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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. What event that Rabelais relates does he assert is the origin of the name of the city of Paris?
(a) Gargantua's drenching of the city in urine.
(b) A battle won by the French against the English.
(c) An earthquake that disrupts Carnival.
(d) Pantagruel's education in the druggists' shops.

4. How is the figure of the king treated in Rabelais' writing?
(a) Like a god: worshipped, feared, and obeyed.
(b) Like a clown: beaten, travestied, and transformed.
(c) Like a child: pampered, sheltered, and beloved.
(d) Like a criminal: charged, tried, and punished.

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

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

7. Why does Friar John beat thousands of men in his abbey?
(a) As a show of force to deter invaders.
(b) To save France from atheism.
(c) Another Friar challenged him.
(d) To save the abbey's vineyards.

8. According to Bakhtin, what is directly related to the oversized foods common at Renaissance feasts?
(a) The general health of a town's population.
(b) Grotesque portrayals of the stomach, mouth, and genitals.
(c) The swelling of religious fervor during holy days.
(d) Bodily restraint as a result of mind over matter.

9. In Rabelais' time, jurons, or profanities and oaths, were most often concerned with:
(a) Marketplace vendors who cheated their customers.
(b) Sacred themes, such as saints and relics.
(c) Family ties, such as one's in-laws.
(d) Monarchs who subjugated their people.

10. Why did Renaissance humanists attempt to suppress oaths and profanities?
(a) They saw such language as relics of the superstitious Middle Ages.
(b) They viewed such language as predominantly atheistic.
(c) They were shocked to hear the Lord's name taken in vain.
(d) They felt that if one could not say something nice, one should say nothing at all.

11. 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.

12. Bakhtin considers "thrashing" ambivalent, rather than strictly negative, because:
(a) The act of thrashing is done to punish the individual.
(b) The one who is thrashed is also decorated and celebrated.
(c) The act of thrashing is done out of kindness.
(d) The one who is thrashed explicitly agrees to the act.

13. Who is Janotus de Bragmardo?
(a) A scholar sent to recover church bells from Gargantua.
(b) A clown who mocks Gargantua at Carnival.
(c) A market vendor scheming to cheat Gargantua.
(d) A robber who stumbles across Gargantua's treasure.

14. Why did Bakhtin feel his times were comparable to those of the Renaissance?
(a) The specific threat of disease was killing many people in both times.
(b) Both eras were times of broad social change that left people unsure of how to proceed.
(c) The literatures and cultures of both eras bore a distinct resemblance.
(d) Two political leaders of the different eras were incredibly alike.

15. How did the French Romanticists respond to Rabelais' works?
(a) With an appreciation of, and interest in, the grotesque.
(b) They ignored Rabelais completely.
(c) With disgust and negative criticism.
(d) With complete understanding of Medieval and Renaissance culture.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why, according to Bakhtin, is Rabelais' parody of the Church not considered heresy?

2. In the Renaissance, bodily excretions were closely associated with:

3. What in particular forms the basic elements of Rabelais' novel _Gargantua_?

4. Why are Rabelais' billingsgate elements considered "coarse and cynical" by most scholars?

5. How is the Rabelaisian use of tripe an excellent example of grotesque realism?

(see the answer keys)

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