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. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?
(a) Within the inner circle of critics and readers.
(b) Not beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(c) Far beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(d) To the outer circle of critics and readers.

2. According to Eagleton, what does his book try to demonstrate about a body of literary theory?
(a) That there is no body of literary theory that springs from or is applicable to literature alone.
(b) That there is one body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(c) That there is sometimes a body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(d) That there are several bodies of literary theory that spring from and is applicable to literature alone.

3. What is "imaginative" literature or literature that is not necessarily true?
(a) Fiction.
(b) Nonfiction.
(c) Biography.
(d) Memoir.

4. Eagleton argues that the readership his book has attracted dispels the notion that literary theory is what?
(a) Simple.
(b) Misguided.
(c) Elitist.
(d) Boring.

5. What is the name of the Russian formalist who published the pioneering essay that is the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?
(a) Viktor Shklovsky.
(b) Fyodor Dostoevsky.
(c) Alexander Pushkin.
(d) Leo Tolstoy.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, formalism is the application of what to the study of literature?

2. Who silenced the Russian formalists, according to Eagleton?

3. According to Eagleton, what is ironic about those who complain of the difficulty of literary theory?

4. The Russian formalists rejected what kind of doctrines that had influenced literary criticism?

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 345 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample