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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What repressive organization was Bakhtin forced to join in order to continue writing?
(a) The National Writers' Agency.
(b) The Soviet Society of National Fiction.
(c) The Post-Revolution Press
(d) The Russian Union of Writers.

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

3. What are the "intelligentsia"?
(a) An elite spy organization.
(b) A group of exclusively male scholars.
(c) The bits of knowledge all people accumulate over their lifetimes.
(d) A group which provides an interpretation of the world.

4. In Rabelais' works, some causes of diseases associated with the material body lower stratum are:
(a) Divine retribution for one's sins.
(b) Overindulgence in food, drink, and sex.
(c) Results of public punishments for social crimes.
(d) Results of a sickly infancy and childhood.

5. What are the "Catchpoles" of which Rabelais writes?
(a) Animals sent into the wild as sacrifices.
(b) Vegetables which require being strung to a pole in order to grow.
(c) People who earn money by allowing others to beat them.
(d) Materials used to build large meeting-houses.

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

7. What does Bakhtin find to be the greatest error other critics make in their studies of Rabelais' works?
(a) They treat Rabelais as a prophet of literary upheavals.
(b) They classify Rabelais as just as important as Shakespeare and Cervantes.
(c) They read Rabelais' works as allegory only.
(d) They neglect to explore the element of the Renaissance folk culture.

8. What do Rabelais' various works indicate about the popular notion of urination?
(a) Urination is a medical mystery that baffles doctors.
(b) Urination fertilizes the earth and creates bodies of water.
(c) Urination is disgusting and should be done privately.
(d) Urination can only be used for comic purposes.

9. What are examples of carnivalesque victims?
(a) Blushing virgins and old maids.
(b) Debased clowns and slaughtered oxen.
(c) Peasants and tax collectors.
(d) Stray dogs and street orphans.

10. What common fifteenth- and sixteenth-century literary device does Bakhtin identify in the Prologue to the Third Book?
(a) Invocations to the Muse.
(b) Long lists of names and epithets.
(c) Blank verse.
(d) Complaints about love.

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

12. Why did Bakhtin feel his times were comparable to those of the Renaissance?
(a) Two political leaders of the different eras were incredibly alike.
(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) The specific threat of disease was killing many people in both times.

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

14. What does Bakhtin consider the most indispensable element of folk culture?
(a) Carnival.
(b) Marriage.
(c) Death rituals.
(d) Fables.

15. The vocabulary of the prologue of _Gargantua_ is:
(a) Quietly reflective and speculative.
(b) Purely abusive and vulgar.
(c) Objective and editorially distant.
(d) Loaded with comparatives and superlatives.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why was Rabelais linked so closely to the Lyon fairs?

2. Mikhail Bakhtin is:

3. During Bakhtin's time, what genre was being closely defined by the Soviet government?

4. Which answer best describes "grotesque realism"?

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

(see the answer keys)

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