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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. In the same section, what does the narrator refer to when he says: "I am an amputee who still feels pain in his missing leg?"
(a) The tendency to hallucinate the other and recreate the sense of waiting even after the relationship is over.
(b) The pain of rejection that haunts him.
(c) The effects of a childhood loss that continues to affect his relationships.
(d) The story of a mandarin and a courtesan.

2. Which of the following terms is a definition of "atopos"?
(a) Untranslatable.
(b) Stereotype.
(c) Unclassifiable.
(d) Indolent.

3. In the section called "Talking," how does the lover's discourse change when the amorous subject speaks about love?
(a) From a rejection of love to a a declaration of love.
(b) From a personal declaration of love to an abstract philosophical discourse about love.
(c) From an abstract philosophical discourse about love to a personal declaration of love.
(d) From a declaration of love to a renouncement of love.

4. According to the author, what happens to language the more one becomes enamored of a specific person?
(a) The lover seeks to escape the constraints of language.
(b) The lover's language becomes expansive and creative.
(c) The lover's language becomes closed off and limited.
(d) Language becomes irrelevant.

5. What is the question that worries the lover with regard to the heart?
(a) When will my wit be valued as much as my heart?
(b) What will the world and the other do with my heart, my desire?
(c) When will I find love?
(d) When will my heartache go away?

Short Answer Questions

1. To whom is the narrator's asceticism addressed?

2. In "To Be Ascetic," the term "askesis" is associated with which of the following acts?

3. What does the "fulfillment" or comblement of the title refer to?

4. How is the heart described in the section entitled "The Heart?"

5. The lover compares his gaze on the other's body to which of the following things?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "I have an Other-ache"/Compassion, in relation to the other's suffering, the lover sees himself as a Mother, but an insufficient one-why?

2. What is the ascetic process that the lover goes through in the section entitled To Be Ascetic/Askesis?

3. How does Catastrophe discuss the "amorous catastrophe" experienced by the lover?

4. Describe the two affirmations of love discussed at the end of the section entitled Intractable/Affirmation.

5. Briefly describe the lover's sense of engulfment in the section "I am engulfed, I succumb..."/To Be Engulfed.

6. In the section called The Tip of the Nose/Alteration, the author uses a scene between Werther and Charlotte from the novel Werther to represent the lover's change in attitude toward the loved one. What happens in this scene and what does it demonstrate?

7. In Connivance, what position does the other (the object of desire) occupy in the lover's conversation with his rival?

8. In "Adorable!," the author notes how the lover sees the other as a Whole; what does he mean?

9. In Atopos, how does the lover associate the other with innocence?

10. In Laetitia/To Circumscribe, what are two pleasures the narrator dreams of, and which one does he aspire to.

(see the answer keys)

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