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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, "the idea that there are 'non-political' forms of criticism" is a what?

2. According to Eagleton, the French structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss did pioneering work on what?

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

4. Eagleton writes that his book is less an introduction to literary theory than a what?

5. How did post-structuralism respond to France's student movement's failed attempt to break state power?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the four areas Eagleton discusses rhetoric should target that would bring about transformation in society?

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

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

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

5. What was a "healthy" sign according to Roland Barthes and why is it significant?

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

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

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

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

10. How did Mikhail Bakhtin view language?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast structuralism with phenomenology.

1) What are the basic tenets of each school of thought?

2) What are the similarities between them?

2) What are their differences?

Essay Topic 2

Choose one work of literature (a story, essay, poem, play, or novel) and one method of literary analysis (new criticism, structuralism, post-structuralism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis) and examine the work by utilizing a specific literary theory.

Essay Topic 3

Explain Eagleton's ideas on structuralism.

1) Choose two positive aspects of structuralism.

2) Choose two negative aspects of structuralism.

(see the answer keys)

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