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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why should politics engage with questions of sexual ideology, according to Eagleton?
(a) Because sexism and gender roles are not deeply integrated in human experience.
(b) Because sexism and gender roles should persist in human experience.
(c) Because sexism and gender roles do not exist in human experience.
(d) Because sexism and gender roles are deeply integrated in human experience.

2. What is the difference between metaphor and metonymy?
(a) In metaphor one sign is substituted for another; in metonymy one sign is privileged over another.
(b) In metaphor one sign is subtituted for another; in metonymy one sign is associated with another.
(c) In metaphor one sign is equal to another; in metonymy one sign is less than another.
(d) In metaphor one sign is privileged over another; in metonymy one sign is associated with another.

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

4. What are Northrop Frye's three recurrent patterns of symbolism in literature?
(a) Analogical, demonic, tragic.
(b) Apocalyptic, demonic, analogical.
(c) Comic, apocalyptic, romantic.
(d) Tragic, comic, romantic.

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

6. What is NOT a material reality in the oppression of women?
(a) Unequal wages.
(b) Motherhood.
(c) Equal wages.
(d) Job Discrimination.

7. According to Eagleton, why is it an illusion to think that he can be present to us in what he says and writes?
(a) Because language is only a tool, not something he is made of.
(b) Because the language he uses is not a tool but something he is made of and therefore always divided.
(c) Because he is a concrete entity but language is not.
(d) Because he is no longer present in the world but in some other present in the future.

8. 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) Fatigue, pain, and depression.
(c) Obsession, hysteria, and phobia.
(d) Pain, hysteria, and fatigue.

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

10. According to Eagleton, why does Northrop Frye emphasize the "utopian root of literature"?
(a) Because it is marked by a deep fear of the actual social world.
(b) Because it is marked by a deep immersion in the actual social world.
(c) Because it is marked by a deep relation to the actual social world.
(d) Because it is marked by a deep sorrow for the actual social world.

11. According to Sigmund Freud, what is the process by which human beings cope with desires they cannot fulfill by directing them towards a more socially valued goal?
(a) Idealization.
(b) Repression.
(c) Sublimation.
(d) Transference.

12. According to Eagleton, what is the oldest form of literary criticism?
(a) Religion.
(b) Sociology.
(c) Rhetoric.
(d) Philosophy.

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

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

15. According to Eagleton, structuralism maintains that "individual units of any system have meaning only by virtue of" what?
(a) Their status in the world.
(b) Their connection to religion.
(c) Their relations to one another.
(d) Their meaning for the critic.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What is the "impotence" of liberal humanism a symptom of, according to Eagleton?

4. For Jacques Lacan, "meaning is always in some sense an _______."

5. The English philosopher J. L. Austin saw language as what?

(see the answer keys)

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