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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. How, according to Bakhtin, does the current Russian literary criticism approach Rabelais' works?
(a) By trying to correctly interpret the source of the cultural laughter within them.
(b) By denouncing them as counterproductive to the ongoing Russian Revolution.
(c) By sharing them with an eager public.
(d) By reviving their content in new, twentieth-century forms.

2. In which twentieth-century movement was the grotesque especially evident?
(a) Futurism.
(b) Expressionism.
(c) Impressionism.
(d) Modernism.

3. During the "feast of fools" and the "feast of the ass," laughter:
(a) Was regulated by the town fools and farmers.
(b) Was encouraged even in church.
(c) Was forbidden because of the sacredness of the festival.
(d) Was forbidden everywhere but the marketplace.

4. In the seventeenth century, the decline of laughter as a primary force in folk culture resulted from:
(a) An increasingly "official" culture of rationalism.
(b) The exhaustion of any new sources of humor.
(c) The declining number of Carnival performers.
(d) The need of the public for other forms of diversion.

5. After Rabelais' time, the use of laughter in literature and culture moved in which direction?
(a) From accepted to encouraged.
(b) From singular to universal.
(c) From spiritual to earthly.
(d) From universal to restricted.

Short Answer Questions

1. The purpose of "travesty" in folk festivals was to:

2. How are Bakhtin and Rabelais similar?

3. According to Bakhtin's semiotic understanding, what irony is inherent within the creative power of language?

4. What was the reception of Rabelais' work in the eighteenth century?

5. What does the "form" of any kind of art express?

(see the answer key)

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