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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. In the chapter titled Structuralism, the narrator explains that ________ applied the structuralism method to the general field of modern culture.
(a) Edgar Allan Poe.
(b) Roland Barthes.
(c) Isaac Newton.
(d) Friedrich Nietzsche.

2. What was the term used in the Introduction that is defined as the science of signs?
(a) Semiotics.
(b) Phenomenology.
(c) Logocentrism.
(d) Mimesis.

3. What term suggests a range of negative attributes, such as "non-Marxist" and "non-feminist," and "non-theoretical"?
(a) Humanism.
(b) Dialogism.
(c) Modernism.
(d) Absurdism.

4. Peter Barry explains that ________'s most significant thinking was contained in the essays "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" and "The Study of Poetry."
(a) William Shakespeare.
(b) Mark Twain.
(c) Voltaire.
(d) Matthew Arnold.

5. The crucial essay "The Death of the Author" written in 1968 was the "hinge" around which ________ turned from structuralism to post-structuralism.
(a) Barthes.
(b) Johnson.
(c) Joyce.
(d) Eddison.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whom does Peter Barry credit with the suggestion that language used is gendered, so that when a woman turns to novel writing she finds that there is "no common sentence ready for her use"?

2. What is the name of the early nineteenth-century American writer who received considerable attention from both structuralists and post-structuralists?

3. Who does the narrator say was the founder of a method of studying English which is still the norm today?

4. What does Peter Barry say was the earliest work of theory written by Aristotle?

5. Which of the following best fits the definition of a discipline which has always been inherently confident about the possibility of establishing objective knowledge?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the three stages of the deconstructive process? Explain.

2. Discuss how J.A. Cuddon describes postmodernism in his "Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory."

3. Explain F.D. Maurice's opinions of literature as detailed in the chapter "Theory Before Theory--Liberal Humanism."

4. Explain how literary theory, after Sir Phillip Sydney, was significantly advanced in the eighteenth century.

5. What are the five (5) codes identified by Barthes in S/Z? Explain.

6. Explain what Peter Barry means when he informs the reader "that it is much better to read intensely in theory than to read widely".

7. What is a theoretical difference between structuralist and post-structuralist?

8. What is the purpose of displacement and condensation?

9. Discuss Sigmund Freud's concept of "dream work."

10. Why was Freudian interpretation interesting to literary critics?

(see the answer keys)

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