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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 notes that two of the most commonly combined themes in Medieval popular literature relating to monks are:

2. What body part is most often used in grotesque caricatures of sexual potency?

3. Where did Rabelais collect most of his rich vocabulary?

4. Bakhtin asserts that Rabelais' grotesque conception of the body reflected:

5. What are the languages involved in what Bakhtin terms the "triple linguistic process" of Rabelais' time?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is significant about the language in which Rabelais writes and the sources of many of his words?

2. What is the significance of "cuckoldry," and how is it portrayed?

3. What is "cosmic fear," and how is it treated in Renaissance folk culture?

4. Discuss the significance of Gargantua's birth.

5. How did games and gaming change after the Renaissance?

6. Why does Bakhtin choose to relate Goethe to Rabelais' work?

7. What did the Medieval stage resemble?

8. What does Bakhtin mean when he writes that popular-festive carnivalesque performances have no "footlights"?

9. Describe the figure of "Gros Guillaume" and his significance to Rabelais' novel.

10. What is the significance of the two Russian eras of history to which Bakhtin refers in Chapter Three?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the importance of Rabelais' own historical context to his novel. How does he allude to, reinterpret, parody/travesty, or otherwise address contemporary people, places, and events? Cite at least two examples from Bakhtin's study.

Essay Topic 2

How does Rabelais use myth in his work? What types of myth does he draw from (classical, popular, spiritual, etc.)? How are allusions to mythology a part of carnivalesque culture? Cite at least three specific examples of identifiable myths which Rabelais alludes to, alters, parodies, travesties, or repeats.

Essay Topic 3

Explain the role that herbalists, druggists, and physicians occupied in Renaissance France, and how Bakhtin incorporates them into his study of the marketplace in Rabelais' novel. How does Bakhtin relate the material body to physicians and medicine? How does Rabelais portray bodily ailments, physicians, heath, life, death, and birth?

(see the answer keys)

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