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. Why, according to Bakhtin, does Rabelais treat excrement ambivalently?
(a) Because it is evidence of humankind's presence on the earth.
(b) Because its purpose was a mystery in the Renaissance.
(c) Because it exclusively connotes badness or evil.
(d) Because it is intermediate between earth and body.

2. Bakhtin believes that novels are:
(a) Random, like stream-of-consciousness.
(b) Utterly separate from the author's own life.
(c) Socially charged and polemical.
(d) Inherently confessional.

3. Clowns and fools are:
(a) Restricted to entertaining the royal court.
(b) Present only at large fairs or gatherings.
(c) Prisoners forced to entertain others.
(d) Everyday representatives of the folk and of Carnival.

4. What was unique about the Russian Revolution?
(a) People of all classes and occupations were centrally involved.
(b) Only the elite class was involved.
(c) It continues into the present day.
(d) It was purely a religious revolt.

5. What are examples of carnivalesque victims?
(a) Stray dogs and street orphans.
(b) Blushing virgins and old maids.
(c) Debased clowns and slaughtered oxen.
(d) Peasants and tax collectors.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Bakhtin argue is the role of dialogue?

2. Bakhtin connects Medieval "seriousness" most closely to:

3. How does the Lord of Basche contrive to bring Catchpoles to his castle?

4. The vocabulary of the prologue of _Gargantua_ is:

5. The episode in which Pantagruel and his companions defeat King Anarchus' knights combines:

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Why does Bakhtin state that in Rabelais' novel everyday kitchen implements and foods have an intrinsic value?

5. What was the effect of the suspension of social hierarchies during Carnival?

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

7. What is Bakhtin's general idea about the purpose of art?

8. What role do oaths and profanities fill in Rabelais' novel?

9. How is Bakhtin's book "double-voiced," as Michael Holquist asserts it is?

10. How are being drenched in urine or covered in excrement treated in Rabelais' novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 834 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample