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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What significant thing did translators of Rabelais' work add to their translations?
(a) Editorial remarks in the form of footnotes.
(b) Lists of games played in their own countries.
(c) Lists of street cries common in their own countries.
(d) Critical inquiry of the validity of Rabelais' portrayal of marketplace culture.

2. One of Rabelais' main sources for his enumerations of food was a Medieval treatise about:
(a) Lenten and non-Lenten foods.
(b) Restrictions of food for pregnant women.
(c) The ways in which chicken tasted better than pheasant.
(d) The proper order in which to eat banquet foods.

3. Bakhtin asserts that "The Play in the Bower" influenced Rabelais' work specifically in its:
(a) Adherence to the rules of proper religious worship.
(b) Themes of unofficial laughter and banquet imagery.
(c) Themes of human sadness, pessimism, and regret.
(d) Demonstration of rigid and correctly class-conscious behavior.

4. Goethe traces the roots of Carnival to the:
(a) Romans.
(b) Phoenicians.
(c) Greeks.
(d) Mesopotamians.

5. In grotesque realism, the body is most often represented as:
(a) Subordinate to the higher functions of the brain.
(b) A whole unit, interior merged with exterior.
(c) A faulty copy of the Divine.
(d) Several separate units fighting with each other for superiority.

6. What does Bakhtin assert is evident in Rabelais' plan for Pantagruel's journey?
(a) Rabelais' own morbid fascination with death.
(b) Rabelais' fanciful, imaginative creation of impossible places.
(c) Rabelais' response to his world's changing geography.
(d) Rabelais' critique of contemporary politics.

7. Bakhtin asserts that in Rabelais' time, food and banquets always contained a sense of:
(a) Physical discomfort.
(b) Intellectual stimulation.
(c) Victory and regeneration.
(d) Depression and resignation.

8. In Rabelais' novel, the words "to die" are closely associated with:
(a) Being eaten or swallowed up.
(b) Losing a debate with a scholar.
(c) Passing out after drinking too much wine.
(d) Sexual fulfillment.

9. Bakhtin asserts that Rabelais' language, and the language of Renaissance France, was above all:
(a) Free and flexible.
(b) Lacking foreign influence.
(c) Strict and immobile.
(d) Stagnant and dead.

10. Bakhtin asserts that the spirit of Carnival is essentially:
(a) One of innocence and confusion.
(b) One of pessimism and regression.
(c) One of dullness and duty.
(d) One of immortality and regeneration.

11. The defense of the abbey by Friar John contains:
(a) A caricature of the Pope.
(b) A travestied allusion to Communion.
(c) A grotesque combination of sexual intercourse and war.
(d) A debasing description of the French people.

12. What in Rabelais' novel is a travesty of Gospel miracles?
(a) Gargantua's glimpse into heaven and dialogue with God.
(b) Epistemon's resurrection and visions of the underworld.
(c) Panurge's seduction of a local knight's wife.
(d) Friar John's defense of the abbey vineyards and beating of thousands.

13. Bakhtin notes that two of the most commonly combined themes in Medieval popular literature relating to monks are:
(a) Envy and greed.
(b) Sex and death.
(c) Piety and cruelty.
(d) Gluttony and desire.

14. What is a Renaissance "diablerie"?
(a) A series of prayers one says to beg forgiveness for misbehavior.
(b) A type of behavior manual that purports to stop devilish behavior.
(c) A curse one shouts at another, meaning, "To the devil with you!"
(d) A portion of Carnival in which actors dress up as devils.

15. Bakhtin generally finds Goethe's sense of Carnival's _____________ to agree with his own views.
(a) Universalism.
(b) Religiousness.
(c) Poetic expression.
(d) Pessimism.

Short Answer Questions

1. Bakhtin discusses "Cyprian's Supper," which is a play about:

2. Bakhtin defines Rabelais' giants as:

3. What are the three categories of the "comic" which Bakhtin cites from Schneegans?

4. To what are "swabs" most closely related?

5. How does Bakhtin interpret Rabelais' term "agelast"?

(see the answer keys)

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