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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. Bakhtin associates Friar John's beating of the men with:
(a) Juvenalian satires of public figures.
(b) The last charge of Charlemagne.
(c) The Dionysian feast of the grape harvest.
(d) Market vendors who assault non-paying customers.

2. Why does Gargantua steal the bells of the Notre Dame cathedral?
(a) To celebrate his marriage.
(b) To sound the alarm for an impending invasion.
(c) To frighten the townsfolk of Paris.
(d) To decorate the harness of his horse.

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

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

5. Clowns and fools are:
(a) Restricted to entertaining the royal court.
(b) Everyday representatives of the folk and of Carnival.
(c) Prisoners forced to entertain others.
(d) Present only at large fairs or gatherings.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is Janotus de Bragmardo?

2. The verbal interactions between the Renaissance marketplace hawker and the crowd were above all:

3. What does young Gargantua study in order to become acquainted with the common folk?

4. In the seventeenth century, the decline of laughter as a primary force in folk culture resulted from:

5. When the grotesque was revived in the Romantic era, what did it react against?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. How is degradation expressed, in terms of Rabelais' grotesque realism?

6. Describe the Renaissance student writings.

7. What was the general perception of laughter in the Renaissance?

8. Describe Friar John.

9. In general, what happened to the use of humor in literature after Rabelais' time?

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

(see the answer keys)

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