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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. Medieval parodies were:
(a) Concerned with the positive, humorous aspects of everything.
(b) Limited to parody of individuals.
(c) Limited to religious parody.
(d) Focused on the negative aspects of society.

2. What does Bakhtin argue is the role of dialogue?
(a) To move the plot along.
(b) To oppose the authoritarian word.
(c) To give one character a strong voice.
(d) To demonstrate thinking out loud.

3. Bakhtin thinks that life is:
(a) Meaningless and futile.
(b) Organized by human acts of behavior and cognition.
(c) Inert, chaotic, and requiring the intervention of art.
(d) A sacrifice the soul makes to the body.

4. How are Bakhtin and Rabelais similar?
(a) They live in the same country.
(b) They both write mostly novels.
(c) They both subvert the social prohibition on laughter, satire, and irony.
(d) They both directly challenge the government by running for political office.

5. 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 need of the public for other forms of diversion.
(c) The declining number of Carnival performers.
(d) The exhaustion of any new sources of humor.

Short Answer Questions

1. Clowns and fools are:

2. When did the Russian Revolution occur?

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

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

5. In which twentieth-century movement was the grotesque especially evident?

(see the answer key)

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