View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "To Be Ascetic," the term "askesis" is associated with which of the following acts?
(a) Meditation.
(b) Self-punishment and gentle retreat.
(c) Foreign travel.
(d) Complete rejection of society.

2. In this same section, the author invokes a scene involving a letter. Which of the following describes this scene?
(a) The narrator writes a love letter instead of a business letter.
(b) The narrator writes a business letter instead of a love letter.
(c) The narrator describes burning his love letters.
(d) The narrator opens a secret love letter addressed to someone else.

3. The lover compares his gaze on the other's body to which of the following things?
(a) To a prisoner looking out the window.
(b) To children who disassemble a clock to see what time is.
(c) To someone reading a newspaper.
(d) To a scientist looking through a microscope.

4. The section titled "All the delights of the earth"/Fulfillment is a quotation from which of the following authors?
(a) Nietzsche.
(b) Sade.
(c) Ruysbroek.
(d) Novalis.

5. What does the "fulfillment" or comblement of the title refer to?
(a) Feelings of sadness over the impossibility of fulfillment.
(b) Fulfilling one's childhood dreams.
(c) Self-actualization that bypasses the need for the other.
(d) The will to complete fulfillment in love that exceeds language.

6. How does the person concealing his feelings wish to be perceived?
(a) As worthy.
(b) As both pathetic and admirable; child and adult.
(c) As unlovable.
(d) As tough and courageous.

7. How does the lover come to perceive the contingencies that affect him?
(a) As random unrelated events.
(b) As signs of love.
(c) As a kind of fate.
(d) As hallucinations.

8. The lover associates atopia in the other with which of the following qualities?
(a) Indolence.
(b) Secrecy.
(c) Intelligence.
(d) Innocence.

9. "The Other's Body" divides the other's body into two parts: what are they?
(a) The body proper such as the skin, eyes, and the voice.
(b) The emotional and the physical.
(c) The imagined body and the actual body.
(d) Flesh and spirit.

10. In this section, how is the term "karma" defined?
(a) As nothingness, which the lover hopes to attain.
(b) As suffering, which the lover hopes to inflict on the other.
(c) As causality, which the lover wishes to escape from.
(d) As nirvana, which the lover hopes to attain.

11. In the section on absence, to what early experience does the author link the subject's feelings about the absent lover?
(a) To the father's absence.
(b) To the subject's first disappointment in love.
(c) To the mother's absence.
(d) To the child's need for approval.

12. What does the subtitle of this section, "to circumscribe," refer to?
(a) The lover's attempt to circumscribe boredom.
(b) The lover's attempt to circumscribe pleasure.
(c) The lover's attempt to circumscribe pain.
(d) The lover's refusal to circumscribe pleasure.

13. What happens when one speaks of love in the objective?
(a) "You" becomes "it."
(b) "You" becomes "he" or "she" or "one."
(c) "He" or "she" becomes "you."
(d) "One" becomes "I."

14. What language does the word "atopos" come from?
(a) Gaelic.
(b) Hebrew.
(c) Greek.
(d) Latin.

15. At the beginning of the book, in the section entitled, "How this book is structured," what is the name that the author uses to describe the different sections of the book?
(a) Figures.
(b) Chapters.
(c) References.
(d) Abstracts.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following phrases is an example of tautology, as presented by the author?

2. In "Catastrophe," what causes the lover's panic?

3. According to the author, what does the term "adorable" represent, or stand in for, in the lover's discourse?

4. What does the term "alteration" refer to in this section of the text?

5. When the narrator states that "the other whom I love...is atopos," what does he mean?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 712 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample