WGU C100 Introduction To Humanities Vocabulary

1. Kouros: Type of statue featuring life sized male nudes in a stance in which the left foot is placed in front of the right. 2. Muses: Goddesses of inspiration for literature, art, and science. 3. Doric order: The simplest of the classical Greek architectural styles, featuring unadorned columns with no base. 4. Post and lintel: Classical Greek architectural design that features two upright posts supporting a crossbeam called a lintel. 5. Frieze: A broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, usually on a wall near the ceiling. 6. Entablature: The horizontal layers of material of a building that are supported by columns or walls. 7. Pediment: The triangular upper part of the front of a building in the classical style. 8. Capital: The top part of a column between the shaft of the column and the entablature.2 / 7 9. Catharsis: The purging of a spectator's strong emotions through experiencing tragedy~ one of Aristotle's concepts. 10. Hubris: Greek word for excessive pride, presumption or arrogance (originally toward the gods). 11. Epic: A long poem recounting in elevated style the deeds of a legendary hero~ any narrative work (novel, drama, film) dealing with epic themes. 12. Canon: A set of rules developed by the Greek artist Polykleitos for creating perfect proportionality in the human figure. 13. Diction: Wordchoice~ can be classified as formal or informal, or denotative or connotative. 14. Hellenic: A synonym for Greek. 15. Skepticism: A philosophy that maintains that there can be no certainty in human knowledge and that mankind should continually be involved with finding the truth. 16. Allegory of the Cave: Plato's extended metaphor in The Republic that contrasts the way in which most humans perceive reality and Plato's idea of the true form of reality. 17. The Forms: Plato's concept that there are ideal essences (the Forms) of3 / 7 objects or things