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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is credited with saying that the textuality of history is "an intensified willingness to read all of the textual traces of the past with the attention traditionally conferred only on literary texts"?

2. Which of the following essays is an example of new historicism in practice written by Louis Montrose?

3. Peter Barry affirms that Friedrich Engels was a German ________.

4. In the following statement found in the chapter "New Historicism and Cultural Materialism," what does the word "panoptic" mean: "Michel Foucault's pervasive image of the state is that of 'panoptic'"?

5. Who does Peter Barry credit with partially defusing the conflict between heterosexual feminists and lesbians in an important essay which introduced the notion of the "lesbian continuum"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the four characteristics that define the term "Political Shakespeare"?

2. What do ecocritics do according to Peter Barry?

3. Briefly explain new historicism as it is described by the author.

4. Briefly define "mimesis" and "diegesis" as determined by Peter Barry.

5. Who was Karl Marx?

6. How does stylistics differ from standard close reading?

7. What is the purpose of lesbian/gay criticism according to the "Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader"?

8. What are the ambitions of stylistics as defined by Peter Barry?

9. What does ecocriticism study? What is another term for ecocriticism?

10. What is the aim of Marxism, according to the narrator?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify, analyze, and discuss the significance of the ten principles of liberal humanism that Peter Barry summarizes within the book "Beginning Theory."

Essay Topic 2

Identify, list, and describe the specific functions ecocritics perform in their analysis of literary text.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss how women are represented by both men and women in a piece of literature that you have read in the past. Explain how this representation of women would be viewed by feminist critics.

(see the answer keys)

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