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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. For Roland Barthes, what kind of literature attempts to conceal the constructed nature of language?
(a) Feminist.
(b) Post-structuralist.
(c) Realist.
(d) Fantasy.

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

3. Why should politics engage with questions of sexual ideology, according to Eagleton?
(a) Because sexism and gender roles are 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 not deeply integrated in human experience.

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

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

6. In psychoanalytic treatment, what happens during transference?
(a) The analyst "transfers" on to the patient the conflicts she or he suffers from.
(b) The patient "transfers" on to the analyst feelings she or he experiences.
(c) The patient "transfers" on to the analyst the conflicts she or he suffers from.
(d) The analyst "transfers" on to the patient the diagnosis.

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

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

9. The transition from structuralism to post-structuralism is partly in response to what movement?
(a) Christian movement.
(b) Marxist's movement.
(c) Women's movement.
(d) Student movement.

10. What commonality does structuralism and phenomenology share, according to Eagleton?
(a) They both immerse themselves in the material world in order to become conscious of it.
(b) They both immerse themselves in the material world in order to understand the subconscious.
(c) They both shut out the material world in order to revert to pre-consciousness.
(d) They both shut out the material world in order to understand our consciousness of it.

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

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

13. How are "writable" texts different from ones that can be read?
(a) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to become the reader/critic of the text.
(b) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a producer of the text.
(c) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to reject the reader/critic of the text.
(d) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a consumer of the text.

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

15. What year did France's student movement strike against the authoritarianism of the educational institutions and in solidarity with the working-class?
(a) 1978.
(b) 1988.
(c) 1958.
(d) 1968.

Short Answer Questions

1. For Eagleton, what are the two ways in which literary theory can have a distinct purpose and identity?

2. According to Jacques Lacan, what is the "symbolic order"?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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