Free Literary Criticism MCQs with Answers

• A. Examining only female-authored literature more critically
• B. Considering women's literature outside of its historical context
• C. Studying women's literature for its linguistic qualities only
• D. Becoming more familiar with the history of women and women's writing

Explanation: Gynocriticism studies women as writers and examines the history, traditions, and development of women's writing.

• A. Biographical information about the author must be considered when evaluating literature.
• B. A text and its author text are unrelated.
• C. It is possible to distill meaning from a work based on the author's politics.
• D. Authorial intent must be considered when evaluating literature.

Explanation: In “The Death of the Author,” Barthes rejects the idea that an author's biography or intention fixes a text's meaning, shifting…

• A. The ability of a text to contain truth
• B. The "undecidability" and essentially unstable nature of a text
• C. The idea that a text has a specific meaning that can be understood through a process of deconstruction
• D. Jacques Derrida's style of writing

Explanation: Aporia is the point at which a text's meanings become undecidable because its language contains tensions and contradictions.

• A. Literary theory does not offer a holistic interpretation of a text.
• B. Literary theory depends on specialized knowledge that is outside the realm of literary studies.
• C. Literary theory is sometimes very abstract and difficult to read.
• D. All of the above.

Explanation: Critics commonly object that literary theory can be abstract, dependent on specialist concepts, and unable to provide a single holistic…

• A. Viktor Shklovsky
• B. Cleanth Brooks
• C. Terry Eagleton
• D. Judith Butler

Explanation: Viktor Shklovsky was a leading Russian Formalist who examined devices such as defamiliarization and the distinctive construction of…

• 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…

• 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.

• 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…

• 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…

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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…

• 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.

• 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…

• 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.

• 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.

• 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…

• 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…

• 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…