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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Bakhtin cite Goethe as a source about the nature of Carnival?
(a) Goethe was the official organizer of Carnival in Frankfurt.
(b) Goethe and Rabelais were contemporaries and corresponded with each other regularly.
(c) Goethe's negative views about the common people provide a counterpoint to Bakhtin's views.
(d) Goethe was passionately interested in the festivity.

2. How does Bakhtin define the episode involving Villon and Tappecoue?
(a) As a comedic interlude.
(b) As a historical re-enactment.
(c) As an epic drama.
(d) As a tragic farce.

3. How does Bakhtin define the combination of human and animal organs in Rabelais' novel?
(a) "Otherworldly."
(b) "Scientific."
(c) "Grotesque."
(d) "Horrifying."

4. What does Bakhtin assert is evident in Rabelais' plan for Pantagruel's journey?
(a) Rabelais' own morbid fascination with death.
(b) Rabelais' critique of contemporary politics.
(c) Rabelais' response to his world's changing geography.
(d) Rabelais' fanciful, imaginative creation of impossible places.

5. How does Bakhtin say Ivan the Terrible of Russia was similar to Rabelais?
(a) He too challenged old political and social structures.
(b) He also was a prolific and controversial writer.
(c) They both fought bloody battles against the reigning monarch.
(d) They both travelled anonymously to Carnival festivities.

6. Which side of the Renaissance debate about the nature of women and wedlock did Rabelais tend to take?
(a) The English tradition.
(b) The Roman tradition.
(c) The Idealizing tradition.
(d) The Gallic tradition.

7. Bakhtin generally finds Goethe's sense of Carnival's _____________ to agree with his own views.
(a) Poetic expression.
(b) Religiousness.
(c) Universalism.
(d) Pessimism.

8. How does Bakhtin define "folly" as it relates to festivity?
(a) Artistic.
(b) Inaccessible.
(c) Ambivalent.
(d) Pessimistic.

9. Bakhtin asserts that Rabelais' language, and the language of Renaissance France, was above all:
(a) Lacking foreign influence.
(b) Strict and immobile.
(c) Stagnant and dead.
(d) Free and flexible.

10. Which aspect of Renaissance culture does Bakhtin stress is still apparent in Western society today?
(a) Street cries.
(b) Public thrashings.
(c) Clowns and fools.
(d) Carnival.

11. What does Rabelais parody in his response to the episode of Gargantua's birth?
(a) The Classical philosophy of stoicism.
(b) The Medieval doctrine of faith.
(c) The Renaissance philosophy of humanism.
(d) The Christian doctrine of submission.

12. What are the languages involved in what Bakhtin terms the "triple linguistic process" of Rabelais' time?
(a) Classic Latin, Medieval Latin, and vernacular French.
(b) Medieval Latin, Middle French, and Middle German.
(c) Classic Latin, Middle French, and vernacular French.
(d) Medieval Latin, Old French, and Middle French.

13. Bakhtin discusses "Cyprian's Supper," which is a play about:
(a) Figures from the Bible at a great feast.
(b) Greed which results in a shortage of food.
(c) A man who fasted for a year.
(d) A wedding banquet for a prince.

14. Why did Hippocrates assert such an influence on Rabelais?
(a) The theme of religious fervor in his works.
(b) All his works were set in the marketplace.
(c) Hippocrates' exclusive emphasis on folk culture.
(d) The theme of the grotesque body in his works.

15. Bakhtin asserts that Rabelais' grotesque conception of the body reflected:
(a) The Calvinist idea of predestination and grace.
(b) The Classical philosophy of Epicureanism.
(c) The Renaissance re-envisioning of the cosmos.
(d) The Medieval doctrine of natural hierarchy.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the "sia ammazzato" of which Goethe writes?

2. What do wine and oil symbolize in Rabelais' novel?

3. Which grotesque elements does Bakhtin note were included in the procession of the feast of Corpus Christi?

4. What is the image of woman in the Renaissance popular comic tradition?

5. What episode does Bakhtin cite as exemplifying the image of the gaping mouth prevalent in Rabelais' novel?

(see the answer keys)

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