View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In "What is to be done?" which of the following describes the behavior of the amorous subject?

2. How does the person concealing his feelings wish to be perceived?

3. In this same section, the author invokes a scene involving a letter. Which of the following describes this scene?

4. Which of the following terms is a definition of "atopos"?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. In Agony/Anxiety, why does the author compare the lover to a psychotic who fears a breakdown?

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

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

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

9. In "Tutti Sistemati"/Pigeonholed, how does the lover perceive the system inhabited by others?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Jealousy, the author says that "Werther's jealousy derives from Images" (pg. 144.) Likewise, in Images (pg. 132), the author describes how Werther is affected by a particular scene involving Charlotte. The image clearly has a powerful effect on the lover. Why?

- What does the image represent?

- How does the lover interpret various images and what do they become for him?

- How does the image inform desire? (pg. 145.)

- What is the nature of the jealousy that images provoke?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the idea of the figure that Roland Barthes outlines in the beginning of the book.

- What is a figure, according to his definition?

- Why did he choose this structure for the text?

- How do figures function, generally, and in the context of the lover's discourse?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 978 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample