View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Bakhtin asserts that "The Play in the Bower" influenced Rabelais' work specifically in its:

2. What does Rabelais parody in his response to the episode of Gargantua's birth?

3. What does Rabelais associate closely with the underworld?

4. How does Bakhtin define "folly" as it relates to festivity?

5. In grotesque realism, the body is most often represented as:

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Rabelais construct the episode of Epistemon's resurrection and of his visions in the underworld?

3. How is "folly" ambivalent?

4. How does Rabelais use the element of popular speech known as "coq-à-l'âne"?

5. What is the role of games in Rabelais' work?

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

7. Why does Bakhtin assert that we cannot make the mistake of interpreting Rabelais' images of the material body lower stratum with our modern sensibilities?

8. What is the significance of the figure of the androgyne in Rabelais' novel?

9. What was "prandial libertinism"?

10. Why is the "Hippocratic Anthology" significant to Rabelais' work?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What roles do games play in Rabelais' novel and in the Renaissance? Discuss how games and gaming fulfill an "unofficial" social role as opposed to an "official" one. What images, traditions, and symbols does Bakhtin associate them with? How are games representative of folk culture? How did games and gaming change after the Renaissance?

Essay Topic 2

Choose three main characters from Rabelais' novel and explain the meanings of their names (for example, Gargantua, Pantagruel, Panurge, King Anarchus, Friar John, Lord Basche, etc.) Discuss any connotations their names may have, any allusions to people, places, historical events, or mythology, and what their names represent in the context of carnivalesque folk culture.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 942 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample