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

2. 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) Alexander Pushkin.
(b) Viktor Shklovsky.
(c) Leo Tolstoy.
(d) Fyodor Dostoevsky.

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

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

5. According to Eagleton, what does his book try to demonstrate about a body of literary theory?
(a) That there are several bodies of literary theory that spring from and is applicable to literature alone.
(b) That there is one body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(c) That there is sometimes a body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(d) That there is no body of literary theory that springs from or is applicable to literature alone.

Short Answer Questions

1. What person is NOT included in the ranks of Russian formalists?

2. According to Eagleton, what is ironic about those who complain of the difficulty of literary theory?

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

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

5. 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"?

(see the answer key)

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