View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The narrator states that the study of English literature was seen as a kind of substitute for ________.
(a) Science.
(b) Religion.
(c) History.
(d) Social studies.

2. I.A. Richards pioneered the technique called ________ which was also the title of his book in 1929.
(a) Reception Theory.
(b) Allegorical Interpretation.
(c) Practical Criticism.
(d) Sociological Criticism.

3. The chapter "Feminist Criticism" informs the reader that "for her notion of the basic opposition between semiotic and the symbolic Kristeva was indebted to Jacques Lacan and his distinction between two realms, the ________ and the ________.
(a) Syntagm / syntagmatic.
(b) Reference / referent.
(c) Imaginary / symbolic.
(d) Story / discourse.

4. What does Peter Barry say was the earliest work of theory written by Aristotle?
(a) Metaphysics.
(b) Politics.
(c) Generation of Animals.
(d) Poetics.

5. Author Peter Barry explains that all of the following are part of the three stages of the deconstructive process except for which one?
(a) Textual.
(b) Linguistic.
(c) Visual.
(d) Verbal.

6. Whom does author Peter Barry say was a French psychoanalyst whose work had an extraordinary influence upon many aspects of recent literary theory and who began his career by taking a medical degree and then training in psychiatry in the 1920s?
(a) John Maynard Keynes.
(b) Jacques Lacan.
(c) Marcus Tullius Cicero.
(d) Euripides.

7. Who said the following quote found in the chapter titled Theory Before Theory--Liberal Humanism: "We are told that the study of literature 'cultivates the taste, educates the sympathies and enlarges the mind'"?
(a) Lewis Carroll.
(b) Elie Wiesel.
(c) Edward Freeman.
(d) Oscar Wilde.

8. From which of Babara Johnson's literary pieces can the following definition of deconstructive reading be found according to author Peter Barry: "Deconstruction is not synonymous with 'destruction.' It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis,' which etymologically means 'to undo'"?
(a) Of Grammatology.
(b) The Age of Innocence.
(c) The Critical Difference.
(d) Trustee from the Toolroom.

9. According to the narrator in the Introduction, the ________ probably saw the high-water mark of literary theory.
(a) 1990s.
(b) 1980s.
(c) 1960s.
(d) 1970s.

10. What was the term used in the Introduction that is defined as the science of signs?
(a) Semiotics.
(b) Phenomenology.
(c) Mimesis.
(d) Logocentrism.

11. What does the narrator say the reader will have the most difficulty as the result of what?
(a) The way theory is written.
(b) The way theory is taught.
(c) The way theory is told.
(d) The way theory was created.

12. Peter Barry explains that ________'s most significant thinking was contained in the essays "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" and "The Study of Poetry."
(a) Matthew Arnold.
(b) William Shakespeare.
(c) Voltaire.
(d) Mark Twain.

13. In the chapter titled Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction, whose famous remark on philosophy was, "There are no facts, only interpretations"?
(a) Galileo Galilei.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
(d) Nietzsche.

14. According to Peter Barry in the chapter titled "Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction," post-structuralist critics seek to show that the text is characterized by ________ rather than unity.
(a) Disunity.
(b) Genre.
(c) Discourse.
(d) Indeterminacy.

15. Which of the following best fits the definition of a discipline which has always been inherently confident about the possibility of establishing objective knowledge?
(a) Mimesis.
(b) Formalism.
(c) Linguistics.
(d) Hermeneutics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Barry states in the chapter titled "Feminist Criticism" that the British "socialist feminist" tradition produced its key works in the ________.

2. Jean Baudrillard was associated with what is usually known as ________ according to the narrator.

3. Who does the narrator say was the founder of a method of studying English which is still the norm today?

4. In what decade did "postmodernism" become current according to the author?

5. Author Peter Barry suggests that the reader uses a useful form of intensive reading known as ________.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 614 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample