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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. 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 privileged over another; in metonymy one sign is associated with another.
(c) In metaphor one sign is subtituted for another; in metonymy one sign is associated with another.
(d) In metaphor one sign is equal to another; in metonymy one sign is less than another.

4. What is the "impotence" of liberal humanism a symptom of, according to Eagleton?
(a) Its contradictory relationship to capitalism.
(b) Its sense of entitlement in relation to the world.
(c) Its refusal to examine the facts.
(d) Its absurd claims in the face of suffering.

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

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

7. According to Eagleton, who would an ideal reader be for a structuralist?
(a) Someone who had the right codes at her or his disposal.
(b) Someone who had intelligent codes at her or his disposal.
(c) Someone who had all the codes at her or his disposal.
(d) Someone who didn't have any codes at her or his disposal.

8. What text did Tzvetan Todorov attempt a grammatical analysis of so that the characters were nouns, their attributes adjectives, and actions verbs?
(a) Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment."
(b) Updike's "Rabbit."
(c) Boccaccio's "Decameron."
(d) Twain's "Tom Sawyer."

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

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

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

12. 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.

13. What is the name of the author whose story "Sarrasine" Roland Barthes examines in "S/Z"?
(a) Balzac.
(b) Tolstoy.
(c) Eliot.
(d) Nabokov.

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

15. Eagleton writes that his book is less an introduction to literary theory than a what?
(a) An answer.
(b) An obituary.
(c) A polemic.
(d) A homage.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who said "there is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism"?

2. Who is the founder of modern structural linguistics?

3. According to Eagleton, structuralism exposed what "shocking truth"?

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

5. According to Eagleton, what is the disadvantage of claiming literature as more valuable and rewarding than other texts?

(see the answer keys)

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