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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. What date does Eagleton settle on as the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?
(a) 1937.
(b) 1977.
(c) 1917.
(d) 1957.

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

3. According to Eagleton, literature is definable "not according to whether it is fictional or "imaginative," because it uses language in ____ways."
(a) Pragmatic.
(b) Pendantic.
(c) Profound.
(d) Peculiar.

4. What is the name of the Russian formalist who published the pioneering essay that is the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?
(a) Fyodor Dostoevsky.
(b) Viktor Shklovsky.
(c) Alexander Pushkin.
(d) Leo Tolstoy.

5. 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 context.
(b) The ideas.
(c) The content.
(d) The facts.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. The distinction between fact and fiction in defining literature is what?

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

4. For Eagleton, hostility toward theory means what?

5. 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?

(see the answer key)

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