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

2. What style does Bakhtin find the prologue of _Pantagruel_ to be written in?
(a) It is ironic and maliciously exaggerated.
(b) It is rhetorical and persuasive.
(c) It is innocent and childlike.
(d) It is dark and foreboding.

3. The episode in which Pantagruel and his companions defeat King Anarchus' knights combines:
(a) Human instinct with forethought.
(b) Love with hate.
(c) Nature with artifice.
(d) Slaughter with feasting.

4. The core images of the prologue of _Gargantua_ are:
(a) Scenes of travel and journeys.
(b) Scenes of eating and drinking.
(c) Scenes of violence.
(d) Scenes of pious worship.

5. What does Bakhtin find inadequate in Veselovsky's metaphor of Rabelais as a village boy?
(a) Veselovsky's image excludes the seriousness of the boy as a budding scholar.
(b) Veselovsky's image is cynical, but Rabelais actually celebrates regenerative laughter.
(c) Veselovsky's image is too young at heart, for Rabelais wrote only with an old, tired voice.
(d) Veselovsky's image seems too urban for Rabelais, who only wrote about the countryside.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Rabelais obtain the material for his writings?

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

3. Carnival allowed:

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

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What does tripe represent, in Bakhtin's analysis?

2. What was Rabelais' relationship with the fairs based upon?

3. What was Bakhtin's relationship with the Russian Union of Writers?

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

5. Describe Friar John.

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

7. Why does Bakhtin state that in Rabelais' novel everyday kitchen implements and foods have an intrinsic value?

8. How does Bakhtin get around the prohibition of certain kinds of satire and irony in his own time?

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

10. What is Bakhtin's general idea about the purpose of art?

(see the answer keys)

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