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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 4, Chapter 2 - The Language of the Marketplace.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. How did Rabelais obtain the material for his writings?
(a) By interviewing thousands of market vendors.
(b) By studying manuscripts for long hours in monasteries.
(c) By attending many fairs and festivals and observing all the people there.
(d) By receiving a divine revelation.

4. When did the Russian Revolution occur?
(a) 1917.
(b) 1936.
(c) 1945.
(d) 1850.

5. Which answer best describes "grotesque realism"?
(a) The tone of the writing is always dark, Gothic, and depressing.
(b) The author's focus must be on bodily gore, blood, death, and dying.
(c) The writing must strive to be as mathematically or geometrically accurate as possible in its descriptions.
(d) The bodily element is universal, celebratory, positive, and exaggerated.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do Rabelais' various works indicate about the popular notion of urination?

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

3. Bakhtin connects Medieval "seriousness" most closely to:

4. Bakhtin thinks that life is:

5. What was unique about the Russian Revolution?

(see the answer key)

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