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

2. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?
(a) To the outer circle of critics and readers.
(b) Within the inner circle of critics and readers.
(c) Not beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(d) Far beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.

3. According to Eagleton, Gibbon and the authors of Genesis share what in common?
(a) Both wrote fiction that is read as historical fact.
(b) Both wrote fiction that is read as fact by some and fiction by others.
(c) Both wrote historical truth that is read as fiction.
(d) They both thought they were writing historical truth, but are read as fact by some and fiction by others.

4. The distinction between fact and fiction in defining literature is what?
(a) Complicated.
(b) Difficult.
(c) Questionable.
(d) Important.

5. 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?
(a) "History of the Rebellion."
(b) "Don Quixote."
(c) "Animal Farm."
(d) "Tristram Shandy."

Short Answer Questions

1. Eagleton argues that if literature includes much factual writing, it also excludes "quite a lot of" what?

2. What example from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries does Eagleton provide that was not considered purely factual?

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

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

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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