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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What three neurotic symptoms can a person develop that are the result of internal conflict, according to Sigmund Freud?
(a) Obsession, phobia, and depression.
(b) Obsession, hysteria, and phobia.
(c) Pain, hysteria, and fatigue.
(d) Fatigue, pain, and depression.

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

3. According to Eagleton, structuralism has proved that there is nothing _____ about codes.
(a) Progressive.
(b) Evaluative.
(c) Guilty.
(d) Innocent.

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

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

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

7. According to Eagleton, structuralism is a ________of inquiry whereas semiotics is a ______ of study.
(a) Field; type.
(b) Manner; field.
(c) Method; field.
(d) Type; manner.

8. According to Sigmund Freud, what distinguishes humans from other animals?
(a) We experience pain.
(b) We mature early and die later.
(c) We are born helpless and dependent.
(d) We have unfulfilled desires.

9. What is the object named literature, according to Eagleton?
(a) All writing.
(b) The literary canon.
(c) Classic writing.
(d) There is no one object.

10. What does Sigmund Freud call the first stage of sexual life?
(a) The oral stage.
(b) The anal stage.
(c) The erogenous stage.
(d) The phallic stage.

11. 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.

12. What are Northrop Frye's four narrative categories at the root of all literature?
(a) Comic, romantic, tragic, ironic.
(b) Romantic, tragic, idealism, ironic.
(c) Comic, reality, idealism, tragic.
(d) Fiction, fact, reality, idealism.

13. Why do feminists embrace the work of Jacques Lacan, despite the fact that he was contemptuous of the women's movement?
(a) Because Lacan rejected Freudianism.
(b) Because Lacan taught Freudianism.
(c) Because Lacan rewrote Freudianism.
(d) Because Lacan embraced Freudianism.

14. According to Eagleton, structuralism exposed what "shocking truth"?
(a) That even our most intimate experience is the effect of a structure.
(b) The even our most private thoughts is caused by structure.
(c) That even our most pleasurable experience is outside the realm of structure.
(d) That even our most painful experience is outside the realm of structure.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the feminist philosopher Julia Kristeva, the language of the semiotic is a means of what?

2. According to Eagleton, structuralism maintains that "individual units of any system have meaning only by virtue of" what?

3. What is the example Eagleton provides of a metalanguage, where one sign-system denotes another sign-system?

4. When did Sigmund Freud develop psychoanalysis?

5. According to Eagleton, why did intellectuals preoccupy themselves with language in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

(see the answer keys)

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