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. Why was Rabelais linked so closely to the Lyon fairs?
(a) The organizers of the fairs in Lyon banned Rabelais from attending them.
(b) Lyon fairs represented one of the largest markets for publishing.
(c) Rabelais was a performing clown for several years in these fairs.
(d) Rabelais was a chief organizer of these fairs.

2. What does Bakhtin find inadequate in Veselovsky's metaphor of Rabelais as a village boy?
(a) Veselovsky's image excludes the seriousness of the boy as a budding scholar.
(b) Veselovsky's image is cynical, but Rabelais actually celebrates regenerative laughter.
(c) Veselovsky's image is too young at heart, for Rabelais wrote only with an old, tired voice.
(d) Veselovsky's image seems too urban for Rabelais, who only wrote about the countryside.

3. Why are Rabelais' billingsgate elements considered "coarse and cynical" by most scholars?
(a) Many scholars believe that Rabelais himself was bitter from publication disputes.
(b) Many scholars interpret them only in a modern context.
(c) These elements express a deep distrust of contemporary society.
(d) The Latin derivations of his scatological vocabulary mean "cynical."

4. What do wine and oil symbolize in Rabelais' novel?
(a) Sickness and hangovers versus a useful cooking ingredient.
(b) Free, festive speech versus religious piety and seriousness.
(c) Since both are flammable, they symbolize hellfire.
(d) Hard harvest work in the vineyards and olive groves.

5. Bakhtin asserts that man introduces the world to himself primarily through which act?
(a) Conversation.
(b) Eating.
(c) Sexual intercourse.
(d) Observing nature.