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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. In Dark Glasses/To Hide, what main subject does the author address?

2. In "The Tip of the Nose/Alteration," what does "the tip of the nose" refer to?

3. What does the term "alteration" refer to in this section of the text?

4. When does this desire affect the subject?

5. In the section called "Talking," how does the lover's discourse change when the amorous subject speaks about love?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe the lover's predicament with regard to understanding love in "I want to understand."

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

4. 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?

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

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

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

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

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

10. In "All the delights of the earth"/Fulfillment, what does the author mean when he says that fulfillments are not spoken?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In I-Love-You, the author claims that this utterance is on the side of expenditure (pg. 154.) Likewise, he sees the lover as a figure of expenditure (Expenditure, pg. 84.)

- Define the word "expenditure."

- Discuss I-Love-You and the lover's relation to expenditure.

- What is the result of excessive expenditure for the lover?

Essay Topic 2

In Annulment (p. 31) and Dedication (p. 75), the author shows the process by which the lover's attentions can turn the other into an object.

- Describe how the lover's idealization of the other is actually a form of annulment. Is this illusion created around the other typical of love relationships?

- What is the result of the lover's objectification of the other?

- In Dedication, the process of making the other into an object functions a little differently-how?

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)

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