This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 12, Chapter 4 - Banquet Imagery & Chapter 5 - The Grotesque Image of the Body and Its Sources.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Rabelais' time, why was the meaning of debasement often ambivalent?
(a) Because the person saying the insult never means it seriously.
(b) Because the head is quite separate from all the other parts of the body, spiritually and materially.
(c) Because the decaying or excretory organs are closely located to the regenerative genital organs.
(d) Because the debased person may choose to deflect the debasement.

2. Why does Friar John beat thousands of men in his abbey?
(a) Another Friar challenged him.
(b) As a show of force to deter invaders.
(c) To save France from atheism.
(d) To save the abbey's vineyards.

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

4. In Rabelais' novel, the words "to die" are closely associated with:
(a) Being eaten or swallowed up.
(b) Passing out after drinking too much wine.
(c) Losing a debate with a scholar.
(d) Sexual fulfillment.

5. Bakhtin asserts that beatings, death, feasting, and merrymaking are all integral parts of:
(a) The Renaissance notion that all which is already established is perfect.
(b) The Renaissance system of images that is perpetually regenerative and never decaying.
(c) The methods of marketplace vendors in overpricing their goods.
(d) Rabelais' view of the proper treatment of foreigners and peasants.