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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 aspect of Jacques Lacan's work is of particular interest to literary theorists?
(a) Lacan's work on religion.
(b) Lacan's work on women.
(c) Lacan's work on history.
(d) Lacan's work on language.

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

3. What year did France's student movement strike against the authoritarianism of the educational institutions and in solidarity with the working-class?
(a) 1978.
(b) 1958.
(c) 1988.
(d) 1968.

4. According to Eagleton, why is Sigmund Freud's discussion of women problematic?
(a) Because of his refusal to discuss women in his work.
(b) Because of his glorification of men in his work.
(c) Because of his troubling personal relationships.
(d) Because of his sexist and demeaning attitudes toward women.

5. According to Eagleton, who would an ideal reader be for a structuralist?
(a) Someone who didn't have any codes at her or his disposal.
(b) Someone who had the right codes at her or his disposal.
(c) Someone who had intelligent codes at her or his disposal.
(d) Someone who had all the codes at her or his disposal.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Sigmund Freud see as the "royal road" to the unconscious?

2. What is the "final logical move" for literary theory, according to Eagleton?

3. When did Sigmund Freud develop psychoanalysis?

4. According to Eagleton, what is the disadvantage of claiming literature as more valuable and rewarding than other texts?

5. According to Sigmund Freud, what is the process by which human beings cope with desires they cannot fulfill by directing them towards a more socially valued goal?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Why does Eagleton argue that politics should engage with questions of sexual ideology?

4. According to Sigmund Freud, what are the two conflicting principles that all people are motivated by and why is it significant?

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

6. What is multiple pluralism and why does Eagleton object to it?

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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