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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the name of two principles Sigmund Freud identified?
(a) Rational principle and ideal principle.
(b) Ideal principle and reality principle.
(c) Pleasure principle and rational principle.
(d) Pleasure principle and reality principle.

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

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

4. 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 sorrow for 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 immersion in the actual social world.

5. Jacques Lacan argues that like _______ desire emerges from a lack, which it strives to fulfill.
(a) Language.
(b) Myth.
(c) Faith.
(d) Identity.

6. What is the example Eagleton provides of a metalanguage, where one sign-system denotes another sign-system?
(a) The relation between philosophy and religion.
(b) The relation between philosophy and literature.
(c) The relation between literary criticism and literature.
(d) The relation between literary criticism and religion.

7. What is the name of the Yale theorist who believed that all language is metaphorical?
(a) Northrop Frye.
(b) Julia Kristeva.
(c) Michel Foucault.
(d) Paul de Man.

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

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

10. According to Eagleton, "any method or theory which will contribute to the strategic goal of human emancipation" is what?
(a) "Naive."
(b) "Acceptable."
(c) "Critical."
(d) "Redundant."

11. What does Jacques Derrida label any thought system which depends on an unassailable foundation?
(a) Metaphysical.
(b) Mythical.
(c) Philosophical.
(d) Teleological.

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

13. According to Eagleton, literary theorists "are not so much ______of doctrine as ________of a discourse."
(a) Purveyors; custodians.
(b) Critics; creators.
(c) Writers; readers.
(d) Teachers; students.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Roland Barthes "double" sign is the "grandchild" of what kind of language of the Formalist and Czech structuralists?

2. Why should politics engage with questions of sexual ideology, according to Eagleton?

3. For the literary theorist, Mikhail Bakhtin, "linguistic community" was what kind of society?

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

5. According to Eagleton, the women's movement is not just about women having equal status and power as men, it is what?

(see the answer keys)

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