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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where was Bataille born?
(a) Paris.
(b) Nancy.
(c) Reims.
(d) Pau.

2. What are the rats doing in "[Dream]"?
(a) Eating each other.
(b) Swimming.
(c) Trying to bite.
(d) Eating garbage.

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

4. What principles does Bataille say men associate with height in "The Big Toe"?
(a) Trustworthiness and leadership.
(b) Strength and authority.
(c) Good and light.
(d) Power and danger.

5. What film does Bataille cite in "The Eye"?
(a) Andalusian Dog.
(b) That Obscure Object of Desire.
(c) L'Age d'Or.
(d) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

6. When did Bataille publish "W.C."?
(a) 1902.
(b) 1926.
(c) 1920.
(d) 1913.

7. What was the subject of Bataille's first pamphlet?
(a) Criticism of his religion.
(b) Criticism of his father.
(c) Praise of his mother.
(d) Praise of Cathedral Notre Dame des Reims.

8. What does the other self-mutilator (besides Van Gogh) do in "Sacrificial Mutilation and the Severed Ear of Vincent Van Gogh"?
(a) Drink his own blood.
(b) Put out his eye.
(c) Cut off his hand.
(d) Bite off his finger.

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

10. When did Bataille and his mother abandon his father?
(a) When the Germans arrived in 1915.
(b) When the father went insane.
(c) When the mother took a job in Paris.
(d) When the father was imprisoned.

11. What relationship do the writings in Section II have to the writings in Section I?
(a) They were unrelated.
(b) They were implicit in them.
(c) They were logical extensions.
(d) They were unprecedented.

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

13. What two stances did Bataille combine?
(a) Sacrilege and holiness of religion.
(b) Elevation and desecration of man.
(c) Fulfillment and hollowing of man.
(d) Merging and independence of men and women.

14. How does "The Language of Flowers" end?
(a) With a girl being sent away to school.
(b) With Sade tossing flower petals into a ditch of manure.
(c) With students strangling a young woman.
(d) With Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch putting out a priest's eye.

15. Why did Bataille leave his job in 1942?
(a) He fled the Germans.
(b) He died.
(c) He was fired.
(d) He was ill.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do philosophers use natural forms, in "The Language of Flowers"?

2. Who contributed to "Documents"?

3. What does Bataille say his father looked like in "[Dream]"?

4. How does Bataille describe his work?

5. What did Breton call Bataille?

(see the answer keys)

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