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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When the grotesque was revived in the Romantic era, what did it react against?
(a) Individual, sentimental ideas.
(b) Imaginative fantasy.
(c) The rediscovered works of Shakespeare and Cervantes.
(d) Neoclassical, rational, Enlightenment thought.

2. Medieval parodies were:
(a) Concerned with the positive, humorous aspects of everything.
(b) Limited to parody of individuals.
(c) Limited to religious parody.
(d) Focused on the negative aspects of society.

3. How are Bakhtin and Rabelais similar?
(a) They both write mostly novels.
(b) They live in the same country.
(c) They both subvert the social prohibition on laughter, satire, and irony.
(d) They both directly challenge the government by running for political office.

4. In Rabelais' time, why was the meaning of debasement often ambivalent?
(a) Because the head is quite separate from all the other parts of the body, spiritually and materially.
(b) Because the decaying or excretory organs are closely located to the regenerative genital organs.
(c) Because the debased person may choose to deflect the debasement.
(d) Because the person saying the insult never means it seriously.

5. Why, according to Bakhtin, is Rabelais' parody of the Church not considered heresy?
(a) Rabelais follows every criticism with heartfelt praise.
(b) Rabelais maintains a comic style, so no one could mistake him for being serious.
(c) The clergy paid no attention to Rabelais' works.
(d) The Church received an annual tribute from Rabelais, so it overlooked his parodies.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a "marketplace spectacle"?

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

3. Why does Gargantua steal the bells of the Notre Dame cathedral?

4. Bakhtin believes that novels are:

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the underlying nature of all of Rabelais' images?

2. How does the marketplace become an indicator of folk culture in general?

3. How are being drenched in urine or covered in excrement treated in Rabelais' novel?

4. Describe two episodes of beatings or injury are specifically centered around the theme of feasting.

5. What about the episode of the Lord of Basche is carnivalesque?

6. What are the "cris de Paris," or "street cries"?

7. What is important about the figure of the physician in Rabelais' novel?

8. How does Rabelais describe the human body in the context of grotesque realism?

9. What does the prologue of _Pantagruel_ parody?

10. How is Bakhtin's book "double-voiced," as Michael Holquist asserts it is?

(see the answer keys)

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