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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. What are Northrop Frye's four narrative categories at the root of all literature?
(a) Romantic, tragic, idealism, ironic.
(b) Comic, reality, idealism, tragic.
(c) Fiction, fact, reality, idealism.
(d) Comic, romantic, tragic, ironic.

2. Why is structuralism "anti-humanist," for Eagleton?
(a) Because it rejected the myth that individuality was humanist.
(b) Because it rejected the myth that meaning begins and ends with individual experience.
(c) Because it rejected the myth the individual experience begins and ends with structure.
(d) Because it rejected the myth that humanity was humane.

3. 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 understand our consciousness of it.
(d) They both shut out the material world in order to revert to pre-consciousness.

4. In structuralism, the relationship between the sign and what it refers to is what?
(a) Arbitrary.
(b) Necessary.
(c) Identical.
(d) Opposite.

5. According to Roland Barthes, what kind of sign draws attention to its own arbitrariness?
(a) A healthy sign.
(b) A productive sign.
(c) An unproductive sign.
(d) An unhealthy sign.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, why did the women's movement reject the economic focus of classical Marxist thought?

2. According to Eagleton, one of the gains of structuralism is that it represents a "remorseless _____of literature."

3. What is a belief in "ultimate word, presence, essence, truth, or reality"?

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

5. According to Eagleton, what term is "most-widely touted" in cultural theory?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Julia Kristeva define as "semiotic" and why is it significant?

2. During the 1960s and 1970s why did feminist scholars reject Marxist thought on the left?

3. What is structuralism's lasting impact on literary theory and what is Eagleton's critique of their methodology?

4. How does the philosopher Jacques Derrida conceive of language?

5. Beyond helping the status of women, what is the women's movement's goal and why is it significant?

6. Why does Eagleton claim that Northrop Frye's work emphasized the "utopian root'" of all literature and what is his response?

7. How did Northrop Frye attempt to combine the formalist focus on the text with the essence of new American criticism?

8. How did Mikhail Bakhtin view language?

9. How does Julia Kristeva view language and why is it significant?

10. Why does Eagleton reject the idea of a disconnected individual in society?

(see the answer keys)

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