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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Eagleton, what kind of age do we live in, where "meaning, like everything else, is expected to be instantly consumable"?
(a) Postmodern.
(b) Esoteric.
(c) Traditional.
(d) Modern.

2. According to Eagleton, why did the Russian formalists NOT see a literary work as a vehicle for ideas, reflection of reality, or transcendental truth?
(a) Because they saw language as a mode of speech for the wealthy.
(b) Because they saw language as words and not objects or feelings.
(c) Because they saw language as potentially empowering the masses.
(d) Because they saw language as obtuse, vague, and ephemeral.

3. What kind of language does Eagleton say people think of literature as?
(a) Difficult.
(b) Dull.
(c) Strange.
(d) Ordinary.

4. According to Eagleton, what idea is "truly elitist" in literary studies?
(a) "The idea that literature can only be understood by writers of literature."
(b) "The idea that literature is the only way to understand a particular culture."
(c) "The idea that works of literature can only be appreciated by those with a particular sort of cultural breeding."
(d) "The idea that literature should not be read by those without a higher degree."

5. What date does Eagleton settle on as the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?
(a) 1977.
(b) 1937.
(c) 1917.
(d) 1957.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, "properly understood, literary theory is shaped by a ______impulse rather than an _______one."

2. What year did Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory: An Introduction" first appear?

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

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

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"?

(see the answer key)

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