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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. According to Eagleton, "the idea that there are 'non-political' forms of criticism" is a what?
(a) Myth.
(b) Reality.
(c) Ideal.
(d) Fact.

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

3. What does Jacques Derrida label any thought system which depends on an unassailable foundation?
(a) Philosophical.
(b) Metaphysical.
(c) Teleological.
(d) Mythical.

4. How are "writable" texts different from ones that can be read?
(a) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to reject the reader/critic of the text.
(b) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a consumer of the text.
(c) Writable texts encourage the reader/critic to become a producer of the text.
(d) Writable texts encourage the author/writer to become the reader/critic of the text.

5. For Eagleton, what are the two ways in which literary theory can have a distinct purpose and identity?
(a) It can define itself in terms of other methods of inquiry and the manner of enquiry.
(b) It can define itself in terms of methods of inquiry or the object being enquired into.
(c) It can define itself in terms of methods of inquiry and the manner of enquiry.
(d) It can define itself in terms of eradicating inquiry or the object being enquire into.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, structuralism maintains that "individual units of any system have meaning only by virtue of" what?

2. For Roland Barthes, what kind of literature attempts to conceal the constructed nature of language?

3. According to Eagleton, what is the "point" of literary theory?

4. According to Eagleton, what is the oldest form of literary criticism?

5. Who said "there is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What is Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex and why is it significant?

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

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

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

7. What is the dominant ideology within academia and what are its major problems?

8. What was the significance of the Prague structuralists?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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