Why is this significant?
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told in a garden - outside the Church so it is not considered blasphemy; Eden - creates a new world almost
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histor
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wise man
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What is Herodotus' greatest work?
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The Histories
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What does the Histories recount?
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war between Greeks and Persians
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Who are Io and Europa?
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...
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Hellespont
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straight dividing Europe and Asia
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Artemisia
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female admiral who was victorious in Persia versus Athenians
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ethnographies
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descriptions of ethnicities
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What is the portrit of the Greeks we see?
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opposition between slavery and freedom
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Where are the Phoenecians from?
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the Red Sea
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Hellas
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most important place in the land
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daughter of Inachus (Persia); taken by Phoenecian sailors to Egypt
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Io
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Greeks who carried off Europa (daughter of Phoenecian king)
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Cretans
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abducted by the Greeks
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Medea
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son of Priam; inspired by abduction stories to take Helen of Greece
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Paris
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Who made the statement that "no woman is abducted if she does not wish to be"
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Herodotus
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What was the view of the Persians that first made them the enemies of Greece?
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capture of Troy
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Sardis
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capital of Lydian empire; ruled by Croesus
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Solon's laws were for what city-state
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Athens
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What is the point of Solon's stories?
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better to be dead than alive - die happy
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recipe for happiness
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greatest wealth that stays until the end; die a peaceful death
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attempted to seize power of Greece
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the Magi
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What type of govt causes civil wars?
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oligarchy
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Becomes king of Persia
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Darius
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Where and what did Montaigne originally study?
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College de Guienne in Bordeaux; law
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magistrate in the Parliament of Bordeaux
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Montaigne
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Que scay-je?
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What do I know? - Montaigne's fav quote
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Who was Montaigne's compatriot and what did he believe?
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Rabelais; humanist training that addressed the whole man
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had great impact on Montaigne and his thinking
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Socrates
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"we are poor, puny creatures" - who?
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Socrates
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shortest essay written by Montaigne
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Of Idleness
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lots of physical ailments - kidney stones send him to Italy and Germany in search of spas
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Montaigne
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this writing was a result of Montaigne's search for health remedy
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Travel Journal
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Greatly influenced by Montaigne as being obsessive and self-occupied
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Blaise Pascal
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Etienne de la Boetie
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Montaigne's soulmate from school - died tragically of the plague; his writings came about after this as he was trying to cope with their own idleness
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Marie de Gornay
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pitied Montaigne; became like his adoptive daughter and literary executrix
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What all did Marie de Gornay do for Montaigne?
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after his death, she transcribed his marginalia, attended the Essays, and oversaw the publication of postumous version in 1592
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mayor of Bordeaux
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Montaigne
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In this essay, it is claimed that the mind must be bridled or else it will throw itself in disorder
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Of Idleness
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Why did Montaigne write?
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he wrote down his thoughts in hopes of bridling them and making sense of his imagination
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What are "vulgar opinions"
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the opinion of the common people
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What does the New World represent?
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the greediness of Europeans
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Atlantis
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as Montaigne is trying to sort through what the New World could possibly be, he mentions the thought that it could possibly be the lost Atlantis
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King Pyrrhus
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...
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Called all foreign nations barbarians
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Greeks
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"I do not know what barbarians these are but the formation of this army I see is not at all barbarous"
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King Pyrrhus about the Romans
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Villegaignon
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landed in Brazil and led expedition
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The Calvinist sympathizers that went along with Villegaignon
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Jean de Lery and Andre Thevet
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claimed that simple people do not have the ability to exaggerate
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Montaigne
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Who is Lycurgus and why is he mentioned?
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legendary Spartan legislator who radically reformed the city's laws; mentioned because Montaigne wished he could see how the Brazilians were uncorrupted without laws
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Mentioned in "Of Cannibals" because in the Republic he talks about the ideal society - this Brazilian group would've been it
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Plato
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What are the two things that the old men preach - their only set of laws
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to have valor against the enemy; and to love their wives
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In Brazil, what happened if one of the "prophets" prophecied wrongly?
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chopped up into a thousand pieces
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term used to describe the ppls from the N who practiced barbaric customs like flaying/scalping the enemy; mentioned by Herodotus
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Scythians
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What did the cannibals do after they defeated a tribe in war?
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bring back the head of the man they killed
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Who are "our ancestors" that Montaigne refers to?
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the Galls
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Why does Montaigne say that the Europeans are even more barbaric?
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because they do worse things like have men eaten alive all over the pretext of religion
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What do the cannibals want out of war?
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Not more territory, but merely valor - they only want the prisoner to admit that they won and they have control now
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Why do the wives encourage their husbands to have more wives in the cannibal culture?
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it shows that their husband has great valor
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Whose writing does Montaigne compare the song of the cannibals to? Who is this person??
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Anacreon - 6th century Greek poet
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City that the three Brazilians came to?
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Rouen
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What are the two things Montaigne mentioned that the Brazilians said about Europe?
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grown men bowing down and taking orders from a child, and also the fact that the poor men had not risen up to take revenge on the fat and happy men of society
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"men fresh sprung from the gods"
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Seneca
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novella
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short story
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Boccaccio - where?
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Florence
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What did Boccaccio originally study?
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banking/law
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joined the intellectual community of King Robert of Anjou
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Boccaccio
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Boccaccio wrote all his books in what language?
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the vernacular - Italian
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Became the center of the humanist movement
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Boccaccio's house in Certaldo just south of Florence
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Unravelled the obscurities of ancient texts - one of the first Italians to learn Greek
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Boccaccio
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Made special comment to women
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Boccaccio
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De mulieribus claris
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collection of biographies of notable classical women - Montaigne wrote it dedicated to a Florentine woman - Andrea Acciaiuoli
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Loved Dante - brought flowers to his daughter
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Boccaccio
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Boccaccio's careful structure was like whose?
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Dante
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What was Dante's view on afterlife and why?
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did not believe in one - thought that death was final; probably because of the Black Death
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What other writings is the Decameron similar to?
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1001 Nights, Canterbury Tales
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How does Boccaccio explain sorrow?
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tells women that we have to go through the sorrow to appreciate the joy
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gavocciolo
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little goiters in the local dialect - first symptom of the plague
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How did the plague affect Europe morally?
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all the laws of God were forgotten - men could do what they pleased because they had no one to stop them
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What percent of Florence pop was killed?
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1/2 (100,000 ppl initially)
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Santa Maria Novella
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the church where the 7 women met up; church haas built in the 13th c in the outskirts of Florence by Dominicans
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What did the names of the women signify?
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had mythological weight- Filomena - nightingale; Lauretta - associated with the laurel; Elissa - another name for Dido (queen of Carthage in the Aeneid)
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paternosters
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our fathers, customary prayers
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Who is the one who suggests they need to preserve their lives?
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Pampinea
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Names of the three men
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Pamphilo, Filostrato, Dioneo
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Decameron - this guy is described as the more attractive and witty guy over the other two men
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Dioneo
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Who is elected first in the Decameron and what decision does she make?
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Pamphinea - comes up with the story idea
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Saladin
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in the three rings story. sultan of Syria and Egypt in 12th century; wealthy but he loses all his money so he has to go and ask Melchizedek for a loan
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Melchizedek
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3 rings - Jew who loans money to Saladin; he tells the story about the three rings when Saladin is trying to trip him up about which religion is true
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Who tells the "Locking the Devil Up in Hell" story?
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Dioneo
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Alibech
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Locking the devil up - she is the young innocent girl who goes out to find out how she can "serve the lord"
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Rustico
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locking the devil up - the young monk who takes advantage of Alibech by telling her sex is serving the lord
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Tofano
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Woman who locked her husband out - he is the husband who was so jealous of his wife; ends up getting fooled and locked out his house so that he looks like the bad guy
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Monna Ghita
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woman who locked her husband out - she the woman whose husband was so jealous of her so she began to get him drunk so that she could cheat on him. she ends up tricking him in the end into thinking that she killed herself and locks him out of the house so that he looks like the bad guy
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Neerbal
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locking the devil up - the man who comes to retrieve Alibech to marry her after her family dies and leaves the whole estate for her
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List the different types of prose
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essay, history, fiction (short stories), textbooks, philosophy, science
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Griselda
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the patient griselda - the young poor woman who is taken by the king
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made to stand naked in front of everybody
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Griselda
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Gualteri
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patient griselda - doesn't want to marry because he is afraid he won't find someone for his temperament
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tricks his wife into thinking he murdered her children and sorts of hainous tricks so that he could test her obedience to him
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Gualterri
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Giannucole
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father the Griselda
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claimed that death is when you can tell the truth about someone - whether their reasonings come from the heart or from the head
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Seneca
