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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. What does the "form" of any kind of art express?
(a) A system of values.
(b) The materials from which the art is constructed.
(c) Only one possible message.
(d) Whatever the audience chooses.

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

3. In the folklore and grotesque realism of Rabelais' works, excrement represents bodies and matter that are:
(a) Mostly comic.
(b) Frightening and terrible.
(c) One with the earth.
(d) Generally revered.

4. To what does Bakhtin compare the various cries of Paris?
(a) A roaring storm.
(b) A howling wolf.
(c) A sobbing child.
(d) A crowded kitchen.

5. After Rabelais' time, the use of laughter in literature and culture moved in which direction?
(a) From singular to universal.
(b) From accepted to encouraged.
(c) From spiritual to earthly.
(d) From universal to restricted.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the most prevalent medium of the culture of the common folk in the Renaissance?

2. What do some critics argue has been absent from Russian literature?

3. In Rabelais' time, jurons, or profanities and oaths, were most often concerned with:

4. According to Bakhtin, what is directly related to the oversized foods common at Renaissance feasts?

5. Rabelais' description of Alcibiades reflects:

Short Essay Questions

1. What role do oaths and profanities fill in Rabelais' novel?

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

3. What was the "feast of fools," and why was it a particularly festive laughter in the Middle Ages?

4. Why do modern readers find it difficult to read Rabelais' novel?

5. How does Bakhtin interpret the prologue of _Pantagruel_?

6. Describe the Renaissance student writings.

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

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

9. What does Bakhtin mean when he argues that laughter affirms the people's unofficial truth?

10. What does the prologue of _Pantagruel_ parody?

(see the answer keys)

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