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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3, Intro. cont. & Chapter 1 - Rabelais in the History of Laughter.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. During Bakhtin's time, what genre was being closely defined by the Soviet government?
(a) The lyric.
(b) The novel.
(c) The biography.
(d) The epic poem.

2. What repressive organization was Bakhtin forced to join in order to continue writing?
(a) The Russian Union of Writers.
(b) The Soviet Society of National Fiction.
(c) The National Writers' Agency.
(d) The Post-Revolution Press

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

4. Carnival allowed:
(a) The endurance of the propriety expected of all social classes.
(b) The peasants to sell their crops without paying taxes.
(c) The mixing of real and unreal, fantasy and fact.
(d) The upper class to oppress relentlessly the lower class.

5. What does the "form" of any kind of art express?
(a) The materials from which the art is constructed.
(b) Only one possible message.
(c) Whatever the audience chooses.
(d) A system of values.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did the French Romanticists respond to Rabelais' works?

2. What does Bakhtin find to be the greatest error other critics make in their studies of Rabelais' works?

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

4. Bakhtin thinks that life is:

5. What does Bakhtin consider the most indispensable element of folk culture?

(see the answer key)

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