2. Whom did the Popular Front join with?
(a) Communists and Socialists.
(b) Fascists and totalitarians.
(c) Democrats and Socialist Democrats.
(d) Bureaucrats and Communists.

3. What did Bataille write while he was working?
(a) Book reviews.
(b) Articles on philosophy.
(c) A medieval romance.
(d) Art criticism.

4. How does surrealism rebel at first, in "The 'Old Mole' and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme [Superman] and Surrealist"?
(a) With all the proletarians.
(b) Without the lower classes.
(c) With subtle disorientation of meaning.
(d) With all-out deformation of images.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Bataille say the eye causes?

2. Where did Bataille work until 1942?

3. What does Bataille remember his father spanking him with in "[Dream]"?

4. What does the mole stand for in "The 'Old Mole' and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme [Superman] and Surrealist"?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How does self-mutilation in "Sacrificial Mutilation and the Severed Ear of Vincent Van Gogh" relate to Bataille's description of body parts in other essays.

2. How does the notion of parody apply to the sun in "The Solar Anus"?

3. What is expressed in the language of flowers in "The Language of Flowers"?

4. What are the terrifying images in "[Dream]"?

5. What type of essay is "Formless"?

6. Describe the importance of the 'cephalus' in Bataille's thinking.

7. What experience does Bataille elevate in "Rotten Sun"?

8. Describe the importance of myth in Bataille's writing and thinking.

9. What claim did Bataille make in "The Lugubrious Game"?

10. Describe the paradox at the heart of "Materialism".

(see the answer keys)

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