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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. Who silenced the Russian formalists, according to Eagleton?
(a) Socialists.
(b) Bolsheviks.
(c) Liberals.
(d) Stalinists.

2. Eagleton argues that if literature includes much factual writing, it also excludes "quite a lot of" what?
(a) Fiction.
(b) Nonfiction.
(c) Biography.
(d) Autobiography.

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

4. How many decades, according to Eagleton, has there been a "striking proliferation of literary theory" since the publication of the Russian formalist's pioneering essay?
(a) Six.
(b) Two.
(c) Five.
(d) One.

5. According to Eagleton, the approaches outlined in his book have implications where?
(a) Well beyond politics.
(b) Well beyond literature.
(c) Well beyond language.
(d) Well beyond feeling.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

4. According to Viktor Shklovsky, what novel was "the most typical novel in world literature" because it impeded its own story-line so that it never gets off the ground?

5. For Eagleton, hostility toward theory means what?

(see the answer key)

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