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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the reception of Rabelais' work in the eighteenth century?
(a) Other writers used his topics as a jumping-off point for their own works.
(b) His work was viewed as a revival of Classical writing.
(c) Other writers strove to emulate his style.
(d) His work was viewed as unintelligible and barbaric.

2. What type of work did Rabelais often publish, especially for the fairs?
(a) Religious tracts.
(b) Political treatises.
(c) Calendars or almanacs.
(d) Biographies of public figures.

3. What do oaths and curses have in common with town announcements and the calls of vendors?
(a) They are the only socially acceptable methods of greeting strangers.
(b) They all are forbidden during certain times of the year.
(c) They all are familiar parts of the society of the marketplace.
(d) They are all said with the same feelings in mind.

4. The vocabulary of the prologue of _Gargantua_ is:
(a) Purely abusive and vulgar.
(b) Objective and editorially distant.
(c) Loaded with comparatives and superlatives.
(d) Quietly reflective and speculative.

5. "Friar John" is heavily associated with:
(a) Food and battles.
(b) Intellect and spirit.
(c) Nature and the earth.
(d) Sex and love.

6. When did the Russian Revolution occur?
(a) 1917.
(b) 1936.
(c) 1945.
(d) 1850.

7. Why did Bakhtin feel his times were comparable to those of the Renaissance?
(a) Two political leaders of the different eras were incredibly alike.
(b) The literatures and cultures of both eras bore a distinct resemblance.
(c) The specific threat of disease was killing many people in both times.
(d) Both eras were times of broad social change that left people unsure of how to proceed.

8. After Rabelais' time, the use of laughter in literature and culture moved in which direction?
(a) From spiritual to earthly.
(b) From singular to universal.
(c) From accepted to encouraged.
(d) From universal to restricted.

9. To what does Veselovsky compare Rabelais?
(a) A village boy.
(b) A pious priest.
(c) An ironfisted dictator.
(d) An elderly scholar.

10. According to Bakhtin, what is directly related to the oversized foods common at Renaissance feasts?
(a) The general health of a town's population.
(b) The swelling of religious fervor during holy days.
(c) Grotesque portrayals of the stomach, mouth, and genitals.
(d) Bodily restraint as a result of mind over matter.

11. How is the Rabelaisian use of tripe an excellent example of grotesque realism?
(a) It merges the positive and negative, or upper and lower, spheres of the body.
(b) It is the epitome of disgusting.
(c) It is a drug which offers the user a glimpse of a higher plane of existence.
(d) It combines fantasy with reality in one type of cuisine.

12. How, according to Bakhtin, does the current Russian literary criticism approach Rabelais' works?
(a) By reviving their content in new, twentieth-century forms.
(b) By denouncing them as counterproductive to the ongoing Russian Revolution.
(c) By sharing them with an eager public.
(d) By trying to correctly interpret the source of the cultural laughter within them.

13. Why does Gargantua steal the bells of the Notre Dame cathedral?
(a) To sound the alarm for an impending invasion.
(b) To celebrate his marriage.
(c) To frighten the townsfolk of Paris.
(d) To decorate the harness of his horse.

14. The figure of the Physician in the Fourth Book is closely connected with:
(a) Alchemy.
(b) Thought and spirit.
(c) Death and birth.
(d) Heresy.

15. What do some critics argue has been absent from Russian literature?
(a) Sexually-charged dialogue.
(b) Political dissent.
(c) Religious fervor.
(d) A particularly Western type of humor.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are examples of carnivalesque victims?

2. Rabelais expresses the debasement of suffering and fear by associating them with:

3. Why are Rabelais' billingsgate elements considered "coarse and cynical" by most scholars?

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

5. In the seventeenth century, the decline of laughter as a primary force in folk culture resulted from:

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