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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Eagleton, "the tactic of _________criticism ... is to show how texts come to embarrass their own ruling systems of logic."

2. What are Northrop Frye's three recurrent patterns of symbolism in literature?

3. Why do feminists embrace the work of Jacques Lacan, despite the fact that he was contemptuous of the women's movement?

4. According to Eagleton, literary theorists "are not so much ______of doctrine as ________of a discourse."

5. Who said "there is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex and why is it significant?

2. Beyond helping the status of women, what is the women's movement's goal and why is it significant?

3. For Roland Barthes, what does literature embody and why is it significant?

4. Why does Eagleton argue that politics should engage with questions of sexual ideology?

5. What was a "healthy" sign according to Roland Barthes and why is it significant?

6. What are the four areas Eagleton discusses rhetoric should target that would bring about transformation in society?

7. What is the dominant ideology within academia and what are its major problems?

8. What is significant about the ways in which Sigmund Freud treated women and men?

9. How did Northrop Frye attempt to combine the formalist focus on the text with the essence of new American criticism?

10. Why does Eagleton claim that Northrop Frye's work emphasized the "utopian root'" of all literature and what is his response?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Define the notion of estrangement and choose two examples from the book as evidence for this concept.

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast structuralism with phenomenology.

1) What are the basic tenets of each school of thought?

2) What are the similarities between them?

2) What are their differences?

Essay Topic 3

Choose two Russian formalists and discuss their work.

1) How did they define literature?

2) What aspects of literary production did they focus on?

(see the answer keys)

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