View a FREE sample

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. According to Eagleton, what does his book try to demonstrate about a body of literary theory?
(a) That there is sometimes a body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(b) That there are several bodies of literary theory that spring from and is applicable to literature alone.
(c) That there is one 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.

3. For the economist Eagleton discusses, "those economists who dislike theory or claimed to get along better without it" were what?
(a) In the grip of an older theory.
(b) Didn't understand the importance of theory.
(c) Had no knowledge of any theory.
(d) In the grip of the most current theory.

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

5. What is "imaginative" literature or literature that is not necessarily true?
(a) Nonfiction.
(b) Memoir.
(c) Fiction.
(d) Biography.

Short Answer Questions

1. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?

2. The Russian formalists rejected what kind of doctrines that had influenced literary criticism?

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

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

5. Who silenced the Russian formalists, according to Eagleton?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 327 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample