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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. What common fifteenth- and sixteenth-century literary device does Bakhtin identify in the Prologue to the Third Book?

2. What does Bakhtin find inadequate in Veselovsky's metaphor of Rabelais as a village boy?

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

4. How are Bakhtin and Rabelais similar?

5. The purpose of "travesty" in folk festivals was to:

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What does the prologue of _Pantagruel_ parody?

5. Describe Friar John.

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the theme of debasement in Medieval and Renaissance folk culture. How was debasement associated with the lower stratum of the body? Who or what were targets of debasement? How was debasement or degradation accomplished? How is humor associated with debasement? What is the ambivalent nature of debasement in folk culture?

Essay Topic 2

Describe how Rabelais uses Friar John as a representative of the Catholic Church. How does he describe Friar John? What situations does Rabelais put Friar John into, and how does the Friar behave? What might these situations and characterization say about the Church? How do official and unofficial modes of speech and communication work with Friar John? Does he represent the carnivalesque, the grotesque, or popular festivity in anything he says or does?

Essay Topic 3

What is significant about the marketplace in the Renaissance? What is its relation to folk culture? How are social relationships conducted in the environment of the marketplace? How are the "street cries" significant aspects of folk culture? What other "unofficial" elements of communication, social commentary, and social interaction are especially prevalent in the marketplace? Are there any carnivalesque elements of the marketplace?

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