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

2. 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 content.
(c) The context.
(d) The facts.

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

4. According to Eagleton, "Literary Theory: An Introduction" has managed to reach readers beyond __________.
(a) Historians.
(b) Students.
(c) Literature.
(d) Academia.

5. According to Eagleton, what is ironic about those who complain of the difficulty of literary theory?
(a) "That those who complain would not expect to understand a textbook of biology or chemical engineering."
(b) "That those who complain would expect to understand a textbook of biology or chemical engineering."
(c) "That those who complain are often uncivilised and uneducated."
(d) "That those who complain are often civilised and educated."

Short Answer Questions

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

2. For the economist Eagleton discusses, "those economists who dislike theory or claimed to get along better without it" were what?

3. For Eagleton, opposition between "historical" and "artistic" truth does NOT apply to what?

4. According to Eagleton, Gibbon and the authors of Genesis share what in common?

5. According to Eagleton, "properly understood, literary theory is shaped by a ______impulse rather than an _______one."

(see the answer key)

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