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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Eagleton, formalism is the application of what to the study of literature?
(a) Economics.
(b) Sociology.
(c) Psychology.
(d) Linguistics.

2. For the economist Eagleton discusses, "those economists who dislike theory or claimed to get along better without it" were what?
(a) Had no knowledge of any theory.
(b) In the grip of an older theory.
(c) Didn't understand the importance of theory.
(d) In the grip of the most current theory.

3. Eagleton argues that for Stanley Fish, what a text "does" to us is a matter of what we do to what?
(a) To the text.
(b) To the reader.
(c) To the critic.
(d) To the author.

4. For E.D. Hirsch, the aim of "policing" an author's meaning is to what, according to Eagleton?
(a) Control her/his "private property."
(b) Sell her/his "private property."
(c) Alter her/his "private property."
(d) Protect her/his "private property."

5. What kind of analysis is phenomenology, according to Eagleton?
(a) Uncritical and discursive.
(b) Discursive and non-evaluative.
(c) Critical and discursive.
(d) Uncritical and non-evaluative.

Short Answer Questions

1. What year did Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory: An Introduction" first appear?

2. Who developed hermeneutics?

3. Why is the example Eagleton gives of the sign in the London Underground system that "dogs must be carried on the escalator" a case of estrangement?

4. According to Eagleton, when did the Russian formalists emerge?

5. How did the Romantic artist reflect her or his work in its detachment from history itself?

Short Essay Questions

1. During the eighteenth century, how was art perceived in England and why is it significant?

2. How does Eagleton respond to critics who claim that literary theory as irrelevant or elitist and what are its implications?

3. What is Eagleton's major problem with formalism and why is it significant?

4. How did new criticism emerge in England and America?

5. Why does Eagleton call the emergence and development of literary theory a "theoretical revolution" and what does it signify?

6. What is Eagleton's argument regarding the literary canon as the "unquestioned" great tradition of national literature?

7. What was the romantics relationship to the symbol and why is it significant?

8. How does phenomenological criticism view literature and what is Eagleton's response?

9. How did the romantic movement develop and why is it significant?

10. What does "concretize" mean and why is it significant?

(see the answer keys)

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