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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section II (1932-1935).

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was Bataille afraid of as a child?
(a) The Rain.
(b) Spiders.
(c) Rats.
(d) Snakes.

2. What flower is Marquis de Sade plucking petals off, at the end of "The Language of Flowers"?
(a) A rose.
(b) A daisy.
(c) A carnation.
(d) A lily.

3. What does Bataille say was the driving force beneath his heterodox theory?
(a) Homoerotic terror.
(b) Obsession with excrement.
(c) Oedipal terror.
(d) Obsession with priests.

4. What does Bataille define as a way to humiliate, defy, or obligate a poorer person as a show of destruction of wealth?
(a) Potlatch.
(b) Government subsidies.
(c) Welfare.
(d) Public Assistance.

5. How does Bataille describe his thinking in "Popular Front in the Street"?
(a) He said he had an indomitable democratic streak.
(b) He said he could not escape from the logic of fascism.
(c) He said he had a paradoxical fascist tendency.
(d) He said he worshiped the masses.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do volcanoes serve as, in "The Solar Anus"?

2. What does Bataille compare roots to, in "The Language of Flowers"?

3. How did Bataille rebel against his father?

4. What does the title of "The Solar Anus" refer to?

5. What kind of eye does Victor Hugo describe in a poem Bataille cites?

(see the answer key)

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