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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. 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 of the ambiguities inherent in the statement, which raises questions about its meaning.
(b) Because the statement is a directive where people who do not follow are estranged from society.
(c) Because the language is prosaic and straightforward.
(d) Because the directive is unambigious and therefore inherently meaningful.

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

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

4. For Eagleton, opposition between "historical" and "artistic" truth does NOT apply to what?
(a) Middle English.
(b) Early Icelandic sagas.
(c) Late Victorian novels.
(d) Fairy-tales.

5. According to Eagleton, what happens when literary theory becomes "turgidly unreadable"?
(a) "It is being true to the importance of its form."
(b) "It is being untrue to the importance of its form."
(c) "It is being untrue to its historical roots."
(d) "It is being true to its historical roots."

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, literature represents "organized ______committed on ordinary _______."

2. According to Eagleton, "theory was a way of _______ literary works from the ________of civilised sensibility'"

3. What genre of writing does Eagleton provide that is an example of writing that is NOT considered to be literature?

4. According to Eagleton, the Russian formalist shifted their attention to the "material reality" of what?

5. According to Eagleton, "Literary Theory: An Introduction" has managed to reach readers beyond __________.

(see the answer key)

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