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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, "In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the word ______seems to have been used about true and fictional events."
(a) Theory.
(b) Memoir.
(c) Novel.
(d) News.

2. What genre of writing does Eagleton provide that is an example of writing that is NOT considered to be literature?
(a) Science fiction.
(b) Comics.
(c) Romance.
(d) Young Adult.

3. Why is the example Eagleton gives of the sign in the London Underground system that "dogs must be carried on the escalator" a case of estrangement?
(a) Because the language is prosaic and straightforward.
(b) Because the statement is a directive where people who do not follow are estranged from society.
(c) Because of the ambiguities inherent in the statement, which raises questions about its meaning.
(d) Because the directive is unambigious and therefore inherently meaningful.

4. According to Eagleton, the sentence "this is awfully squiggly handwriting" from Knut Hamsun's "Hunger" tells him its literary because of what reason?
(a) The facts.
(b) The content.
(c) The context.
(d) The ideas.

5. The Russian formalists rejected what kind of doctrines that had influenced literary criticism?
(a) Quasi-mystical fictional doctrines.
(b) Quasi-mystical symbolist doctrines.
(c) Quasi-mystical psychoanalytic doctrines.
(d) Quasi-mystical religious doctrines.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, why did the Russian formalists NOT see a literary work as a vehicle for ideas, reflection of reality, or transcendental truth?

2. What is the name of the pioneering essay the Russian formalist wrote that is the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?

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

4. According to Eagleton, what does his book try to demonstrate about a body of literary theory?

5. According to Eagleton, what idea is "truly elitist" in literary studies?

(see the answer key)

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