All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers
Every English Literature question in the bank, across all chapters, each with the correct answer and a written explanation. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
3,192 questions · page 33 of 160
641. In Fredric Jameson's book The Political Unconscious, what does Jameson suggest about literature ?
- A. History comprises the essential framework for the performance of literary analysis
- B. Politics and the economy are the most important factors in literary analysis
- C. Biography is essential to literary analysis
- D. Psychoanalysis is critical to literary analysis
Explanation: Jameson's guiding principle in The Political Unconscious is “Always historicize”: literary works are shaped by their historical and social…
Correct answer: History comprises the essential framework for the performance of literary analysis- A. Formalism
- B. Structuralism
- C. Poststructuralism
- D. Marxism
Explanation: The Frankfurt School developed critical theory from Marxist concerns about capitalism, ideology, culture, and social domination.
Correct answer: Marxism- A. The effect of literature in enlightening the human mind
- B. The effect of modern society on human suffering
- C. The effect of the economy on women's concerns
- D. The effect of the unconscious mind on the conscious self
Explanation: Adorno's critical theory focuses on how modern capitalist society, mass culture, and systems of domination produce alienation and human…
Correct answer: The effect of modern society on human suffering- A. A figure of judgment
- B. Religious belief
- C. A witness
- D. Psychological treatment
Explanation: Trauma testimony requires a witness who listens and receives the survivor's account, because trauma often cannot be fully communicated by…
Correct answer: A witness- A. Strange attractors are mysterious forces that are entirely random.
- B. Strange attractors are complex forces that are determined by the laws of physics.
- C. Strange attractors are mysterious forces that are both random and determined.
- D. Strange attractors are complex forces that are entirely random.
Explanation: A strange attractor describes a deterministic chaotic pattern that is governed by underlying laws but appears unpredictable and random.
Correct answer: Strange attractors are mysterious forces that are both random and determined.- A. Reject all previous modes of literary theory
- B. Focus on a return to traditional critical methods
- C. Make use of different literary theories in order to develop new theories
- D. Work only with ideas developed by post-Marxist theorists
Explanation: New theories commonly combine, revise, and challenge earlier approaches rather than rejecting every previous theory.
Correct answer: Make use of different literary theories in order to develop new theories- A. It is impossible to view a piece of literature as its author intended.
- B. It is impossible to divorce a text from capitalist ideology.
- C. It is impossible to view a piece of literature correctly, because we can only work within the hetero-normative paradigm.
- D. It is impossible to separate a text from the linguistics that compose it.
Explanation: Hermeneutics treats understanding as inseparable from the language and interpretive conditions through which a text is encountered.
Correct answer: It is impossible to separate a text from the linguistics that compose it.- A. It offers a strong outline for how theory can be conducted in the 21st century.
- B. It should not be read or considered by any student or scholar.
- C. It offers some valid ideas and critiques, but its author is not entirely trustworthy.
- D. It offers a strong counterpoint to Jacques Derrida's notion of deconstruction.
Explanation: Deresiewicz gives After Theory a mixed assessment: he recognizes worthwhile arguments but questions Eagleton’s authority and reliability…
Correct answer: It offers some valid ideas and critiques, but its author is not entirely trustworthy.- A. Elaine Showalter
- B. Julia Kristeva
- C. Lucy Irigaray
- D. Hélène Cixous
Explanation: Elaine Showalter introduced the term gynocriticism for the study of women as writers and of a distinct female literary tradition.
Correct answer: Elaine Showalter- A. It contains secret instincts and desires that are repressed.
- B. It has little impact on human behavior.
- C. It is the only significant aspect of the human psyche.
- D. It can never be accessed.
Explanation: For Freud, the unconscious contains wishes, memories, and instinctual drives that consciousness represses but that continue to influence…
Correct answer: It contains secret instincts and desires that are repressed.- A. Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author"
- B. Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology
- C. Jacques Lacan's "The Mirror Stage ..."
Explanation: Lacan’s “Mirror Stage” explains how the infant forms an ego by identifying with an external image and distinguishing itself from others.
Correct answer: Jacques Lacan's "The Mirror Stage ..."- A. Texts are examined to see how colonizers and the colonized interact.
- B. Texts are examined to see how the formal aspects of the text create meaning.
- C. Texts are examined to determine how they reveal social realities.
- D. Texts are examined to determine the author's intent.
Explanation: New Historicism places texts within the social, political, and historical forces that shape their production and interpretation.
Correct answer: Texts are examined to determine how they reveal social realities.- A. Literary theory engages with theoretical rather than real-world issues.
- B. Literary theory asks fundamental questions about literary interpretation, and at the same time builds specific systems of literary interpretation.
- C. Literary theory relies totally on speculation rather than history.
- D. Literary theory is detached from the reality of politics and the economy.
Explanation: Like philosophy in the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition, literary theory asks basic questions and develops organized systems for…
Correct answer: Literary theory asks fundamental questions about literary interpretation, and at the same time builds specific systems of literary interpretation.- A. It is nearly impossible to represent women as anything other than mad in patriarchal discourses.
- B. Feminist critics need to re-appropriate Ophelia for their own purposes.
- C. Women's tragedies tend to be subordinated to those of men.
- D. All of the above
Explanation: Showalter's discussion of Ophelia connects all three points: patriarchal discourse often represents women through madness, feminist…
Correct answer: All of the above- A. Changes in emotional states
- B. Obsessions
- C. Slips of the tongue
- D. All of the above.
Explanation: Freudian analysis examines unconscious behavior, including emotional changes, obsessive actions, and slips of the tongue, since each may…
Correct answer: All of the above.- A. The reader fills in the gaps imposed by an author's intention.
- B. The reader is sublimated beneath the author.
- C. The reader is less important than the author's context.
- D. The reader is totally subject to the author's intention.
Explanation: For Iser, a text contains gaps or indeterminacies that the reader actively completes during interpretation.
Correct answer: The reader fills in the gaps imposed by an author's intention.- A. A theory of practical actions developed by William James
- B. An idea used to guide conduct towards clear objectives
- C. A concept derived from the ancient Greek word pragma, meaning action
- D. All of the above.
Explanation: Pragmatism links meaning and truth to practical consequences and useful action; William James was one of its major developers.
Correct answer: All of the above.- A. An infant's inability to speak prior to the mirror stage
- B. The referential relationships among symbols, signifiers, and signs
- C. The multi-layered nature of language in a literary work
- D. The formulaic shift between economic and political themes
Explanation: Bakhtin's heteroglossia describes the coexistence of different voices, social registers, and kinds of speech within a literary work.
Correct answer: The multi-layered nature of language in a literary work659. What is dialogism ?
- A. A term used to describe how texts include a variety of styles
- B. A term used to explain the use of multiple points of view in literature
- C. A term that explains resistance to a monolithic text
- D. All of the above.
Explanation: Bakhtinian dialogism resists a single authoritative voice by allowing varied styles, perspectives, and competing meanings to interact…
Correct answer: All of the above.- A. Aristotle
- B. Viktor Shklovsky
- C. Cleanth Brooks
- D. Stanley Fish
Explanation: Among these choices, Aristotle is the closest source for the human-centred classical tradition that later informed liberal humanist…
Correct answer: Aristotle