View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Introduction: What is Literature?.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What date does Eagleton settle on as the "beginnings of the transformation which has taken over literary theory in this century"?
(a) 1917.
(b) 1977.
(c) 1957.
(d) 1937.

2. The distinction between fact and fiction in defining literature is what?
(a) Complicated.
(b) Important.
(c) Difficult.
(d) Questionable.

3. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?
(a) Within the inner circle of critics and readers.
(b) Far beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(c) Not beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(d) To the outer circle of critics and readers.

4. Eagleton argues that the readership his book has attracted dispels the notion that literary theory is what?
(a) Boring.
(b) Simple.
(c) Misguided.
(d) Elitist.

5. According to Eagleton, the formalists were not out to define literature but they were out to define what?
(a) Realism.
(b) Literariness.
(c) Criticism.
(d) Inventiveness.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, what idea is "truly elitist" in literary studies?

2. What is "imaginative" literature or literature that is not necessarily true?

3. What example from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries does Eagleton provide that was not considered purely factual?

4. How many decades, according to Eagleton, has there been a "striking proliferation of literary theory" since the publication of the Russian formalist's pioneering essay?

5. What year did Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory: An Introduction" first appear?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 267 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample