Dr. Prinsky

Humn. 2001

Test on Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince (Allan Gilbert translation)

(Remember to look up words or terms you don’t know in the collegiate dictionary you purchased as one of your required textbooks in Engl. 1101. In a few instances, an unabridged dictionary or recourse to the Internet may be necessary to look up certain rhetorical or stylistic terms.)

1. Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is an example of the national language and literature of: (a) Germany (b) France (c) Spain (d) Italy (e) Portugal

2. The Prince was written in: (a) 1483 (b) 1513 (c) 1543 (d) 1573 (e) 1603

3. The Prince was published in: (a) 1502 (b) 1532 (c) 1562 (d) 1592 (e) 1622

4. Machiavelli was how old when The Prince was published: (a) 24 (b) 34 (c) 44 (d) 54 (e) none of the above

5. One way some privileged readers became aware of writings in the Renaissance era (including Machiavelli’s The Prince), besides the all-important publication through the printing press, was: (a) circulation of handwritten copies (b) memorization and oral recitation by professional bards (c) synopses published by literary critics in magazines of the time (d) posting of printed sheets on various central kiosk sites

6. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the number of translations of Machiavelli’s The Prince into English was about: (a) ten (b) fifteen (c) twenty (d) twenty-five

7. The overall genre of Machiavelli's The Prince is: (a) prose fiction (b) poetry (c) drama (d) nonfiction prose

8. According to Pasinetti in his NAWM introduction, the special literary genre of The Prince is: (a) epic (b) tragic (c) pedagogical (d) allegorical

9. What Machiavelli and Queen Elizabeth I meant when they used the word “prince” was: (a) the royal heir to the present monarch (b) an outstandingly virtuous person (c) the reigning monarch (d) an individual with noble compassion

10. Machiavelli and Queen Elizabeth I (and others) who used the word “prince” were aware of its meaning derived from the Latin word: (a) principium (b) princeps (c) principalitas (d) princeton (e) princesse (f) Prinsky

11. As explained in Pasinetti's NAWM introduction and class lecture, the overall aim of The Prince could be classified as: (a) idealistic, in facilitating the unification of Italy (b) partisan, in helping to advance the career of dedicatee Lorenzo de Medici (c) theoretical, in discussing various theories of human nature and behavior (d) religious, in advocating the need for church rule of the state

12. A very evident and meaningful stylistic device in the first two paragraphs of Ch. 15 (“On the Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, Are Praised or Censured”), as well as elsewhere in the work, is: (a) polysyndeton (b) chiasmus (c) antithesis (d) epistrophe

13. The recurrent use of the stylistic device in The Prince, referred to in the immediately preceding question, is related to all of the following except which one? (a) the Machiavellian conception of intrinsic opposites (b) symmetry in Renaissance art (c) necessity of choosing between the lesser of two evils (d) Machiavelli's indecisiveness

14. The recurrent use of the stylistic device in The Prince, referred to in the immediately preceding two questions, is related to all the following except which one: (a) contrast of the theoretical and actual (b) continual weighing of matters (c) ideal but impossible inclusiveness (d) bias of Southern Italy against the North (e) differing or opposing perceptions by people of the same thing

15. As pointed out by P.M. Pasinetti in his NAWM introduction, another artistic device used by Machiavelli, in evidence in Chapter 16 is: (a) fraternization (b) dramatization (c) allegorization (d) poeticization (e) hypostatization

16. The ultimate purpose or aim of The Prince, as embodied in its last chapter, Ch. 26, is most closely related to which trait of Renaissance art: (a) repose (b) clarity of line (c) three-dimensionality (d) beauty of the natural world

17. Machiavelli tends to stress the importance in human affairs of: (a) religion (b) amorous passion (c) money (d) official laws

18. In his repeated use of such words as thought and considered in the NAWM selections from The Prince (e.g., in Chs. 15-18), Machiavelli shows a very modern awareness of: (a) the need for experts in government (b) intellectuals’ biases or hidden agendas (c) the value of the writings of ancient Greek philosophers (d) image, (others') perception, and PR

19. Machiavelli’s prose style in the original language is known (as indicated by translator-scholars) for all of the following except which one: (a) some figurative language (b) absolute avoidance of short, pithy sentences (c) long sentences (d) occasional slang (e) occasional use of Latin words

20. In the first two paragraphs of Ch. 15 ("On the Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, Are Praised or Censured"), two main Classical writers alluded to are: (a) Plato and Aristotle (b) Homer and Vergil (c) Aeschylus and Sophocles (d) Herodotus and Thucydides (e) Sophocles and Euripides (f) Homer and Jethro

21. In the first two paragraphs of Ch. 15, Machiavelli's attitude toward the Classical writers he alludes to, is mainly: (a) subservient (b) amused (c) admiring (d) critical

22. In Ch. 15, the length of the sentence “To wit, one man is thought . . . so on” (sentence 2, par. 2) helps convey: (a) the grandeur of humanity (b) the time involved in the evolution of human intelligence (c) the relative unimportance of human beings in God’s creation (d) the shortest distance between two points being a straight line (e) the pervasiveness of opposites and interpretations in humanity or society

23. In Ch. 16 ("On Liberality and Parsimony") (and elsewhere in the NAWM selections), Machiavelli's stylistic trait of repeatedly using such words as hence, so, since, therefore, and then – particularly at the beginning of sentences – is called: (a) metaphor (b) oxymoron (c) hypotaxis (d) anaphora

24. The stylistic trait referred to in the immediately preceding question, helps convey Machiavelli's emphasis on: (a) passion (b) imagination (c) analysis (d) spirituality

25. On the side of the Classical tradition, and against the emphasis of the Middle Ages, Machiavelli, in the stylistic device referred to in the preceding two questions, and with other elements of his work, stresses: (a) intellect (b) loyalty (c) democracy (d) faith (e) love

26. Machiavelli asserts in Ch. 16 that Pope Julius II, the King of France, the King of Spain, and Julius Caesar illustrate: (a) the need for incessant liberality (b) apparent liberality needing to be counterbalanced by stinginess (c) the need for incessant stinginess (d) the near irrelevance of economics to political power

27. In Ch. 17 of The Prince ("On Cruelty and Pity"), several definitions of humanity ("man") that are given exemplify Machiavelli's: (a) religiosity (b) Renaissance optimism (c) pessimism (d) Classical idealism

28. In Ch. 17, when discussing the Prince's alternatives between harming a subject's (citizen's) father or something else relating to the subject (citizen), Machiavelli's attitude, relating to the immediately preceding question in this test, is based on the subject's (citizen's) value of: (a) duty (b) religiosity (c) competition (d) materialism

29. In Ch. 17, Machiavelli’s discussion assumes that a state’s political head must also be: (a) military head (b) intellectual theorist (c) societal lawgiver (d) leading moral example

30. In Ch. 17, Machiavelli, as usual, combines: (a) reference to both Dante and Boccaccio (b) sociology and anthropology (c) Greco-Roman and contemporary examples (d) medieval faith in the Church and Renaissance emphasis on the sciences

31. In Ch. 17, Machiavelli cites Scipio as an examplar of a leader, with reference to the recommendations in the chapter, of primarily: (a) what to do (b) both what to do and what not to do (c) what not to do (d) neither what to do or what not to do

32. In Ch. 18 of The Prince ("In What Way Faith Should Be Kept by Princes"), Machiavelli stresses and repeats what key word stressed and repeated in Shakespeare's Hamlet, from its opening onwards: (a) honor (b) seems (c) bondage (d) reaches

33. In Ch. 18, Machiavelli’s simile or analogy, along with allusion, of how Chiron represents what the prince should combine (par. 2) recalls what cantos in Dante’s Inferno: (a) 32-33 (b) 21-22 (c) 17-18 (d) 12-13 (e) 5-6

34. In Ch. 18, for Machiavelli, Chiron represents the combination of all the following except which one: (a) Christian and scientific values (b) reason and lack of reason (c) animal and human (d) morality and amorality

35. In Ch. 18, Machiavelli’s attitude toward the prince’s truly having religion (e.g., par. 5) could be summarized as: (a) undesirable and unnecessary (b) desirable but not necessary (c) desirable and necessary (d) more relevant in Catholic than in Protestant states

36. In Ch. 25 ("The Power of Fortune"), Machiavelli in his detailed discussion of the power of Fortune and potential countermeasures (par. 3) uses what could best be characterized (with reference to par. 3) as: (a) metaphor (b) simile (c) extended analogy (d) understatement (e) mixed metaphor

37. An underlying concept in the figure of speech referred to in the immediately preceding question is the conflict between: (a) Nature and technology (b) good and evil (c) individual and group (d) Church and state

38. With reference to the figure of speech referred to in the two immediately preceding questions, Machiavelli’s implied values and line of thinking could best be characterized as: (a) Hindu (b) Judaic (c) Greco-Roman (d) Christian

40. A main reason for Machiavelli's attitude toward the longterm success of the Prince, referred to in the immediately preceding question, is a dominant human temperamental and behavioral trait of: (a) compassion (b) rigidity (c) inconsistency (d) flexibility

41. In Ch. 26, the last chapter of The Prince, the various precedents and symbols he cites or alludes to as favorable to a new Prince in the opening paragraphs show Machiavelli's: (a) blend of the Classical and (Judeo-)Christian (b) somewhat narrow focus on only Italian historical examples (c) exclusive secularity (d) satire (e) pragmatism

42. One stylistic device that Machiavelli uses to achieve the aim referred to in the immediately preceding question is: (a) catachresis (b) anacoluthon (c) sentence fragments (d) asyndeton (e) long sentences