View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does the Lord of Basche contrive to bring Catchpoles to his castle?
(a) By celebrating mock weddings.
(b) By offering people absolution from their sins.
(c) By celebrating Mass.
(d) By giving away his possessions.

2. What are the targets of the abusive language in Rabelais' prologue to the Third Book?
(a) Average townsfolk who have imbibed too much wine.
(b) Representatives of old, hypocritical, serious Medieval philosophy.
(c) Foreign travelers who have offended the traditions of Carnival.
(d) Members of the aristocracy whose political ideals are not in keeping with Rabelais' ideals.

3. How did the French Romanticists respond to Rabelais' works?
(a) With an appreciation of, and interest in, the grotesque.
(b) They ignored Rabelais completely.
(c) With disgust and negative criticism.
(d) With complete understanding of Medieval and Renaissance culture.

4. What does Bakhtin consider the most indispensable element of folk culture?
(a) Death rituals.
(b) Marriage.
(c) Fables.
(d) Carnival.

5. Which answer best describes "grotesque realism"?
(a) The tone of the writing is always dark, Gothic, and depressing.
(b) The bodily element is universal, celebratory, positive, and exaggerated.
(c) The writing must strive to be as mathematically or geometrically accurate as possible in its descriptions.
(d) The author's focus must be on bodily gore, blood, death, and dying.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the Prologue of the Third Book, to which contemporary events does Rabelais allude?

2. Why are Rabelais' billingsgate elements considered "coarse and cynical" by most scholars?

3. The core images of the prologue of _Gargantua_ are:

4. Did the "unofficial" and "official" forms of speech ever coincide?

5. When the grotesque was revived in the Romantic era, what did it react against?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the "feast of fools," and why was it a particularly festive laughter in the Middle Ages?

2. What was Rabelais' relationship with the fairs based upon?

3. Describe two episodes of beatings or injury are specifically centered around the theme of feasting.

4. What about the episode of the Lord of Basche is carnivalesque?

5. What is important about the figure of the physician in Rabelais' novel?

6. What does Rabelais parody with the character of Janotus de Bragmardo?

7. Describe the Catchpoles and what they symbolize.

8. What are the "cris de Paris," or "street cries"?

9. How does Bakhtin interpret the prologue of _Pantagruel_?

10. What was Bakhtin's relationship with the Russian Union of Writers?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 924 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample