View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In what piece of writing did Bataille record his childhood?
(a) The Lugubrious Game.
(b) The Language of Flowers.
(c) [Dream].
(d) The Eye.

2. What is the first stage of revolution, in "The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade"?
(a) Portraying your revolution as a utopian project destined to succeed.
(b) Staking a claim to a new kind of authority.
(c) Expelling a group from power.
(d) Appropriating the language with which groups claim power.

3. What does Bataille say coitus is associated with, in "The Solar Anus"?
(a) Crime.
(b) Prayer.
(c) Business.
(d) Comedy.

4. What does the mole stand for in "The 'Old Mole' and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme [Superman] and Surrealist"?
(a) Surrealism.
(b) God.
(c) Materialists.
(d) Proletarianism.

5. When was George Bataille born?
(a) 1902.
(b) 1897.
(c) 1899.
(d) 1892.

6. What did Bataille describe in "The Lugubrious Game"?
(a) Anal fixation.
(b) Sex play with eyeballs.
(c) Bestiality.
(d) A brown smudge.

7. What does Bataille claim the world is in "The Solar Anus"?
(a) Parody.
(b) Farce.
(c) Comedy.
(d) Tragedy.

8. 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 had a paradoxical fascist tendency.
(c) He said he worshiped the masses.
(d) He said he could not escape from the logic of fascism.

9. What does the title of "The Solar Anus" refer to?
(a) The blinding effect of seeing a girl's anus.
(b) The passage out of purgatory.
(c) The regeneration of the universe in stars that eat planets.
(d) The source of all matter.

10. Where did "[Dream]" originate?
(a) In Bataille's marriage.
(b) In Bataille's childhood obsession with eyes.
(c) In Bataille's psychoanalysis.
(d) In Bataille's imagination.

11. Who contributed to "Documents"?
(a) Literary critics.
(b) Biologists.
(c) Librarians.
(d) Rebel surrealists.

12. What principles does Bataille say men associate with the feet in "The Big Toe"?
(a) Labor and evil.
(b) Subversion and power.
(c) Powerlessness and subservience.
(d) Evil and dark.

13. What was Bataille being punished for in "[Dream]"?
(a) Seeing his parents naked.
(b) Playing with a hoop.
(c) Staying up too late.
(d) Wetting himself.

14. In "Sacrificial Mutilation and the Severed Ear of Vincent Van Gogh", how long does Bataille say it took Van Gogh to paint suns after his self-mutilation?
(a) Two years.
(b) Nine months.
(c) Six months.
(d) Fifteen months.

15. What does Bataille compare roots to, in "The Language of Flowers"?
(a) Corruption.
(b) Death.
(c) Visible leaves.
(d) Human bodies.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why was it a mistake for Bataille to use his intellectual violence on Breton?

2. How does Bataille describe producing and selling in "The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade"?

3. When did Bataille form the Popular Front?

4. What feeling does Bataille exaggerate in "The Lugubrious Game"?

5. Whom does Bataille refer to as untouchables in "Psychological Structure of Fascism"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 467 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample