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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, Rise of the English.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Eagleton provides the analogy of finding a "scrap of writing from a long-vanished civilization" to make what point about deciphering its meaning?
(a) That we would be able to tell that it was a piece of poetry regardless of access to its language.
(b) That we would not know whether it was a piece of poetry or ordinary language.
(c) That we would be able to learn that it was a piece of poetry by looking at the language.
(d) That we would be able to see that poetry didn't exist by looking at its language.

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

3. According to the Russian formalist Osip Brik, Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" would have been written if Pushkin had what?
(a) Died young.
(b) Married early.
(c) Been uneducated.
(d) Not lived.

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

5. According to Eagleton, as the first industrialist capitalist nation, England becomes what kind of state?
(a) A free state.
(b) A police state.
(c) A perfect state.
(d) A wealthy state.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the key figure in the Victorian period Eagleton cites as "preternaturally aware of the needs of his social class"?

2. What genre of writing does Eagleton provide that is an example of writing that is NOT considered to be literature?

3. What is the name of the economist Eagleton discusses in his preface?

4. According to the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, literature represents "organized ______committed on ordinary _______."

5. By the early 1930s, the study of English literature became what kind of pursuit?

(see the answer key)

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