James Bryan Prima

BSE Social Studies 3-1

Final Exam
January 27, 2021
1. What convinced the Americans that independence was the best solution to their problems with
Britain? (15 points)
Fifteen months after the commencing of hostilities, the Second Continental Congress proclaimed American
independence. Before 1775 the patriots usually desired to remain inside the British Empire. As the war
went on, the majority of them grew to become convinced that their happiness was better guaranteed
backyard the empire. They had been driven to are searching for a entire separation through a number of
forces and considerations: the shedding of blood by means of British troops; attacks via the British navy
upon American shipping, sailors, and ports; the enlistment by Britain of African American soldiers, Native
American auxiliaries, and German (Hessian) mercenary troops; the growing conviction amongst the patriots
that Britain would now not receive an accommodation; the faith that if agreement with Britain have been
reached, it ought to not be relied upon; and a sound opinion that it was indispensable to proclaim
independence in order to impenetrable help from France and Spain. They moved towards the declaration of
independence reluctantly and hesitatingly. They felt an emotional attachment to Britain; they knew that the
imperial connection had brought them protection; they feared that foreign aid may lead to overseas
domination; and many of them had been alarmed lest independence deliver with it economic and social
leveling. Independent, they should shape a secure republican authorities in an vicinity extending for a
thousand miles alongside the Atlantic seaboard.

2. What was the participation of women in the French Revolution? (10 points)

When the French Revolution began in 1789, French women were largely confined to the private sphere.
Domestic duty and family obligation dictated their behavior, and the public life was a man’s domain.
However, the ideas of equality and comradery that sparked the French Revolution captivated women from
all backgrounds. Women were eager to voice their political opinions and grievances. While the intellectuals
of the upper classes debated property rights and universal suffrage, the working classes took to the streets
with their own frustrations such as finding affordable bread.

The French Revolution was born out of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Eighteenth-century philosophers
such as Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire challenged the thinking of French society. New ideas about
education, class, and individual rights were being discussed at the evening gatherings of Paris high society
known as salons. These gatherings were established before the Revolution, and they were often hosted,
not by a distinguished man, but by his fashionable (and hopefully, witty) wife. Known as  salonnières, these
ladies wielded a significant amount of indirect influence in the world of politics and diplomacy. They were
the daughters of French ministers or the wives of aristocrats and had grown up with the privilege of an
expansive education. Though they did not enjoy legal rights, in many instances they were regarded as
intellectual equals to the men in their lives. Historians still debate the true character of the salon and its role
in history, but there is no doubt that they provided a platform for their hosts to exert influence outside of the
domestic realm.
 3. What were the contributions of Romantic writers and musicians to the nationalist movement? (10
points)
Romanticism, attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of
literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period
from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order,
calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-
century Neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and
against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the
individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the
visionary, and the transcendental.

Romanticism, attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature, painting, music,
architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18 th to the mid-
19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance,
idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18 th-century Neoclassicism in
particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18 th-century
rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the
irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the
transcendental.

Travel to the turn of the 19th century to experience the Romantic musical, literary, and artistic movement
Travel to the turn of the 19th century to experience the Romantic musical, literary, and artistic movement
A discussion of the key events and personalities of the late 18 th- and early 19th-century Romantic movement
in literature, music, and art. It contains dialogue based on letters and documents of the period.
Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the
beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in
upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities;
a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general and a focus on his or her
passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative
spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon
imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk
culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the
remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.
Romanticism proper was preceded by several related developments from the mid-18 th century on that can
be termed Pre-Romanticism. Among such trends was a new appreciation of the medieval romance, from
which the Romantic movement derives its name. The romance was a tale or ballad of chivalric adventure
whose emphasis on individual heroism and on the exotic and the mysterious was in clear contrast to the
elegant formality and artificiality of prevailing Classical forms of literature, such as the French Neoclassical
tragedy or the English heroic couplet in poetry. This new interest in relatively unsophisticated but overtly
emotional literary expressions of the past was to be a dominant note in Romanticism. Romanticism in
English literature began in the 1790s with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, in which
he described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” became the manifesto of the
English Romantic movement in poetry. William Blake was the third principal poet of the movement’s early
phase in England. The first phase of the Romantic movement in Germany was marked by innovations in
both content and literary style and by a preoccupation with the mystical, the subconscious, and the
supernatural. A wealth of talents, including Friedrich Hölderlin, the early Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Jean Paul, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, August Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel, Wilhelm Heinrich
Wackenroder, and Friedrich Schelling, belong to this first phase. In Revolutionary France, François-
Auguste-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, and Madame de Staël were the chief initiators of Romanticism,
by virtue of their influential historical and theoretical writings. The second phase of Romanticism,
comprising the period from about 1805 to the 1830s, was marked by a quickening of cultural nationalism
and a new attention to national origins, as attested by the collection and imitation of native folklore, folk
ballads and poetry, folk dance and music, and even previously ignored medieval and Renaissance works.
The revived historical appreciation was translated into imaginative writing by Sir Walter Scott, who is often
considered to have invented the historical novel. At about this same time English Romantic poetry had
reached its zenith in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. A notable by-product
of the Romantic interest in the emotional were works dealing with the supernatural, the weird, and the
horrible, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and works by Charles Robert Maturin, the Marquis de Sade,
and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The second phase of Romanticism in Germany was dominated by Achim von Arnim,
Clemens Brentano, Joseph von Görres, and Joseph von Eichendorff.
4. What was the effect of the German unification in the whole of Europe? Cite at least three and
explain. (15 points)

I. The “Spirit” of German Nationalism: Richard Wagner and the Ring Cycle Operas
Richard Wagner (1813–83) is one of the most controversial composers of the nineteenth century. His talent
and place as one of the great romantic composers is often overshadowed by his virulent anti-Semitism,
having claimed that Jews were “the evil conscience of our modern civilization.” He was also an ardent
German nationalist. The Ring Cycle operas, perhaps his greatest works, were composed and first staged in
1876, shortly after Germany unified. They were intended to develop a mythic national history for the new
empire, which had no actual political history on which to construct a national identity. Early in his career,
Wagner identified with the socialist movement and supported the Revolution of 1848 in Germany. Following
the 1848 upheavals, Wagner penned his essay, “Art and Revolution,” in which he argued that the task of
the artist is to effect political change through artistic expression. The career and music of Richard Wagner
offer a unique interdisciplinary approach to the romantic aspect of German nationalism. The full text of
Wagner’s essay is available online.
A. The Festspielhaus at Bayreuth
Wagner personally oversaw the design and construction of the theater located in the small Bavarian village
of Bayreuth, the Festspielhaus, which opened in 1870 and where the Ring Cycle operas were first
performed. The Bavarian king, Ludwig II, who was one of the last German princes to agree to join the
Prussian-dominated German Empire, provided the majority of the funds for its construction.

Convinced that opera and music developed a spirit of nationalism, Wagner rejected the traditional design of
theaters in which the nobility and wealthy sat in the loge boxes facing each other rather than the stage. He
instead created a seating plan by which all seats faced the stage directly.

A comparison of the two types of theaters can be demonstrated by showing the traditional floor plan of the
Vienna opera house and contrasting it with Wagner’s Festspielhaus.

B. The Ring of the Nibelung or Ring Cycle Operas

Although today, the four parts of the Ring Cycle operas, Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walkur (The
Valkyries), Sigfried, and Götterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods), are performed as separate pieces,
Wagner composed them as part of a single piece and insisted that they be performed on successive nights.
The operas are based on an ancient German myth, and Wagner hoped that the retelling of this myth in
modern operatic form would foster a spirit of German nationalism.

The first part, Das Rheingold, opens with three Rhine Maidens guarding the Rhine Gold, and the last part,
Götterdammerung, concludes with the same Rhine Maidens. Thus Wagner emphasizes that German
identity is tied with geographical boundaries, in this case, the Rhine River.

The overture to Das Rheingold sets the stage for the audience. The theater is in complete darkness as a
long, sustained E-flat is played. Slowly, the music builds on the E-flat as the lights are slowly turned up on
the setting, which shows the three Rhine Maidens swimming in the river. Wagner hoped that by the time
the overture reached its crescendo, the music would have suitably “unified” the audience. Music scholars
have also argued that the sustained E-flat not only represents the depths of Rhine River, but because
Wagner was a Social Darwinist, the note represents creation itself; the music “evolves” from one simple
note, and therefore Wagner’s intention was that Germany itself, in spite of its newness, was an organic
entity, existing in spirit, long before it was created politically. For a discussion of the tonal elements of Das
Rhinegold and their significance, see The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, available online by subscription
(free trial is offered).
II. German Unification Before 1870
Economic success, political failure, and diplomatic tension marked the idea of a unified Germany in the
period after the Napoleonic Wars. Prussian merchants, with the support of the Prussian crown, established
the customs and trade union known as the Zollverein in 1834. The Zollverein freed trade between most of
the German states, with the exception of Austria. Industrialists and merchants thus brought liberal politics
into German nationalism. During the Revolution of 1848, liberals met in the Frankfurt Assembly and drafted
a constitution modeled on the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789. The assembly offered to share
power under a constitutional monarchy and offered the crown of a unified Germany to Frederick William IV
of Prussia. The Revolution of 1848 brought some liberal reforms to Prussia, such as the ability of the
parliament to obstruct certain forms of taxation. However, the Prussian leadership, which was thoroughly
conservative, rejected the Frankfurt constitution, preferring reform and unification directed from above.
Austria’s resistance to attempts to unify Germany under Prussian leadership further obstructed unification.
One of the major questions concerning German unification centered on this Prussian-Austrian rivalry, which
was both diplomatic and cultural. Supporters of Grossdeutsch, or Greater Germany, insisted that Prussians
and Austrians with a common language naturally should be part of one nation. However, proponents of
Kleindeutsch, Lesser Germany, argued that Austria should be excluded from unification due to dynastic
rivalry between the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs and the cultural differences between a mostly
Protestant Prussia and Catholic Austria.
III. The Wars of German Unification
Bismarck’s path to unification came through diplomacy and war. In 1864 Bismarck trumped up charges
against the Danish government for their treatment of Germans living in the Danish province of Schleswig-
Holstein. Prussia’s defeat of Denmark and annexation of Schleswig-Holstein set Prussia on a collision
course with Austria for dominance of central Europe. Following the defeat of the Austrian Empire in 1866,
the German states allied with Prussia, with the notable exception of Catholic Bavaria, forming the North
German Confederation. In his first two wars, Bismarck balanced Russian and French concerns over the
growing power of Prussia. In the former, Bismarck manipulated long-standing Russian mistrust of Austria to
form an alliance. With France, Bismarck benefited from Emperor Napoleon III’s failed campaign in Mexico,
which distracted the French from European affairs. This was only temporary, however, and the Franco-
Prussian War began in 1870. The French defeat at the Battle of Sedan and annexation of Alsace-Lorraine
brought Bavaria into the German Confederation, and William I became the first monarch of the German
Empire.