View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the name of the American hermeneuticist E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s famous 1967 book?
(a) "Truth and Fact."
(b) "Being and Time."
(c) "Validity in Interpretation."
(d) "Meaning or Method."

2. According to Eagleton, when did the Russian formalists emerge?
(a) After WWI.
(b) Before the Bolshevik Revolution.
(c) Before WWII.
(d) During the Russian Revolution.

3. According to Eagleton, "Literary Theory: An Introduction" has managed to reach readers beyond __________.
(a) Students.
(b) Historians.
(c) Literature.
(d) Academia.

4. According to Eagleton, what kind of thought does literary education NOT encourage?
(a) Analytical thought.
(b) Creative thought.
(c) Irrational thought.
(d) Rational thought.

5. During the 1960s, what kind of students began to enter higher education that broke down assumptions about literary studies?
(a) Students from supposedly "cultivated" backgrounds.
(b) Students from supposedly "first-world" countries.
(c) Students from supposedly "uncultivated" backgrounds.
(d) Students from supposedly "third-world" countries.

Short Answer Questions

1. What date does Eagleton settle on as the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?

2. For the economist Eagleton discusses, "those economists who dislike theory or claimed to get along better without it" were what?

3. What is the name of the economist Eagleton discusses in his preface?

4. By the early 1930s, the study of English literature became what kind of pursuit?

5. What is the name of the critic from the Constance school of reception aesthetics and the author of "The Act of Reading" who Eagleton discusses at length?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is phenomenology and when did it emerge as a serious discipline?

2. What is the significance of Viktor Shklovsky's 1917 essay "Art as Device," according to Eagleton?

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

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

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

6. 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?

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

8. Why is literature an unstable term, according to Eagleton?

9. What kinds of writing were considered literature in the eighteenth-century and why is this significant?

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 760 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample