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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which aspect of Renaissance culture does Bakhtin stress is still apparent in Western society today?
(a) Street cries.
(b) Clowns and fools.
(c) Carnival.
(d) Public thrashings.

2. Bakhtin asserts that in Rabelais' time, food and banquets always contained a sense of:
(a) Physical discomfort.
(b) Intellectual stimulation.
(c) Victory and regeneration.
(d) Depression and resignation.

3. What word characterizes Medieval thinking, according to Bakhtin?
(a) Hierarchical.
(b) Pessimistic.
(c) Scientific.
(d) Self-contradictory.

4. Bakhtin notes that two of the most commonly combined themes in Medieval popular literature relating to monks are:
(a) Gluttony and desire.
(b) Envy and greed.
(c) Piety and cruelty.
(d) Sex and death.

5. Bakhtin finds that ___________ are especially closely interwoven with the grotesque body.
(a) Intelligent scholars.
(b) Acts of war.
(c) Secrets of lovers.
(d) Banquet images.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Bakhtin interpret Rabelais' term "agelast"?

2. What body part is most often used in grotesque caricatures of sexual potency?

3. What is especially apparent in Rabelais' own "Pantagruelesque Prognostic" prophecy?

4. How does Bakhtin say Ivan the Terrible of Russia was similar to Rabelais?

5. What does Panurge fear if he gets married?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Rabelais construct the episode of Epistemon's resurrection and of his visions in the underworld?

2. How does Rabelais strengthen the exaggerated themes of his grotesque realism?

3. What is the connection between the banquet and speech?

4. What is the significance of "cuckoldry," and how is it portrayed?

5. How did games and gaming change after the Renaissance?

6. Discuss the significance of Gargantua's birth.

7. Which elements of Villon and Tappecoue's (Ticklepecker's) episode make it a "tragic farce"?

8. What is the significance of the figure of the androgyne in Rabelais' novel?

9. What is "cosmic fear," and how is it treated in Renaissance folk culture?

10. Why does Bakhtin assert that we cannot make the mistake of interpreting Rabelais' images of the material body lower stratum with our modern sensibilities?

(see the answer keys)

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