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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Bakhtin considers "thrashing" ambivalent, rather than strictly negative, because:

2. What does Bakhtin consider the most indispensable element of folk culture?

3. The combination of solemnity and joking in the tone of the Prologue to the Third Book indicates:

4. What are examples of carnivalesque victims?

5. What were "street cries"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Why does the speaker of the prologue of the Third Book invite only good men to drink?

4. What does the prologue of _Pantagruel_ parody?

5. Describe the Catchpoles and what they symbolize.

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

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

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

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

10. Describe the Renaissance student writings.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What role or roles do banquet images play in Rabelais' novel? How are they connected to popular-festive forms? How does Bakhtin interpret the material body in Rabelais' banquet imagery? How do banquets, eating, and drinking express folk culture? Refer to examples from the text.

Essay Topic 2

What is a "blazon"? How are blazons part of the carnivalesque and grotesque traditions of folk humor? What sorts of people or things were turned into blazons, and why? How is the theme of duality related to the blazon? How does Rabelais employ blazons in his novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the meaning and significance of "grotesque realism." How is it manifested in Rabelais' time? How is the material body presented in the tradition of the grotesque? Why does Bakhtin connect folk culture so closely with the grotesque? Use examples from the text to support your points.

(see the answer keys)

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