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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 is a belief in "ultimate word, presence, essence, truth, or reality"?
(a) Logocentric.
(b) Egocentric.
(c) Technocentric.
(d) Phallocentric.

2. What is the name of the Yale theorist who believed that all language is metaphorical?
(a) Michel Foucault.
(b) Julia Kristeva.
(c) Northrop Frye.
(d) Paul de Man.

3. Jacques Lacan argues that like _______ desire emerges from a lack, which it strives to fulfill.
(a) Faith.
(b) Language.
(c) Identity.
(d) Myth.

4. What are Northrop Frye's three recurrent patterns of symbolism in literature?
(a) Apocalyptic, demonic, analogical.
(b) Tragic, comic, romantic.
(c) Comic, apocalyptic, romantic.
(d) Analogical, demonic, tragic.

5. For the literary theorist, Mikhail Bakhtin, "linguistic community" was what kind of society?
(a) Homogenous.
(b) Heterogeneous.
(c) Inclusive.
(d) Exclusive.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are the three points Eagleton notes about the method of structuralism?

2. In American deconstruction, why does literary criticism become an "ironic, uneasy business"?

3. According to Eagleton, structuralism is a ________of inquiry whereas semiotics is a ______ of study.

4. Why do feminists embrace the work of Jacques Lacan, despite the fact that he was contemptuous of the women's movement?

5. What literary movement, according to Eagleton, "brought structuralist and post-structuralist criticism to birth in the first place"?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is significant about the ways in which Sigmund Freud treated women and men?

3. Who is Ferdinand de Saussure and what was his contribution to the field of literary theory?

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

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

6. What are the three stages of development in psychoanalysis and how do they relate to literary theory?

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

8. How did post-structuralism develop and why is it significant?

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

10. Who developed semiotics and what was his contribution to literary theory?

(see the answer keys)

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