a. To connect human beings with a higher ideal | ||
b. To entertain those who enjoy it | ||
c. To criticize society through satire | ||
d. To bring to light social oppressions | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Literary theory engages with theoretical rather than real-world issues. | ||
b. Literary theory asks fundamental questions about literary interpretation, and at the same time builds specific systems of literary interpretation. | ||
c. Literary theory relies totally on speculation rather than history. | ||
d. Literary theory is detached from the reality of politics and the economy. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Claude Lévi-Strauss | ||
b. Ferdinand de Saussure | ||
c. Viktor Shklovsky | ||
d. Roland Barthes | ||
e. Michel Foucault |
a. A reversal | ||
b. An imitation | ||
c. A satire | ||
d. A poetic metaphor | ||
e. A spectacle |
a. To understand the importance of the formal elements of literary structure | ||
b. To formulate relationships among an author, a reader, and a literary work | ||
c. To understand the role of sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity in literary study | ||
d. To evaluate the role of historical context in the interpretation of literature | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Literary criticism is concerned only with the meaning of a literary work, while literary theory is concerned only with the structure of a literary work. | ||
b. Literary criticism draws upon research derived from sources outside literature, while literary theory draws upon sources within a text. | ||
c. Literary criticism is concerned with how characters in a text act, while literary theory is concerned with why characters act. | ||
d. Literary theory is concerned with the method used to interpret a work, while literary criticism is the application of literary theory. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Aristotle | ||
b. Viktor Shklovsky | ||
c. Cleanth Brooks | ||
d. Stanley Fish | ||
e. Toni Morrison |
a. Plato | ||
b. Claude Lévi-Strauss | ||
c. Julia Kristeva | ||
d. Walter Benjamin | ||
e. Louis Althusser |
a. Jacques Derrida | ||
b. Jacques Lacan | ||
c. Edward Said | ||
d. Stephen Greenblatt | ||
e. Plato |
a. An idea traditionally associated with the Renaissance | ||
b. A humanity-centered view of the universe | ||
c. A school of theory devoted to the revival of Classical (ancient Greek and Roman) literature | ||
d. A theory that values restraint, form, and imitation | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. As an aesthetic object that is independent of historical context | ||
b. As an aesthetic object that is influenced by historical context | ||
c. As a historical object that is also aesthetic | ||
d. As a historical object that is not necessarily aesthetic |
a. Both sets of critics reject the importance of historical context in studying literature. | ||
b. Both sets of critics look for an objective way to view texts. | ||
c. Both sets of critics study the underlying forms of texts. | ||
d. Both sets of critics focus on evaluating literature in a scientific manner. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A term first used by literary theorists William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley | ||
b. A term that suggests that a critic should study the structural and thematic elements of a poem rather than the effect it has on the emotions of the reader | ||
c. A term that describes the confusion between a poem and its result | ||
d. An important term in the field of New Historicism | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A term that describes how literature exposes its own artificiality | ||
b. A concept associated with Russian formalism | ||
c. An idea explored by Viktor Shklovsky | ||
d. A term that describes the capacity of art to counter the effects of habit | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. An approach that emphasizes literary devices in a text | ||
b. An approach that emphasizes the historical context of a text | ||
c. An approach that emphasizes the biographical intent of a text | ||
d. An approach that emphasizes racial issues in a text | ||
e. An approach that emphasizes the representation of the economy in a text |
a. Cleanth Brooks | ||
b. Ferdinand de Saussure | ||
c. Karl Marx | ||
d. Sigmund Freud | ||
e. Toni Morrison |
a. Critics should examine historical information surrounding a literary work. | ||
b. Critics should develop universal readings of texts. | ||
c. Critics should consider evolving notions of a text over time. | ||
d. Critics should attempt to paraphrase texts in order to find out what they mean. | ||
e. Critics should look at the biographical information of authors. |
a. Plato's The Republic | ||
b. T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" | ||
c. Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology | ||
d. Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author" | ||
e. Jacques Lacan's "The Mirror Stage … " |
a. Aristotle's Poetics | ||
b. Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata | ||
c. John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" | ||
d. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness | ||
e. W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk |
a. Viktor Shklovsky | ||
b. Cleanth Brooks | ||
c. Terry Eagleton | ||
d. Judith Butler | ||
e. Mikhail Bakhtin |
a. Humanism | ||
b. Formalism | ||
c. Structuralism | ||
d. Poststructuralism | ||
e. Marxism |
a. Language is inseparable from its historical context. | ||
b. There are five phases of linguistic development. | ||
c. Language can be analyzed as a formal system of elements. | ||
d. Linguistics is too complicated to be distilled to a formula. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. refuses maternal bonds. | ||
b. is able to separate the "I" from the "Other." | ||
c. looks into a mirror for the first time. | ||
d. first engages with speech. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Biographical information about the author must be considered when evaluating literature. | ||
b. A text and its author text are unrelated. | ||
c. It is possible to distill meaning from a work based on the author's politics. | ||
d. Authorial intent must be considered when evaluating literature. | ||
e. Literature is inextricably connected to its creator. |
a. The idea of the author came into being at a certain point in history. | ||
b. The names of authors serve a classificatory function. | ||
c. The author is not a source of infinite meaning. | ||
d. The author may not always exist. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. No fixed, stable meaning is possible. | ||
b. Language must be studied in conjunction with history in order to create meaning. | ||
c. There is no potential for multiple and differing meanings in a work of literature. | ||
d. Literature is timeless, and thus meaning does not change. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. mirrors our physical evolution as human beings. | ||
b. prevents us from communicating through writing or speech. | ||
c. involves a constant process of deferred meaning. | ||
d. evolved exclusively as a function of our individual psyche. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. The ability of a text to contain truth | ||
b. The "undecidability" and essentially unstable nature of a text | ||
c. The idea that a text has a specific meaning that can be understood through a process of deconstruction | ||
d. Jacques Derrida's style of writing | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. the meaning of a text always relies on context. | ||
b. texts are always heterogeneous. | ||
c. the instability of a text is actually evident in the text itself. | ||
d. any system for the production of meaning is inevitably bound by context, yet also limitless. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. It contains secret instincts and desires that are repressed. | ||
b. It has little impact on human behavior. | ||
c. It is the only significant aspect of the human psyche. | ||
d. It can never be accessed. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Literary texts should not be read as a projection of the author's psyche. | ||
b. Literary texts solely reflect an author's intentions. | ||
c. Literary texts are unlike dreams because they have a system of order and produce meaning. | ||
d. Literary texts reveal secret elements of an author's unconscious. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A maxim of logic developed by Charles Sanders Peirce | ||
b. A theory of practical actions developed by William James | ||
c. An idea used to guide conduct towards clear objectives | ||
d. A concept derived from the ancient Greek word pragma, meaning action | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. T.S. Eliot | ||
b. Jacques Lacan | ||
c. Jacques Derrida | ||
d. Stanley Fish | ||
e. Edward Said |
a. Neurotic behavior | ||
b. Changes in emotional states | ||
c. Obsessions | ||
d. Slips of the tongue | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. All linguistic concepts evolve solely out of the responses of people within a specific historical era. | ||
b. All linguistic and social phenomena are texts, and the object of studying these texts is to reveal the underlying codes that make them meaningful. | ||
c. All linguistics is in some way related to class struggle. | ||
d. All linguistics is related to history, and therefore the meaning of linguistics relies exclusively on historical context. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Judith Butler's Gender Trouble | ||
b. W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk | ||
c. Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author" | ||
d. Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology | ||
e. Jacques Lacan's "The Mirror Stage … " |
a. Claude Lévi-Strauss | ||
b. Jacques Derrida | ||
c. Jacques Lacan | ||
d. Michel Foucault | ||
e. Carl Jung |
a. Calling into question the possibility of the coherence of discourse | ||
b. Suggesting that the study of literature is based on the breakdown of language into signs | ||
c. Arguing that language, and therefore literary texts, relies on the difference between terms and therefore constantly defers meaning. | ||
d. Calling into question the capacity of language to communicate | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Kristeva rejects the idea that neuroses provide insight into the unconscious. | ||
b. Kristeva suggests that women are not subject to traditional fetishes. | ||
c. Kristeva offers a more central place for women's issues within psychological development. | ||
d. Kristeva fundamentally disagrees with the idea of the mirror stage. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. It suggests that the suppression of women is part of a historical climate that will naturally fade away. | ||
b. It suggests that gender roles are conditioned by the possession of money and power. | ||
c. It suggests that gender has power over class. | ||
d. It suggests that education, rather than money, is needed for the liberation of women. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Women's gender is artificial, while men's gender is not. | ||
b. While gender is not real, the stereotypes that accompany it are true. | ||
c. Gender is a problematic, but essentially true, category. | ||
d. Gender is largely a cultural construct. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Women should write for and about themselves in order to counter phallocentric texts. | ||
b. Women should write, but they should do so only within the existent male canon. | ||
c. Women should primarily dedicate themselves to studying women's literature from the past. | ||
d. Women should be unconcerned with the struggle for identity. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Kristeva wholly rejects Lacan's theory of psychosexual development. | ||
b. Kristeva centralizes the maternal and the feminine in her revisions of Lacan's theory. | ||
c. Kristeva argues that the mirror stage does not occur until the individual embraces a distinct gender role. | ||
d. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Ophelia's madness represents the social oppression of women. | ||
b. It is nearly impossible to represent women as anything other than mad in patriarchal discourses. | ||
c. Feminist critics need to re-appropriate Ophelia for their own purposes. | ||
d. Women's tragedies tend to be subordinated to those of men. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Examining only female-authored literature more critically | ||
b. Considering women's literature outside of its historical context | ||
c. Studying women's literature for its linguistic qualities only | ||
d. Becoming more familiar with the history of women and women's writing | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Gender does not reflect an essential truth, but rather is a role people play based on their internalization of socially constructed gender roles. | ||
b. Gender roles do not exist. | ||
c. Real gender roles are scripted by excellent writers. | ||
d. Only individuals who have the capacity to perform have gender. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. To advocate for women's rights | ||
b. To create literary subjects with which female readers can identify | ||
c. To critique phallocentric assumptions about literature | ||
d. To counter stereotypes about women | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Performance is the ultimate objective of all human beings. | ||
b. Language is used to indicate action as well as thought. | ||
c. Individuals perform gender actively. | ||
d. Individuals develop consciousness through speech. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Understanding sexuality is crucial to understanding culture. | ||
b. Understanding homosexuality has little effect on understanding culture. | ||
c. Literary study is unaffected by a lack of interest in sexuality. | ||
d. Understanding homosexual themes in novels has become too routine. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. How women really feel about male writers | ||
b. The inscription of womanhood and femininity in texts | ||
c. Second-wave feminism | ||
d. Psychological studies of women | ||
e. Literary works that feature women |
a. Elaine Showalter | ||
b. Julia Kristeva | ||
c. Lucy Irigaray | ||
d. Hélène Cixous | ||
e. Louise M. Rosenblatt |
a. Hélène Cixous | ||
b. Judith Butler | ||
c. Lucy Irigaray | ||
d. Mary Wollstonecraft | ||
e. Julia Kristeva |
a. History comprises the essential framework for the performance of literary analysis | ||
b. Politics and the economy are the most important factors in literary analysis | ||
c. Biography is essential to literary analysis | ||
d. Psychoanalysis is critical to literary analysis | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Formalism | ||
b. Structuralism | ||
c. Poststructuralism | ||
d. Marxism | ||
e. Postcolonialism |
a. An infant's inability to speak prior to the mirror stage | ||
b. The referential relationships among symbols, signifiers, and signs | ||
c. The multi-layered nature of language in a literary work | ||
d. The formulaic shift between economic and political themes | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct |
a. A form of literary criticism that is based on historical context | ||
b. A form of literary criticism that does not incorporate economic concerns | ||
c. A form of literary criticism based on linguistic analysis | ||
d. A term related to gender theory that argues that men are dominant in society by virtue of their economic privilege | ||
e. A form of literary criticism that is based on a reader's response |
a. A term developed by Mikhail Bakhtin | ||
b. A term used to describe how texts include a variety of styles | ||
c. A term used to explain the use of multiple points of view in literature | ||
d. A term that explains resistance to a monolithic text | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A term for the false neuroses expressed in dreams | ||
b. A feminist term for the state that occurs when texts written by women are not considered in the study of literature | ||
c. Another term for the unconscious | ||
d. A term related to the period of psychosexual development that occurs before an infant reaches the mirror stage | ||
e. An ideology that involves dominating the consciousness of exploited classes |
a. The effect of literature in enlightening the human mind | ||
b. The effect of modern society on human suffering | ||
c. The effect of the economy on women's concerns | ||
d. The effect of the unconscious mind on the conscious self | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Language includes multiple social dialects and jargons. | ||
b. Language can include socio-ideological contradictions from the past. | ||
c. Language exhibits and is bound up in the social lives and historical context of the people who speak it. | ||
d. Language is loaded with the intentions of others. | ||
e. Language is shaped by the context of a socially-charged life. |
a. Sigmund Freud | ||
b. Carl Jung | ||
c. William James | ||
d. Theodor W. Adorno | ||
e. Edward Said |
a. They accept ideology as an essential, although sometimes problematic, part of society. | ||
b. They subject all ideologies to critique in order to expose biased interests. | ||
c. They reject the idea that ideology has real effects on social progress. | ||
d. They promote ideology because it helps to create a dominant social order. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Understanding the author's ideas in the context of the real world | ||
b. Entering the author's mind through his or her literary works | ||
c. Understanding the author's consciousness | ||
d. Reproducing the author's thoughts in a critical context | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. The reader fills in the gaps imposed by an author's intention. | ||
b. The reader is sublimated beneath the author. | ||
c. The reader is less important than the author's context. | ||
d. The reader is totally subject to the author's intention. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. The reader participates in a transaction with the text. | ||
b. The reader is acted upon by the text. | ||
c. The reader acts upon the text. | ||
d. The reader brings individual knowledge to his or her reading of the text. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. It is impossible to view a piece of literature as its author intended. | ||
b. It is impossible to divorce a text from capitalist ideology. | ||
c. It is impossible to view a piece of literature correctly, because we can only work within the hetero-normative paradigm. | ||
d. It is impossible to separate a text from the linguistics that compose it. | ||
e. It is impossible for a reader to recognize multiple voices in a text. |
a. A term that describes the absence of racial others in the canon | ||
b. A term that describes the attempt to read homosexuality into literature | ||
c. A term that describes the effect of autobiography on text | ||
d. A term that describes the interpretation of meaning | ||
e. A term that describes the layers of voices in literature |
a. The examination of structures informing our conscious experience | ||
b. The examination of desires informing our consciousness | ||
c. The examination of our unconscious experience | ||
d. The examination of intricate structures within our unconscious | ||
e. The examination of transmissions between our unconscious and conscious experiences |
a. The Moscow School | ||
b. The Chicago School | ||
c. The Frankfurt School | ||
d. The Geneva School | ||
e. The Yale School |
a. Edmund Husserl | ||
b. Wolfgang Iser | ||
c. Jean-Paul Sartre | ||
d. Emmanuel Lévinas | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Wolfgang Iser | ||
b. William Wimsatt | ||
c. Cleanth Brooks | ||
d. Harold Bloom | ||
e. Edmund Husserl |
a. How readers learn to read | ||
b. How readers imagine visual images in a text | ||
c. How readers participate in creating the meaning of a text | ||
d. How readers regard critics | ||
e. How readers choose to read what they read |
a. Theodor W. Adorno | ||
b. Claude Lévi-Strauss | ||
c. Julia Kristeva | ||
d. Jacques Derrida | ||
e. Jacques Lacan |
a. New Historicism rejects the idea that history is neutral. | ||
b. New Historicism does not make strict delineations between literary and non-literary texts. | ||
c. New Historicism takes a particular interest in marginalized peoples. | ||
d. New Historicism is interested in how texts help us understand economic realities. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Psychoanalytic theory | ||
b. Feminist theory | ||
c. Ethnic criticism | ||
d. Postcolonial theory | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. It includes too few works by non-European writers. | ||
b. It includes too few works by non-white writers. | ||
c. It includes too few works by women. | ||
d. It includes too few works by non-Western writers. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. It has little relationship to the colonization of Asian countries by the West. | ||
b. It illustrates the fundamental political equality of all nations. | ||
c. It was produced by Western scholarship. | ||
d. Its literature is less proud that that of the West. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. An early aspect of ethnic criticism | ||
b. An understanding of how double experiences create identity | ||
c. A concept developed by W.E.B Du Bois | ||
d. An attempt to explain dual identity | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. To represent the relationship between colonizers and the colonized | ||
b. To draw attention to the positive effects of colonization on literature | ||
c. To explain why there are few examples of successful non-Western literature | ||
d. To show the ways in which most Western literature is superior | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. To bring attention to false Euro-centric paradigms | ||
b. To rectify the double experiences of certain racial groups | ||
c. To reconcile cultural identity with individual identity | ||
d. To expand the canon to include works authored by different racial groups | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. The West spends too much time trying to consider an Asian perspective. | ||
b. The West tends to look at Asian countries as individual units rather than lump them together. | ||
c. The West views matters through its own limited historical position. | ||
d. The West refuses to apply economic and political coercion to Asian writers. | ||
e. The West compels writers to work in pre-colonial, lost languages. |
a. Texts are examined to see how colonizers and the colonized interact. | ||
b. Texts are examined to see how the formal aspects of the text create meaning. | ||
c. Texts are examined to determine how they reveal social realities. | ||
d. Texts are examined to determine the author's intent. | ||
e. Texts are examined to show how history has little effect on literary production. |
a. Harold Bloom's "An Elegy for the Canon" | ||
b. Jacques Lacan's "The Mirror Stage … " | ||
c. Cleanth Brooks's "Keats's Sylvan Historian" | ||
d. Edward Said's Orientalism | ||
e. Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark |
a. Jacques Derrida | ||
b. Terry Eagleton | ||
c. Fredric Jameson | ||
d. Stephen Greenblatt | ||
e. Louise M. Rosenblatt |
a. Julia Kristeva | ||
b. Fredric Jameson | ||
c. Terry Eagleton | ||
d. Edward Said | ||
e. Michel Foucault |
a. A theory that sees history as a form of writing and discourse | ||
b. A theory that abandons the idea of history as an imitation of events | ||
c. A theory that regards history as a series of narratives | ||
d. A theory that capitalizes on the interplay between literature and history | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A figure of judgment | ||
b. Religious belief | ||
c. A witness | ||
d. Psychological treatment | ||
e. An easy way to explain trauma |
a. Literary theory is limited in its ability to interpret a text. | ||
b. Literary theory often depends on esoteric knowledge to be properly understood. | ||
c. Literary theory is employed mostly by academics. | ||
d. Literary theory should not be an academic focus in English departments. | ||
e. Literary theory is the only proper way to conceptualize literary texts. |
a. How writers conceptualize natural environments and the representation of environmental issues in literature and culture | ||
b. How writers have damaged the environment | ||
c. How the environment can be repaired | ||
d. Who is responsible for damaging the environment | ||
e. How clean energy sources can be developed |
a. It offers a strong outline for how theory can be conducted in the 21st century. | ||
b. It should not be read or considered by any student or scholar. | ||
c. It offers some valid ideas and critiques, but its author is not entirely trustworthy. | ||
d. It offers a strong counterpoint to Jacques Derrida's notion of deconstruction. | ||
e. It proves that William Shakespeare did not author his plays. |
a. Reject all previous modes of literary theory | ||
b. Focus on a return to traditional critical methods | ||
c. Make use of different literary theories in order to develop new theories | ||
d. Work only with ideas developed by post-Marxist theorists | ||
e. Insist that literary studies should be abandoned |
a. Literary theory tends to be too political. | ||
b. Literary theory does not offer a holistic interpretation of a text. | ||
c. Literary theory depends on specialized knowledge that is outside the realm of literary studies. | ||
d. Literary theory is sometimes very abstract and difficult to read. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. Psychoanalysis | ||
b. Marxism | ||
c. Feminism | ||
d. Deconstruction | ||
e. Reader-response theory |
a. Sigmund Freud | ||
b. Carl Jung | ||
c. Michel Foucault | ||
d. Jacques Derrida | ||
e. Jacques Lacan |
a. Theory has replaced literary appreciation with formulas for understanding. | ||
b. The reasoning of theory is often too circular. | ||
c. Many theories have been pushed too far into abstraction. | ||
d. Many theories are no longer accepted by their parent disciplines. | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. A language about another language | ||
b. A supernatural language | ||
c. A language that does not yet constitute a real language | ||
d. A language used by a particular marginalized group of people within a larger dominant culture | ||
e. All of the above answers are correct. |
a. He considers it to be vital in order to understand literary texts. | ||
b. He considers theory to be the only way that literary texts can be interpreted. | ||
c. He has no misgivings about the practical usability of literary theory. | ||
d. He feels that literary theory is ultimately too limited in scope to serve as a proper method of interpretation. | ||
e. He claims never to have read a piece of literary theory. |
a. Trauma theory | ||
b. Ecotheory | ||
c. Game theory | ||
d. Marxist theory | ||
e. Psychoanalytic theory |
a. Strange attractors are mysterious forces that are entirely random. | ||
b. Strange attractors are complex forces that are determined by the laws of physics. | ||
c. Strange attractors are mysterious forces that are both random and determined. | ||
d. Strange attractors are complex forces that are entirely random. | ||
e. Strange attractors are mysterious forces that have no basis in logic or reason and cannot be observed in nature. |
a. Trauma theory | ||
b. Ecotheory | ||
c. Chaos theory | ||
d. Formalism | ||
e. Marxist theory |