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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 15, Chapter 6 - Images of the Material Bodily Lower Stratum.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Bakhtin asserts that in the episode of Gargantua's birth, the dividing lines between _______ are erased.
(a) Human and animal consciousness.
(b) Children and adults.
(c) Earthly and divine spiritual relationships.
(d) Human and animal organs.

2. How is a "prophetic riddle" game carnivalesque in nature?
(a) It stresses the destruction of the established order and hierarchy of society.
(b) It stresses the importance of feasting and drinking.
(c) It focuses on gaiety and humor.
(d) It is always sung in a rhymed singsong tone.

3. What do some critics argue has been absent from Russian literature?
(a) A particularly Western type of humor.
(b) Sexually-charged dialogue.
(c) Religious fervor.
(d) Political dissent.

4. How does Bakhtin interpret the relevance of the cries of Paris to Renaissance France?
(a) The cries suggest a deep discontent in the Parisian populace.
(b) The cries were the people's only method of exchanging ideas.
(c) The cries combine the reality of practical life with festive utopian universalism.
(d) The cries negate the revitalization of the marketplace.

5. How does Rabelais accomplish the grotesque degradation of his target in the prologue to the Third Book?
(a) By accusing the targets of paganism and crimes against the Church.
(b) By insulting the targets' mothers.
(c) By declaring the targets to be empty-headed.
(d) By declaring the targets incapable of the basest bodily functions.

Short Answer Questions

1. What particular tradition did Peter the Great bring to Russia from Western Europe?

2. How, according to Bakhtin, does the current Russian literary criticism approach Rabelais' works?

3. Medieval parodies were:

4. After Rabelais' time, the use of laughter in literature and culture moved in which direction?

5. Bakhtin asserts that "The Play in the Bower" influenced Rabelais' work specifically in its:

(see the answer key)

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