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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, Gibbon and the authors of Genesis share what in common?
(a) Both wrote fiction that is read as fact by some and fiction by others.
(b) They both thought they were writing historical truth, but are read as fact by some and fiction by others.
(c) Both wrote fiction that is read as historical fact.
(d) Both wrote historical truth that is read as fiction.

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

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

4. According to Eagleton, what is ironic about those who complain of the difficulty of literary theory?
(a) "That those who complain are often uncivilised and uneducated."
(b) "That those who complain are often civilised and educated."
(c) "That those who complain would not expect to understand a textbook of biology or chemical engineering."
(d) "That those who complain would expect to understand a textbook of biology or chemical engineering."

5. What person is NOT included in the ranks of Russian formalists?
(a) Heinrich Wolffin.
(b) Boris Tomashevsky.
(c) Viktor Shklovsky.
(d) Roman Jakobson.

Short Answer Questions

1. Eagleton's goal in "Literary Theory: An Introduction" is to provide a comprehensive account of literary theory for whom?

2. For the economist Eagleton discusses, "those economists who dislike theory or claimed to get along better without it" were what?

3. What is the name of the economist Eagleton discusses in his preface?

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 "imaginative" literature or literature that is not necessarily true?

(see the answer key)

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