This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 12, Chapter 4 - Banquet Imagery & Chapter 5 - The Grotesque Image of the Body and Its Sources.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why are Rabelais' billingsgate elements considered "coarse and cynical" by most scholars?
(a) Many scholars believe that Rabelais himself was bitter from publication disputes.
(b) These elements express a deep distrust of contemporary society.
(c) The Latin derivations of his scatological vocabulary mean "cynical."
(d) Many scholars interpret them only in a modern context.

2. What does Bakhtin consider the "symposium" of Medieval grotesque realism?
(a) The tradition of festive speech.
(b) Refereed debates between two clergymen.
(c) Vows spoken between lovers.
(d) Bear-baiting in the town square.

3. One of Rabelais' main sources for his enumerations of food was a Medieval treatise about:
(a) Lenten and non-Lenten foods.
(b) The proper order in which to eat banquet foods.
(c) The ways in which chicken tasted better than pheasant.
(d) Restrictions of food for pregnant women.

4. What do Rabelais' various works indicate about the popular notion of urination?
(a) Urination is disgusting and should be done privately.
(b) Urination fertilizes the earth and creates bodies of water.
(c) Urination is a medical mystery that baffles doctors.
(d) Urination can only be used for comic purposes.

5. In Rabelais' time, why was the meaning of debasement often ambivalent?
(a) Because the person saying the insult never means it seriously.
(b) Because the decaying or excretory organs are closely located to the regenerative genital organs.
(c) Because the debased person may choose to deflect the debasement.
(d) Because the head is quite separate from all the other parts of the body, spiritually and materially.