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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, "properly understood, literary theory is shaped by a ______impulse rather than an _______one."
(a) Different; indifferent.
(b) Democratic; elitist.
(c) Cultivated; uncultivated.
(d) Popular; unpopular.

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

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

4. According to the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, literature represents "organized ______committed on ordinary _______."
(a) Violence; speech.
(b) Violence; people.
(c) Religion; writing.
(d) Protest; speech.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What date does Eagleton settle on as the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?

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. According to the Russian formalist Osip Brik, Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" would have been written if Pushkin had what?

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

5. How do linguists describe the effect of language where "the texture, rhythm and resonance of words are in excess of their abstractable meaning."

(see the answer key)

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