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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What feeling does Bataille exaggerate in "The Lugubrious Game"?
(a) Admiration.
(b) Irreverence.
(c) Respect.
(d) Mournfulness.

2. How does Bataille describe his father?
(a) Blind, paralytic and syphilitic.
(b) Depressed and alcoholic.
(c) Frequently ill and mentally unstable.
(d) Financially secure.

3. How does Bataille describe his memory of his father pulling down his pants in "[Dream]"?
(a) Terrible and magnificent.
(b) Humiliating and painful.
(c) Catastrophic.
(d) Unimportant.

4. What description fits with the "Acephale" group?
(a) Community organizers.
(b) Secret society.
(c) Political underground.
(d) Literature brotherhood.

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

6. Why was Bataille annoyed while riding his bicycle?
(a) The sand was slushy with high tide.
(b) The pavement was broken up by streetcar tracks.
(c) The schoolyard was fenced in.
(d) The house was too small for his turns.

7. What claim does Bataille discuss in "The Deviations of Nature"?
(a) That nothing is more horrifying than snakes.
(b) That nothing is more horrifying that carnival freaks.
(c) That nothing is more horrifying than rats at carnivals.
(d) That nothing is more horrifying than man.

8. What form does Bataille take after being a boy in "[Dream]"?
(a) A girl.
(b) A butcher.
(c) An American gentleman.
(d) A priest.

9. How does Bataille describe the Mithraic cult ritual of the sun in "Rotten Sun"?
(a) A priest spatters a bull's blood on worshipers underneath.
(b) A priest stares into the sun to have a vision.
(c) A worshiper puts out a priest's eye.
(d) A priest cuts a victim's throat on an altar.

10. What does Bataille say conspicuous consumption was used for?
(a) Destroying the foundation of wealth.
(b) Devaluing the trappings of wealth.
(c) Attacking the inequalities in the economy.
(d) Affirming the position of the rich.

11. How do the rats appear in "[Dream]"?
(a) Swimming in the bilge.
(b) Hanging by their tails.
(c) Crawling in ditches.
(d) Scratching in the walls.

12. What did Bataille say about his book "W.C."?
(a) It was execrable and shouldn't be published.
(b) It was a prophecy.
(c) It was opposed to all dignity.
(d) It was going to destroy the world.

13. How does dialectic operate in "Notion of Expenditure"?
(a) It animates class struggle.
(b) It prevents revolution.
(c) It pacifies the proletariat.
(d) It results from revolution.

14. For what field did Bataille go to school?
(a) Writer.
(b) Medieval librarian.
(c) Philosopher.
(d) Renaissance art critic.

15. When did Bataille deny his faith?
(a) 1919.
(b) 1920.
(c) 1911.
(d) 1913.

Short Answer Questions

1. What principles does Bataille say men associate with the feet in "The Big Toe"?

2. What does Bataille claim the world is in "The Solar Anus"?

3. What characterizes man in "The Eye"?

4. When did Bataille publish "W.C."?

5. What was the subject of Bataille's first pamphlet?

(see the answer keys)

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