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

2. What genre of writing does Eagleton provide that is an example of writing that is NOT considered to be literature?
(a) Science fiction.
(b) Young Adult.
(c) Romance.
(d) Comics.

3. According to Eagleton, what happens when literary theory becomes "turgidly unreadable"?
(a) "It is being true to its historical roots."
(b) "It is being untrue to its historical roots."
(c) "It is being untrue to the importance of its form."
(d) "It is being true to the importance of its form."

4. According to Eagleton, what does his book try to demonstrate about a body of literary theory?
(a) That there are several bodies of literary theory that spring from and is applicable to literature alone.
(b) That there is one body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(c) That there is sometimes a body of literary theory that springs from and is applicable to literature alone.
(d) That there is no body of literary theory that springs from or is applicable to literature alone.

5. Eagleton argues that if literature includes much factual writing, it also excludes "quite a lot of" what?
(a) Biography.
(b) Autobiography.
(c) Fiction.
(d) Nonfiction.

Short Answer Questions

1. What person is NOT included in the ranks of Russian formalists?

2. According to Eagleton, literature is definable "not according to whether it is fictional or "imaginative," because it uses language in ____ways."

3. 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?

4. Why is the example Eagleton gives of the sign in the London Underground system that "dogs must be carried on the escalator" a case of estrangement?

5. According to Viktor Shklovsky, what novel was "the most typical novel in world literature" because it impeded its own story-line so that it never gets off the ground?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 403 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample