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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Sigmund Freud, what is the name of the complex whereby a child experiences an unconscious desire for sexual union with its same sex parent?
(a) The Medusa complex.
(b) The Eros complex.
(c) The Pandora complex.
(d) The Oedipus complex.

2. According to Eagleton, the women's movement is not just about women having equal status and power as men, it is what?
(a) The questioning of all status and power.
(b) The acceptance of sexual difference in relations of status and power.
(c) The rejection of men's status and power.
(d) The abdication of sex altogether in relations of status and power.

3. Who is the founder of modern structural linguistics?
(a) Northrop Frye.
(b) Ferdinand de Saussure.
(c) Roland Barthes.
(d) Stanley Fish.

4. In psychoanalytic treatment, what happens during transference?
(a) The patient "transfers" on to the analyst feelings she or he experiences.
(b) The analyst "transfers" on to the patient the diagnosis.
(c) The patient "transfers" on to the analyst the conflicts she or he suffers from.
(d) The analyst "transfers" on to the patient the conflicts she or he suffers from.

5. According to Eagleton, the Western philosophical tradition has "consistently vilified" what?
(a) Speech.
(b) Writing.
(c) Myth.
(d) Man.

6. What is the root of the present crisis in literary studies, according to Eagleton?
(a) The subjugation of theory.
(b) The conflict over methodology.
(c) The definition of the subject.
(d) The inclusion of non-canonical works.

7. What literary movement, according to Eagleton, "brought structuralist and post-structuralist criticism to birth in the first place"?
(a) Romanticism.
(b) Surrealism.
(c) Post-modernism.
(d) Modernism.

8. According to Eagleton, why is Sigmund Freud's discussion of women problematic?
(a) Because of his refusal to discuss women in his work.
(b) Because of his sexist and demeaning attitudes toward women.
(c) Because of his troubling personal relationships.
(d) Because of his glorification of men in his work.

9. According to Eagleton, "the idea that there are 'non-political' forms of criticism" is a what?
(a) Myth.
(b) Fact.
(c) Reality.
(d) Ideal.

10. How are "writable" texts different from ones that can be read?
(a) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a consumer of the text.
(b) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to become the reader/critic of the text.
(c) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to reject the reader/critic of the text.
(d) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a producer of the text.

11. For Jacques Lacan, "meaning is always in some sense an _______."
(a) Abdication.
(b) Allocation.
(c) Approximation.
(d) Amalgamation.

12. What is the "final logical move" for literary theory, according to Eagleton?
(a) To privatize theory for the general public.
(b) To subjugate literature for its own ends.
(c) To distance itself from the text.
(d) To recognize that it is an illusion.

13. When did Sigmund Freud develop psychoanalysis?
(a) Mid-nineteenth century.
(b) Late-twentieth century.
(c) Mid-twentieth century.
(d) Late-nineteenth century.

14. According to the Soviet semiotician Yury Lotman, a poetic text is "semantically _________."
(a) Irrational.
(b) Transparent.
(c) Saturated.
(d) Rational.

15. What is the "literary canon"?
(a) Writing selected as representative of real life.
(b) Writing excluded from a certain discourse.
(c) Writing selected as more valuable than real life.
(d) Writing selected as amenable to a certain discourse.

Short Answer Questions

1. Eagleton writes that his book is less an introduction to literary theory than a what?

2. For Eagleton, what are the two ways in which literary theory can have a distinct purpose and identity?

3. According to Eagleton, why does Northrop Frye emphasize the "utopian root of literature"?

4. Jacques Lacan argues that like _______ desire emerges from a lack, which it strives to fulfill.

5. What year did France's student movement strike against the authoritarianism of the educational institutions and in solidarity with the working-class?

(see the answer keys)

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