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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who said "there is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism"?
(a) Walter Benjamin.
(b) Julia Kristeva.
(c) Michel Foucault.
(d) Karl Marx.

2. According to Eagleton, "the meaning of a sign is a matter of what the sign is _____."
(a) Signifying.
(b) Not.
(c) For.
(d) Doing.

3. In American deconstruction, why does literary criticism become an "ironic, uneasy business"?
(a) Because it lays bare the permanence of meaning.
(b) Because it lays bare the illusoriness of meaning.
(c) Because it lays bare the physicality of meaning.
(d) Because it lays bare the temporality of meaning.

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

5. Roland Barthes "double" sign is the "grandchild" of what kind of language of the Formalist and Czech structuralists?
(a) Temporal.
(b) Estranged.
(c) Unconscious.
(d) Religious.

6. The modern history of literary theory has been characterized by a flight from what?
(a) Real history.
(b) False doctrines.
(c) Shifting ideas.
(d) Absolute morality.

7. Why is psychosis difficult to cope with, according to Sigmund Freud?
(a) Because psychosis is difficult to perceive.
(b) Because the psychotic has lost contact with reality.
(c) Because psychosis is only treatable with shock therapy.
(d) Because the psychotic is violent.

8. According to Eagleton, what is the disadvantage of claiming literature as more valuable and rewarding than other texts?
(a) Because it partly true.
(b) Because it is true.
(c) Because it is untrue.
(d) Because it is no longer true.

9. What does Sigmund Freud see as the "royal road" to the unconscious?
(a) Sex.
(b) Dreams.
(c) Education.
(d) Therapy.

10. The English philosopher J. L. Austin saw language as what?
(a) Pejorative.
(b) Penultimate.
(c) Performative.
(d) Progressive.

11. According to Eagleton, the French structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss did pioneering work on what?
(a) Philosophy.
(b) Religion.
(c) Myth.
(d) Language.

12. According to Eagleton, "the tactic of _________criticism ... is to show how texts come to embarrass their own ruling systems of logic."
(a) Deconstructive.
(b) Psychoanalytic.
(c) Feminist.
(d) Post-structuralist.

13. From a structuralist perspective, why could literature could no longer claim to be a unique discourse?
(a) Because structures could be found in all texts.
(b) Because structures could not be found in literature.
(c) Because structures considered literature a base form of discourse.
(d) Because structures placed a hierarchy on texts other than literature.

14. According to Roland Barthes, what kind of sign draws attention to its own arbitrariness?
(a) A productive sign.
(b) A healthy sign.
(c) An unproductive sign.
(d) An unhealthy sign.

15. Literary texts are code-productive, code-transgressive, and code_____.
(a) Orienting.
(b) Confirming.
(c) Saturating.
(d) Affirming.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, structuralism is a ________of inquiry whereas semiotics is a ______ of study.

2. What text did Tzvetan Todorov attempt a grammatical analysis of so that the characters were nouns, their attributes adjectives, and actions verbs?

3. What is the root of the present crisis in literary studies, according to Eagleton?

4. According to Eagleton, who would an ideal reader be for a structuralist?

5. Who is the founder of modern structural linguistics?

(see the answer keys)

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