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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 6, Chapter 2 - Language of the Marketplace Cont..

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Bakhtin's semiotic understanding, what irony is inherent within the creative power of language?
(a) Language does not actually express anything.
(b) All languages are one.
(c) No word can actually ever be defined.
(d) The individual expresses him- or herself only through the words of others.

2. With what portion of the body is grotesque debasement most concerned?
(a) The head and eyes.
(b) The spiritual interior essence.
(c) The arms and legs.
(d) The material lower stratum.

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

4. What do oaths and curses have in common with town announcements and the calls of vendors?
(a) They all are familiar parts of the society of the marketplace.
(b) They are the only socially acceptable methods of greeting strangers.
(c) They all are forbidden during certain times of the year.
(d) They are all said with the same feelings in mind.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What work of literature is parodied in the prologue of _Gargantua_?

2. How does Rabelais accomplish the grotesque degradation of his target in the prologue to the Third Book?

3. The prologue of _Pantagruel_ is a parody and travesty of:

4. Why, according to Bakhtin, does Rabelais treat excrement ambivalently?

5. Rabelais expresses the debasement of suffering and fear by associating them with:

(see the answer key)

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