View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Introduction: What is Literature?.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Viktor Shklovsky, what novel was "the most typical novel in world literature" because it impeded its own story-line so that it never gets off the ground?
(a) "Tristram Shandy."
(b) "Don Quixote."
(c) "History of the Rebellion."
(d) "Animal Farm."

2. The distinction between fact and fiction in defining literature is what?
(a) Questionable.
(b) Difficult.
(c) Important.
(d) Complicated.

3. According to Eagleton, "properly understood, literary theory is shaped by a ______impulse rather than an _______one."
(a) Popular; unpopular.
(b) Democratic; elitist.
(c) Different; indifferent.
(d) Cultivated; uncultivated.

4. Why is the example Eagleton gives of the sign in the London Underground system that "dogs must be carried on the escalator" a case of estrangement?
(a) Because the directive is unambigious and therefore inherently meaningful.
(b) Because of the ambiguities inherent in the statement, which raises questions about its meaning.
(c) Because the language is prosaic and straightforward.
(d) Because the statement is a directive where people who do not follow are estranged from society.

5. According to Eagleton, "In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the word ______seems to have been used about true and fictional events."
(a) Theory.
(b) Novel.
(c) Memoir.
(d) News.

Short Answer Questions

1. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?

2. What is the name of the pioneering essay the Russian formalist wrote that is the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?

3. According to Eagleton, Gibbon and the authors of Genesis share what in common?

4. According to Eagleton, the approaches outlined in his book have implications where?

5. According to Eagleton, literature is definable "not according to whether it is fictional or "imaginative," because it uses language in ____ways."

(see the answer key)

This section contains 371 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample