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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, why does Northrop Frye emphasize the "utopian root of literature"?

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

3. Literary texts are code-productive, code-transgressive, and code_____.

4. Roland Barthes "double" sign is the "grandchild" of what kind of language of the Formalist and Czech structuralists?

5. According to Jacques Lacan, what stage does a child first develop an ego?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Eagleton, why should rhetorical science replace literary theory and what is its objective?

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

3. How did Mikhail Bakhtin view language?

4. What is structuralism and how what does it share in common with formalism?

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

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

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

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

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

10. What was the significance of the Prague structuralists?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the relationship between politics and literature, according to Eagleton? How does the production of literature inculcate and disseminate ideological values?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex.

1) Identify and analyze the three stages of human development-- the oral, anal, and phallic stage.

2) Compare and contrast Freud's views on males and females.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Jacques Lacan's work on language as it relates to psychoanalytic theory. How does Lacan's work differ from Freud's?

(see the answer keys)

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