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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. Who silenced the Russian formalists, according to Eagleton?
(a) Liberals.
(b) Stalinists.
(c) Bolsheviks.
(d) Socialists.

2. According to Eagleton, what becomes the "panacea for all problems" as part of the romantics' aesthetic theory at the turn of the eighteenth century?
(a) The symbol.
(b) The image.
(c) The word.
(d) The text.

3. According to the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, literature represents "organized ______committed on ordinary _______."
(a) Religion; writing.
(b) Protest; speech.
(c) Violence; people.
(d) Violence; speech.

4. What is the German word for how reality is not objective, but experienced and organized by an individual subject?
(a) Wendepunkt.
(b) Vorgeschichte.
(c) Bildungsroman.
(d) Lebenswelt.

5. How did the Romantic artist reflect her or his work in its detachment from history itself?
(a) Because she or he was seen as a minor commodity who existed on the margins of society.
(b) Because she or he was seen as a major commodity who existed within society.
(c) Because she or he was seen as a producer of commodities who sold their goods for high pay.
(d) Because she or he was seen as a consumer of commodities who bought their goods for low pay.

Short Answer Questions

1. What three sequential stages does Eagleton point out in the development of modern literary theory?

2. In the eighteenth-century, what was the whole body of writing in society considered, including philosophy, letters, history, poems, and essays?

3. According to Eagleton, the sentence "this is awfully squiggly handwriting" from Knut Hamsun's "Hunger" tells him its literary because of what reason?

4. For the Romantics, why was their vision of a just society was inverted into a nostalgia for an old and "organic" England?

5. According to Eagleton, what is ironic about those who complain of the difficulty of literary theory?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, what was considered "fact" and what was considered "fiction," and how is it significant?

3. Who developed reception theory and why is it significant?

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

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

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

7. In the nineteenth century, what was the outcome of religion as a result of the industrial revolution where new technologies and science were being developed?

8. What was the dominant ideology of eighteenth-century England?

9. How does Eagleton define elitism in literary studies and why is it important?

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

(see the answer keys)

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