World Literature, Philosophy, and Religion

Question 1

Aeschylus (es-kuh-luhs)

Answer 1

An ancient Greek poet,
often considered the founder of tragedy. He was the
first of the three great Greek authors of tragedies, preceding
Sophocles and Euripides.

Question 2

Aesop’s fables (ee-suhps, ee-sops)

Answer 2

A group of stories
thought to have been written by Aesop, a Greek
storyteller. The main characters in these stories are
animals, and each story demonstrates a moral lesson.
(See also “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Fox and
the Grapes,” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.”)

Question 3

aesthetics

Answer 3

The branch of philosophy concerned
with the nature of art and with judgments concerning
beauty. “What is art?” and “What do we mean when we
say something is beautiful?” are two questions often
asked by aestheticians.
✥ The term aesthete is sometimes used negatively to
describe someone whose pursuit of beauty is excessive
or appears phony.

Question 4

agnosticism (ag-nos-tuh-siz-uhm)

Answer 4

A denial of
knowledge about whether there is or is not a God. An
agnostic insists that it is impossible to prove that there
is no God and impossible to prove that there is one.
(Compare atheism.)

Question 5

Aladdin’s lamp

Answer 5

The subject of a story in the Arabian
Nights. The young boy Aladdin acquires a magic
lamp that, when rubbed, brings forth a genie, who
grants Aladdin’s wishes to win the hand of the sultan’s
daughter and to build a palace. The magician who first
gave Aladdin the lamp steals it back, but Aladdin regains
the lamp, and he and the sultan’s daughter live
happily ever after.

Question 6

Ali Baba (ah-lee bah-buh, al-ee bab-uh)

Answer 6

The title
character in “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” a
story from the Arabian Nights. Ali Baba gains the
treasure of the thieves, which they keep in a cave with a
magical entrance.
✥ Ali Baba opens the door of the thieves’ cave with
the magical password “Open, sesame.”

Question 7

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Answer 7

A German
novel by Erich Maria Remarque about the horrors
and futility of World War I.
✥ A film adaptation of the novel appeared in 1930
Widely considered the first major antiwar motion picture
of the modern era, it won the Academy Award for best picture. A television adaptation of the film
aired in 1979.

Question 8

Allah

Answer 8

The name for God, the Supreme Being, in the
Arabic language; the common name for God in Islam.

Question 9

A.M.E. Church​

Answer 9

The African Methodist Episcopal
Church; an important denomination for African-
Americans, founded in 1816 by the ex-slave and
preacher Richard Allen. It is noted for education and
philanthropy in the black community. An offshoot is
the C.M.E. (Christian Methodist Episcopal) Church.

Question 10

Amish (ah-mish, am-ish, ay-mish)

Answer 10

A group of
Protestants who broke away from the Mennonites
in the seventeenth century. The Amish live in close
communities, farm for a living, and do without many
modern conveniences, such as telephones, automobiles,
and tractor-drawn plows.
✥ Some of the Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish.

Question 11

Andersen, Hans Christian

Answer 11

A nineteenth-century
Danish author noted for his fairy tales, including “The
Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Princess and the
Pea,” and “The Ugly Duckling.”

Question 12

Anglican Communion

Answer 12

The group of Christian
churches historically based in the Church of England.
Anglicans combine Catholic and Protestant
elements in their teaching, worship, and government.
They have bishops, for example, but do not accept the
authority of the pope.
✥ Nearly all of the churches of the Anglican Communion
are in countries that once were possessions of
Britain, including the United States, where the Anglican
Communion is represented by the Protestant
Episcopal Church. Anglicans use the Book of Common
Prayer in worship.

Question 13

animism (an-uh-miz-uhm)

Answer 13

The belief that natural
objects such as rivers and rocks possess a soul or spirit.
Anima is the Latin word for “soul” or “spirit.” (See
voodoo.)

Question 14

Anna Karenina (an-uh kuh-ren-uh-nuh) (1873–
1876)

Answer 14

A novel by Leo Tolstoy; the title character
enters a tragic adulterous affair and commits suicide
by throwing herself under a train.
✥ Anna Karenina begins with the famous sentence
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.”

Question 15

anthropomorphism (an-thruh-puh-mawr-fiz-uhm)

Answer 15

The attributing of human characteristics and purposes
to inanimate objects, animals, plants, or other natural
phenomena, or to God. To describe a rushing river as
“angry” is to anthropomorphize it.

Question 16

Antigone (an-tig-uh-nee)

Answer 16

A tragedy by Sophocles.
It concerns the punishment of Antigone for
burying her brother, an act that was forbidden because
he had rebelled against his own city. Antigone argues
that the burial is required by divine law as opposed to
human law.

Question 17

Aquinas, Thomas

Answer 17

A thirteenth-century Italian priest
and philosopher who became the most influential
theologian of the Middle Ages. Aquinas, a saint of the
Roman Catholic Church, sought to reconcile faith
and reason by showing that elements of the philosophy
of Aristotle were compatible with Christianity.
His greatest work is the Summa Theologica.

Question 18

Arabian Nights

Answer 18

A famous collection of Persian, Indian,
and Arabian folktales. Supposedly, the legendary
Scheherazade told these stories to her husband the
sultan, a different tale every night for 1001 days; therefore,
the collection is sometimes called The Thousand
and One Nights. The Arabian Nights includes the stories
of familiar characters such as Aladdin and Ali
Baba.

Question 19

Aristophanes (ar-i-stof-uh-neez)

Answer 19

An ancient Greek
dramatist, the author of such comedies as The Clouds
and Lysistrata.

Question 20

Aristotle (ar-uh-stot-l)

Answer 20

One of the greatest ancient
Greek philosophers, with a large influence on subsequent
Western thought. Aristotle was a student of
Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great. He disagreed
with Plato over the existence of ideal Forms and
believed that form and matter are always joined. Aristotle’s
many books include Rhetoric, the Poetics, the
Metaphysics, and the Politics.

Question 21

Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)

Answer 21

A novel by
Jules Verne about a fictional journey around the
world made in 1872 by an Englishman, Phileas Fogg,
and his French servant. Fogg bets other members of his
club that he can circle the world in eighty days.
✥ The novel was adapted for a popular Academy
Award–winning film in 1956.

Question 22

asceticism (uh-set-uh-siz-uhm)

Answer 22

An austere, simple
way of life in which persons renounce material pleasures
and devote their energy to moral or religious purpose.

Question 23

Ash Wednesday

Answer 23

The seventh Wednesday before
Easter; the first day of Lent for most Christians; the
day after “Fat Tuesday,” or Mardi Gras. It is frequently
observed as a day of fasting and repentance for
sin. In some churches, ashes are placed on the foreheads
of worshipers on Ash Wednesday as a reminder
of their mortality. The words of God to Adam in the
Bible are often used in the ceremony: “Dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Question 24

Assemblies of God

Answer 24

A charismatic Protestant denomination
with about two million members in the
United States.

Question 25

atheism (ay-thee-iz-uhm)

Answer 25

Denial that there is a
God. (Compare agnosticism.)

Question 26

Augustine (aw-guh-steen, aw-gus-tin)

Answer 26

An important
teacher in the Christian church, who lived in
the fourth and fifth centuries. After a dramatic conversion
to Christianity, Augustine became a bishop. He
is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. His
works include The City of God and his autobiography,
Confessions.

Question 27

avatar (av-uh-tahr)

Answer 27

In Hinduism, a god made visibly
present, especially in a human form. The Buddha
is considered an avatar of the god Vishnu.
✥ By extension, an “avatar” is any new embodiment
of an old idea.