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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the slightly longer characterization the author uses to describe the different sections of the book?

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

3. Which of the following phrases is an example of tautology, as presented by the author?

4. What is the question that worries the lover with regard to the heart?

5. In the section titled "I want to understand," what is the subject trying to understand?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the effect that the lover hope to achieve by adopting ascetic behavior.

2. In Atopos, how does the lover see himself in relation to the other?

3. Discuss the function of the dark glasses in Dark Glasses/To Hide.

4. In The Absent One/Absence, how does the lover interpret the other's absence?

5. In The Heart, how does the author compare the heart to other attributes such as wit?

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

7. How does the mother-child relationship relate to the lover's feelings about the other's absence?

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

9. 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?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In this essay, you will discuss the nature of ravishment as outlined in the text, showing how the modern form draws from and transforms early myths of the ravisher.

1) Contrast the ancient myth of the ravisher with the modern concept of ravishment. How does the object of rape become the subject of love?

2) Discuss the nature of the lover's ravishment. How is it described in the text? What state precedes this ravishment and why?

3) What does the element of surprise have to do with ravishment, in both early and modern versions?

4) What is the eventual conclusion to this state?

Essay Topic 2

On the first page of the book, the author claims that the lover's discourse functions as an affirmation. He discusses this affirmation again in Affirmation (pg. 22), Alone (p. 210) and Signs (p. 214).

- What is the status of love and of the lover's discourse in society?

- What is it defining itself against and why? Is it excluded? How?

- Why is love classified as "intractable"?

Essay Topic 3

In Askesis and Dark Glasses/To Hide, the lover's suffering becomes performative. He performs acts that point to his amorous state for the benefit of the other.

- How does the lover perform his suffering? What are the activities, rituals, or behaviors he adopts?

- What are the goals of these actions?

- Can the lover control the outcome, or effect, of these behaviors?

(see the answer keys)

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