1.Look at The Starry Night in Fiero. What is the mood of the piece? Gloomy? Festive? Something else? You decide. Define the mood and state why you think it is so.
2.Name a movie you’ve seen that takes place in the 1800’s. In that film, how did the movie makers balance the need to tell a good story vs. the need to be historically accurate? Movie titles can’t be repeated in original posts.
3.Read from Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” in Fiero. As per Fiero, “How does he [Raskolnikov] justify the transgressions of the “lords of the future”? What is your assessment of this justification?
4.Fiero writes “realist composers rejected the heroic characters of Romantic grand opera and presented the problems and conflicts of people in familiar and everyday…situations.” Write of an opera not in Fiero following this path.
5.Fiero writes “…Manet (1832-1883) presented an unsettling challenge to the world of art.” How so? What is another painter from the 1800s who presented an unsettling challenge? How so?
6.The Eiffel Tower, built for the Paris World Exhibition, was considered a novelty and not built to last. Why was it kept? What is ONE other architectural symbol from the 1800’s? Why is it important?
7.Where can the influence of Scott Joplin’s music be seen in music from 1950 to the present? Be as specific as possible with a specific artists and a specific piece of music. Explain.
8.Look at “The Chosen One” in Fiero. Fiero writes “the painting…suggests a mysterious and unnamed rite of passage.” What might this story be about?
9.Read from Dickens’ “The Old Curiosity Shop” and Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” both in Fiero.) How do Dickens’ and Twain use descriptive details? How are their techniques similar? How are they different?
10.According to the International Chopin Conference website, his “music may be considered the embodiment of national tradition, elevated to the status of a common cultural good of the cultural community of the whole civilized world.” What does this mean?
