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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 7, Chapter 2, Language of the Marketplace Cont..

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the most prevalent medium of the culture of the common folk in the Renaissance?
(a) Pantomime.
(b) Printed newspapers.
(c) The spoken word.
(d) Semaphore signals.

2. The prologue of _Pantagruel_ is a parody and travesty of:
(a) The ignorance of the peasantry.
(b) The ecclesiastical persuasiveness of the Church.
(c) The pomp and circumstance of the aristocracy.
(d) The fables of ancient Greece.

3. Why, according to Bakhtin, is Rabelais' parody of the Church not considered heresy?
(a) The Church received an annual tribute from Rabelais, so it overlooked his parodies.
(b) The clergy paid no attention to Rabelais' works.
(c) Rabelais follows every criticism with heartfelt praise.
(d) Rabelais maintains a comic style, so no one could mistake him for being serious.

4. Why did Renaissance humanists attempt to suppress oaths and profanities?
(a) They felt that if one could not say something nice, one should say nothing at all.
(b) They viewed such language as predominantly atheistic.
(c) They saw such language as relics of the superstitious Middle Ages.
(d) They were shocked to hear the Lord's name taken in vain.

5. The purpose of "travesty" in folk festivals was to:
(a) Indicate the importance of travel to an individual's self-development.
(b) Reassert traditional definitions of social and spiritual life.
(c) Call upon something serious and make it amusing.
(d) Irreversibly denigrate everything it could.

Short Answer Questions

1. Did the "unofficial" and "official" forms of speech ever coincide?

2. What are the targets of the abusive language in Rabelais' prologue to the Third Book?

3. In Rabelais' time, why was the meaning of debasement often ambivalent?

4. The combination of solemnity and joking in the tone of the Prologue to the Third Book indicates:

5. What does the "form" of any kind of art express?

(see the answer key)

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