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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Bataille compare roots to, in "The Language of Flowers"?
(a) Human bodies.
(b) Visible leaves.
(c) Death.
(d) Corruption.

2. What does the mole stand for in "The 'Old Mole' and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme [Superman] and Surrealist"?
(a) Proletarianism.
(b) God.
(c) Surrealism.
(d) Materialists.

3. Whom does Bataille refer to as untouchables in "Psychological Structure of Fascism"?
(a) The workers.
(b) The sovereign.
(c) The impoverished.
(d) The rich.

4. What relationship between events and things is Bataille describing in "The Solar Anus"?
(a) Reverence.
(b) Duplication.
(c) Interpretation
(d) Imitation.

5. What did Breton call Bataille?
(a) A prophet.
(b) A dubious genius.
(c) A incremental writing whore.
(d) An excremental philosopher.

6. What critique does Bataille make in "The Critique of the Foundations of Hegelian Dialectic"?
(a) He frees dialectical negation from Engels' mechanical abstraction.
(b) He demonstrated why dialectical materialism is inevitable.
(c) He mocks Marx and Engels for their idealism.
(d) He criticizes the Oversoul as a childish fantasy.

7. What description fits with the "Acephale" group?
(a) Literature brotherhood.
(b) Secret society.
(c) Political underground.
(d) Community organizers.

8. Whom does Bataille contrast to the sovereign in "Psychological Structure of Fascism"?
(a) The ignoble workers.
(b) The middle class merchant.
(c) The Jews.
(d) The aristocrats.

9. How do philosophers use natural forms, in "The Language of Flowers"?
(a) As primitive forms of the things themselves.
(b) As symbols for the experience and association of natural forms.
(c) As symbols of sacred abstraction.
(d) As metaphors for other natural forms.

10. What does Bataille claim the world is in "The Solar Anus"?
(a) Farce.
(b) Comedy.
(c) Tragedy.
(d) Parody.

11. How should materialism be disclaimed, in "Materialism"?
(a) By superseding idealism with dialogue.
(b) By replacing idealism with matter.
(c) By including all idealism.
(d) By excluding all idealism.

12. What does Bataille say the eye causes?
(a) Desire.
(b) Despair.
(c) Reverence.
(d) Anxiety.

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

14. Who arranged Bataille's psychoanalytic cure?
(a) Dr. Dausse.
(b) Dr. Jung.
(c) Dr. Rank.
(d) Dr. Adler.

15. When was "Acephale" published?
(a) 1933 to 1937.
(b) 1931 to 1944.
(c) 1936 to 1939.
(d) 1942 to 1946.

Short Answer Questions

1. When did Bataille publish his first pamphlet?

2. What was Breton's response to Bataille?

3. Why was Bataille annoyed while riding his bicycle?

4. What does Bataille say his father looked like in "[Dream]"?

5. What does the title of "The Solar Anus" refer to?

(see the answer keys)

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