Literary Criticism- QUIZ
Q.1 In Palimpsests: Literature in
the Second Degree (1982), Gérard Genette outlines five types of
"Transtextuality." What term does he use for the relationship between
a text and its "paratexts," such as titles, prefaces, dedications,
and book jackets?
1.Intertextuality
2.Metatextuality
3.Paratextuality
4.Architextuality
Answer: 3
Explanation: Genette uses the term
Paratextuality for the relationship between a text and its paratexts such as
titles, prefaces, dedications and book jackets.
Q.2 Who is the author of the
influential 1985 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto". It uses the metaphor of
a "cyborg", a hybrid of machine and organism, to argue that
traditional boundaries between humans, animals, and technology are breaking down?
1. Judith Butler
2. Simone de Beauvoir
3. Donna Haraway
4. Audre Lorde
Answer: 3
Explanation:
Q.3 In the Poetics, Aristotle
famously asserts that plot (mythos) is the:
1. Oratorical decoration of the
drama
2. Soul of a tragedy
3. Secondary element behind
characterization
4. Purifier of public morality
Answer: 2
Explanation: Aristotle calls the
plot the soul of a tragedy.
Q.4 The classical treatise On the
Sublime (Peri Hypsous), which defines the sublime as the echo of a great soul,
is traditionally attributed to:
1. Horace
2. Quintilian
3. Longinus
4. Plotinus
Answer: 3
Explanation: On the Sublime is
traditionally attributed to Longinus.
Q.5 Who conceptualized Crip Theory
as intersection of Queer Theory and Disability Studies in his 2006 text Crip
Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability?
1. Lennard J. Davis
2. Robert McRuer
3. Walter Mignolo
4. Rob Nixon
Answer: 2
Explanation: Crip theory was
developed and popularized by scholar Robert McRuer in his foundational 2006
book, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, with significant
early contributions also coming from figures like Carrie Sandahl.
Q.6 Sir Philip Sidney's An Apology
for Poetry (1595) was written as a direct rebuttal to which Puritan attack?
1. Stephen
Gosson’s The School of Abuse
2. Jeremy
Collier’s Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage
3. William
Prynne’s Histriomastix
4. John
Milton’s Areopagitica
Answer: 1
Explanation: Sidney’s Apology was
a direct response to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse.
Q.7 Match the famous critical
concept or quote with the critic or theorist who formulated it.
List A: The Quotes
(1)"The willing suspension of
disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith..."
(2)"There is nothing outside
of the text." (Il n'y a pas de hors-texte)
(3)"The language of poetry is
a language of paradox."
(4)"The medium is the
message."
List B: The Critics
A. Cleanth Brooks
B. Marshall McLuhan
C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
D. Jacques Derrida
Options
1. 1-C, 2-A, 3-D, 4-B
2. 1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B
3. 1-D, 2-C, 3-A, 4-B
4. 1-B, 2-D, 3-A, 4-C
Answer: 2
Explanation:
1-C: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
coined the phrase "willing suspension of disbelief" in his 1817 work
Biographia Literaria.
2-D: Jacques Derrida famously
wrote this in Of Grammatology (1967), a foundational text for Deconstruction.
3-A: Cleanth Brooks used this as
the opening line of his chapter in The Well Wrought Urn (1947), a cornerstone
of New Criticism.
4-B: Marshall McLuhan introduced
this phrase in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964),
shifting focus to how a medium influences its message.
Q.8 John Dryden’s An Essay of
Dramatic Poesy (1668) is written in the form of a dialogue among four
characters. Which character represents Dryden himself, defending English drama?
1.Crites
2.Eugenius
3.Lisideius
4.Neander
Answer: 4
Explanation: Neander represents
Dryden and defends English drama.
Q.9 Alexander Pope’s An Essay on
Criticism (1711) advises critics that to follow "Nature" is to follow
the rules of:
1. The
physical, wild landscapes of the Romantic universe
2. The
ancient classical masters, particularly Homer and Virgil
3. The
spontaneous impulses of human psychology
4. The
strict geometric laws of the scientific revolution
Answer: 2
Explanation: For Pope, following
Nature means following the rules of the ancient classical masters.
Q.10 Dr Samuel Johnson’s
pioneering work The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–1781) is
highly celebrated for establishing which critical methodology?
1. Purely
text-based, formalist close reading
2. A
combination of biographical history and aesthetic criticism
3. Psychoanalytic
interpretation of authorial trauma
4. Structural
analysis of folktale motifs
Answer: 2
Explanation: Johnson’s Lives
combines biographical history with aesthetic criticism.
Q.11 Which of the following terms
are coined in a famous essay In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens?
1. Womenism
2. Intersectionality
3. Ecofeminism
4. Gynocriticism
Answer: 1
Explanation: Alice Walker coined
the term "Womanism" in her 1983 collection In Search of Our Mothers'
Gardens
Q.12 Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari’s radical text Anti-Oedipus (1972) launches a major post-structuralist
critique against traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, replacing the unified
human subconscious with the concept of:
1.The Collective Unconscious
Archetype
2.The Schizoanalytic
Desire-Machine
3.The Interpellated Subject
4.The Mirror Configuration
Answer: 2
Explanation: Deleuze and Guattari
replace the unified subconscious with the concept of the Schizoanalytic
Desire-Machine (desiring-machines) in Anti-Oedipus.
Q.13 Arrange the following
foundational postcolonial and anti-colonial texts in the correct chronological
sequence of their publication (from earliest to latest):
A. Orientalism
B. Black Skin, White Masks
C. The Empire Writes Back
D. The Location of Culture.
1. b a c d
2. b c d a
3. a b c d
4. b a d c
Answer: 2
Explanation: The publication years
are:
B. Black Skin, White Masks
(Published in 1952 by Frantz Fanon)
A. Orientalism (Published in 1978
by Edward Said)
C. The Empire Writes Back
(Published in 1989 by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin)
D. The Location of Culture
(Published in 1994 by Homi K. Bhabha)
Q.14 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s A
Defence of Poetry (1821) famously ends with the declaration that poets are the:
1. Unacknowledged
legislators of the world
2. Guardians
of traditional religious morality
3. Mirrors
of historical inevitability
4. Architects
of empirical science
Answer: 1
Explanation: Shelley declares that
poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Q.15 Match the critical terms
(1–4) with their associated theorists/critics (A–D):
Terms:
(1)Necropolitics
(2)Biopolitics
(3)Decolonising the Mind
(4)Rhizome
Critics:
A. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
B. Gilles Deleuze & Félix
Guattari
C. Achille Mbembe
D. Michel Foucault
Which of the following
combinations is correct?
1.1–D, 2–C, 3–B, 4–A
2.1–C, 2–D, 3–A, 4–B
3.1–C, 2–A, 3–D, 4–B
4.1–D, 2–A, 3–C, 4–B
Answer: 2
Explanation: Necropolitics is
associated with Achille Mbembe, Biopolitics with Michel Foucault, Decolonising
the Mind with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and Rhizome with Gilles Deleuze & Félix
Guattari.
Q.16 Which prominent standard of
critical evaluation did Hippolyte Taine introduce in his History of English
Literature (1863)?
1. Text,
Texture, and Irony
2. Author,
Publisher, and Marketplace
3. Race,
Milieu, and Moment
4. Sign,
System, and Structure
Answer: 3
Explanation: Hippolyte Taine
introduced the critical triad of Race, Milieu, and Moment (Race, Surroundings,
and Epoch) in his History of English Literature.
Q.17 Roman Jakobson, a bridge
between Russian Formalism and structural linguistics, outlined six
communication functions. Which function dominates when the focus of a message
is placed squarely on its own aesthetic form?
1. The
Referential function
2. The
Emotive function
3. The
Phatic function
4. The
Poetic function
Answer: 4
Explanation: The Poetic function
dominates when the focus of the message is on its own aesthetic form.
Q.18 In "Tradition and the
Individual Talent" (1919), T.S. Eliot argues that the progress of an
artist is a continual:
1. Assertion
of their unique, eccentric biographical personality
2. Self-sacrifice
and a continual extinction of personality
3. Rebellion
against the dead canons of Western European literature
4. Adaptation
to the popular commercial demands of the publishing market
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eliot argues that the
progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice and extinction of
personality.
Q.19 T.S. Eliot used the term
"Objective Correlative" in his essay on Hamlet to describe:
1. A
set of objects, a situation, or a chain of events that serves as the formula
for a particular emotion
2. The
scientific baseline used to measure a text's historical accuracy
3. The
grammatical alignment between a character's dialogue and their interior
thoughts
4. The
structural balancing of plot components in classical tragedy
Answer: 1
Explanation: The Objective
Correlative is a set of objects, a situation or a chain of events that serves
as the formula for a particular emotion.
Q.20 In Principles of Literary
Criticism (1924), I.A. Richards pioneered a method of close textual reading
without external context, which formed the bedrock of:
1. Structuralism
2. Practical
Criticism
3. Marxist
Cultural Materialism
4. Reader-Response
Theory
Answer: 2
Explanation: Richards’ method
formed the bedrock of Practical Criticism and New Criticism.
Q.21 Match the critical concept on
the left with its primary theorist on the right.
Column A: The Concepts
(1) Abjection
(2) Interpretive Communities
(3) Interpellation
(4) Horizon of Expectation
Column B: The Theorists
A. Stanley Fish
B. Hans Robert Jauss
C. Julia Kristeva
D. Louis Althusser
Options
1.1-C, 2-A, 3-D, 4-B
2.1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B
3.1-D, 2-A, 3-C, 4-B
4.1-A, 2-C, 3-D, 4-B
Answer: 1
Explanation:
1-C: Abjection was developed by
the psychoanalytic theorist Julia Kristeva in her 1980 book Powers of Horror.
2-A: Interpretive Communities is a
foundational concept in Reader-Response criticism, popularized by Stanley Fish
in Is There a Text in This Class? (1980).
3-D: Interpellation is a Marxist
concept coined by Louis Althusser in his influential essay "Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970).
4-B: Horizon of Expectation is a
core concept in Reception Aesthetics, introduced by German theorist Hans Robert
Jauss.
Q.22 Which New Critic authored
Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), exploring the complex layers of meaning
inherent in poetic language?
1. Cleanth
Brooks
2. John
Crowe Ransom
3. William
Empson
4. Allen
Tate
Answer: 3
Explanation: William Empson
authored Seven Types of Ambiguity.
Q.23 Which structuralist critic
authored Morphology of the Folktale (1928), analyzing Russian fairy tales down
to a fixed set of 31 linear narrative functions?
1. Vladimir
Propp
2. Tzvetan
Todorov
3. Gérard
Genette
4. Yuri
Lotman
Answer: 1
Explanation: Vladimir Propp
authored Morphology of the Folktale (1928) and analyzed Russian fairy tales
into 31 narrative functions.
Q.24 The Russian Formalist Viktor
Shklovsky coined the term Ostranenie, which is translated as:
1. Defamiliarization
2. Historical
materialism
3. The
collective unconscious
4. Dialogic
imagination
Answer: 1
Explanation: Ostranenie is
translated as Defamiliarization (making the familiar strange).
Q.25 Russian Formalism splits
narrative into two parts: Fabula and Syuzhet. What do these terms mean?
1. Fabula
is the physical text; Syuzhet is the reader's interpretation
2. Fabula
is the raw chronological sequence of events; Syuzhet is the artistic
arrangement of the plot
3. Fabula
is the allegorical meaning; Syuzhet is the literal meaning
4. Fabula
is the author's biography; Syuzhet is the fictional setting
Answer: 2
Explanation: Fabula is the
chronological sequence of events; Syuzhet is the artistic arrangement of the
plot.
Q.26 In his Course in General
Linguistics (1916), Ferdinand de Saussure posits that the linguistic sign is
composed of:
1. An
absolute truth and a historical context
2. A
signifier and a signified
3. A
word and a physical, material object in the real world
4. A
phonetic syllable and a grammatical sentence
Answer: 2
Explanation: Saussure divides the
linguistic sign into the signifier (sound-image) and the signified (concept).
Q.27 Saussure distinguishes
between Langue and Parole. Langue refers to:
1. The
individual speech acts generated by a single speaker
2. The
dead, ancestral languages that no longer evolve
3. The
systemic rules and conventions of a language shared by a social community
4. The
elite literary dialect used by canonical authors
Answer: 3
Explanation: Langue refers to the
systemic rules and conventions of a language shared by a community.
Q.28 Who applied structural
linguistics to anthropology and narrative, creating structural analyses of
mythologies in essays like "The Structural Study of Myth"?
1. Claude
Lévi-Strauss
2. Jacques
Lacan
3. Mikhail
Bakhtin
4. Northrop
Frye
Answer: 1
Explanation: Claude Lévi-Strauss
applied structural linguistics to the study of myth.
Q.29 In Anatomy of Criticism
(1957), Northrop Frye catalogued literature into four seasonal mythoi (Spring,
Summer, Autumn, Winter). Which genre corresponds to Winter?
1.Comedy
2.Romance
3.Tragedy
4.Irony and Satire
Answer: 4
Explanation: Winter corresponds to
Irony and Satire in Frye’s scheme.
Q.30 Roland Barthes' transitional
essay "The Death of the Author" (1967) argues that the true unity of
a text lies not in its origin, but in its:
1.Socioeconomic publisher
2.Destination
3.Grammatical structures alone
4.Subconscious political ideology
Answer: 2
Explanation: Barthes argues that
the true unity of a text lies in its destination (the reader).
Q.31 Jacques Derrida officially
launched Deconstruction during a 1966 conference at Johns Hopkins University
with his lecture titled:
1."What is an Author?"
2."The Structural Study of
Myth"
3."Structure, Sign, and Play
in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
4."The Death of the
Author"
Answer: 3
Explanation: Derrida launched
Deconstruction with the lecture “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of
the Human Sciences.”
Q.32 Derrida’s coined term
Différance combines two French concepts. What are they?
1.To destroy and to construct
2.To differ and to defer
3.To signify and to define
4.To repeat and to alter
Answer: 2
Explanation: Différance combines
the meanings “to differ” and “to defer.”
Q.33 Which post-structuralist
critic developed the concept of "Discourse," exploring how language
operates as a system of power and institutional control in Discipline and
Punish?
1.Jean Baudrillard
2.Michel Foucault
3.Gilles Deleuze
4.Paul de Man
Answer: 2
Explanation: Michel Foucault
developed the concept of Discourse in relation to power and institutional
control.
Q.34 In S/Z (1970), Roland Barthes
draws a distinction between two types of text. A "Writerly"
(scriptible) text is one that:
1.Forces the reader into a passive
consumer role, accepting fixed meanings
2.Encourages the reader to become
an active producer of meanings
3.Is written exclusively in
archaic, classical prose styles
4.Cannot be deciphered due to
syntactic errors
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Writerly text
encourages the reader to become an active producer of meanings.
Q.35 Sigmund Freud’s concept of
the "Uncanny" (Das Unheimliche) refers to the psychological
experience of encountering something that is:
1.Completely alien and never seen
before
2.Simulating an idealized future
utopia
3.Simultaneously familiar and yet
strangely hidden
4.Entirely rational and easily
categorised by the conscious mind
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Uncanny is
something simultaneously familiar and strangely hidden that triggers repressed
anxieties.
Q.36 Jacques Lacan reinterpreted
Freud through structural linguistics, famously stating that the unconscious is:
1. Structured
like a language
2. A
chaotic reservoir of biological animal instincts without syntax
3. Fully
visible within the surface syntax of realistic prose
4. Eradicated
once an individual masters standard grammar
Answer: 1
Explanation: Lacan stated that the
unconscious is structured like a language.
Q.37 Match the Cultural Studies
terms in List I with their respective theorists in List II:
List I:
(1) Encoding/Decoding
(2) Cultural Materialism
(Renaissance/Textual focus)
(3) Cultural Capital
(4) Structure of Feeling
List II:
I. Pierre Bourdieu
II. Raymond Williams
III. Stuart Hall
IV. Jonathan Dollimore & Alan
Sinfield
Choose the correct matching
combination:
1. 1-I, 2-II, 3-III, 4-IV
2. 1-II, 2-I, 3-IV, 4-III
3. 1-III, 2-IV, 3-I, 4-II
4. 1-IV, 2-III, 3-II, 4-I
Answer: 3
Explanation: Encoding/Decoding is
associated with Stuart Hall, Cultural Materialism with Jonathan Dollimore &
Alan Sinfield, Cultural Capital with Pierre Bourdieu, and Structure of Feeling
with Raymond Williams.
Q.38 Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of
Influence (1973) uses a psychoanalytic framework to argue that strong poets
engage in a psychological struggle against:
1.The economic limitations imposed
by corporate publishing houses
2.The artistic achievements of
their literary precursors
3.The critical interpretations
written by contemporary reviewers
4.Their own internal moral and
religious constraints
Answer: 2
Explanation: Strong poets struggle
against the artistic achievements of their literary precursors.
Q.39 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
revolutionized Queer Theory and gender studies with which seminal 1990 text,
which analyzes the structural instability of the homo/heterosexual definition
in Western literature?
1.Gender Trouble
2.Epistemology of the Closet
3.Bodies That Matter
4.The History of Sexuality
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet (1990) analyzes the structural
instability of the homo/heterosexual definition in Western literature.
Q.40 In classical Marxist theory,
the economic mode of production is called the ________, while the cultural,
legal, and political institutions are called the ________.
1.Signifier / Signified
2.Base / Superstructure
3.Langue / Parole
4.Text / Context
Answer: 2
Explanation: The economic mode of
production is the Base; cultural, legal and political institutions form the
Superstructure.
Q.41 Which Marxist theorist
introduced the concept of "Hegemony" to describe how the ruling class
maintains power through cultural consent rather than brute force?
1.Louis Althusser
2.Antonio Gramsci
3.Walter Benjamin
4.Georg Lukács
Answer: 2
Explanation: Antonio Gramsci
introduced the concept of Hegemony.
Q.42 Louis Althusser expanded
Marxist theory by introducing the concept of "Interpellation," which
refers to the process by which:
1.Workers successfully revolt
against factories
2.Ideology hails or constitutes
concrete individuals as subjects
3.Authors consciously remove
political themes from fiction
4.Critics strip a text down to its
linguistic signs
Answer: 2
Explanation: Interpellation is the
process by which ideology hails individuals as subjects.
Q.43 Match the foundational
feminist terms in List I with their corresponding theorists in List II:
List I (Feminist Terms)
(1) Intersectionality
(2) Gynocriticism
(3) The Mythical Norm
(4) Gender Performativity
List II (Theorists)
I. Elaine Showalter
II. Judith Butler
III. Audre Lorde
IV. Kimberlé Crenshaw
Choose the correct matching
combination:
1. 1-I, 2-IV, 3-II, 4-III
2. 1-IV, 2-I, 3-III, 4-II
3. 1-IV, 2-III, 3-I, 4-II
4. 1-II, 2-I, 3-IV, 4-III
Answer: 2
Explanation: Intersectionality is
associated with Kimberlé Crenshaw, Gynocriticism with Elaine Showalter, The
Mythical Norm with Audre Lorde, and Gender Performativity with Judith Butler.
Q.44 Which spatial theorist
authored The Production of Space (1974), fundamentally shaping spatial literary
criticism by arguing that space is not a passive container but a socially
produced construct tied to power?
1.Edward Soja
2.Henri Lefebvre
3.David Harvey
4.Michel de Certeau
Answer: 2
Explanation: Henri Lefebvre
authored The Production of Space and argued that space is a socially produced
construct tied to power.
Q.45 In The Madwoman in the Attic
(1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue that 19th-century women writers
had to navigate distinct structural stereotypes of women created by male
writers. The title itself is drawn from a character by?
1.Anne Brontë
2.Charlotte Brontë
3.George Eliot
4.Emily Brontë
Answer: 2
Explanation: The title itself is
drawn from a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, where
Rochester's hidden first wife, Bertha Mason, is kept locked in an attic.
Q.46 Which French intellectual
authored The Second Sex (1949), providing a foundational philosophical baseline
for second-wave feminism with the statement, "One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman"?
1.Simone de Beauvoir
2.Julia Kristeva
3.Monique Wittig
4.Hélène Cixous
Answer: 1
Explanation: Simone de Beauvoir
authored The Second Sex and made the famous statement that one is not born, but
rather becomes, a woman.
Q.47 Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer coined which famous term in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) to
describe the industrialization of mass entertainment that pacifies the public?
1.The Hegemonic Superstructure
2.The Culture Industry
3.The Ideological Apparatus
4.The Hyperreal Matrix
Answer: 2
Explanation: Adorno and Horkheimer
coined the term “The Culture Industry” to describe the industrialization of
mass entertainment that pacifies the public.
Q.48 Which postcolonial theorist
introduced the concepts of "Hybridity," "Mimicry," and
"Third Space" in The Location of Culture (1994)?
1.Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
2.Frantz Fanon
3.Homi K. Bhabha
4.Chinua Achebe
Answer: 3
Explanation: Homi K. Bhabha
introduced Hybridity, Mimicry and Third Space.
Q.49 In her seminal essay
"Can the Subaltern Speak?", Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak analyzes the
tragic case of which young woman to illustrate how subaltern female agency and
political involvement are systematically misread and overwritten by patriarchal
narratives?
1.Phoolan Devi
2. Anarkali
3.Bhubaneswari Bhaduri
4.Dopdi Mejhen
Answer: 3
Explanation: Spivak analyzes the
case of Bhubaneswari Bhaduri to show how subaltern female agency is misread and
overwritten by patriarchal narratives.
Q.50 Which Marxist cultural
theorist and critic authored Marxism and Form (1971) and The Political
Unconscious (1981), arguing that narrative is fundamentally a socially symbolic
act?
1.Terry Eagleton
2.Raymond Williams
3.Fredric Jameson
4.Pierre Bourdieu
Answer: 3
Explanation: Fredric Jameson
authored Marxism and Form and The Political Unconscious, arguing that narrative
is a socially symbolic act.
Literary Criticism- QUIZ
Q.1 In Palimpsests: Literature in
the Second Degree (1982), Gérard Genette outlines five types of
"Transtextuality." What term does he use for the relationship between
a text and its "paratexts," such as titles, prefaces, dedications,
and book jackets?
1.Intertextuality
2.Metatextuality
3.Paratextuality
4.Architextuality
Answer: 3
Explanation: Genette uses the term
Paratextuality for the relationship between a text and its paratexts such as
titles, prefaces, dedications and book jackets.
Q.2 Who is the author of the
influential 1985 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto". It uses the metaphor of
a "cyborg", a hybrid of machine and organism, to argue that
traditional boundaries between humans, animals, and technology are breaking down?
1. Judith Butler
2. Simone de Beauvoir
3. Donna Haraway
4. Audre Lorde
Answer: 3
Explanation:
Q.3 In the Poetics, Aristotle
famously asserts that plot (mythos) is the:
1. Oratorical decoration of the
drama
2. Soul of a tragedy
3. Secondary element behind
characterization
4. Purifier of public morality
Answer: 2
Explanation: Aristotle calls the
plot the soul of a tragedy.
Q.4 The classical treatise On the
Sublime (Peri Hypsous), which defines the sublime as the echo of a great soul,
is traditionally attributed to:
1. Horace
2. Quintilian
3. Longinus
4. Plotinus
Answer: 3
Explanation: On the Sublime is
traditionally attributed to Longinus.
Q.5 Who conceptualized Crip Theory
as intersection of Queer Theory and Disability Studies in his 2006 text Crip
Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability?
1. Lennard J. Davis
2. Robert McRuer
3. Walter Mignolo
4. Rob Nixon
Answer: 2
Explanation: Crip theory was
developed and popularized by scholar Robert McRuer in his foundational 2006
book, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, with significant
early contributions also coming from figures like Carrie Sandahl.
Q.6 Sir Philip Sidney's An Apology
for Poetry (1595) was written as a direct rebuttal to which Puritan attack?
1. Stephen
Gosson’s The School of Abuse
2. Jeremy
Collier’s Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage
3. William
Prynne’s Histriomastix
4. John
Milton’s Areopagitica
Answer: 1
Explanation: Sidney’s Apology was
a direct response to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse.
Q.7 Match the famous critical
concept or quote with the critic or theorist who formulated it.
List A: The Quotes
(1)"The willing suspension of
disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith..."
(2)"There is nothing outside
of the text." (Il n'y a pas de hors-texte)
(3)"The language of poetry is
a language of paradox."
(4)"The medium is the
message."
List B: The Critics
A. Cleanth Brooks
B. Marshall McLuhan
C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
D. Jacques Derrida
Options
1. 1-C, 2-A, 3-D, 4-B
2. 1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B
3. 1-D, 2-C, 3-A, 4-B
4. 1-B, 2-D, 3-A, 4-C
Answer: 2
Explanation:
1-C: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
coined the phrase "willing suspension of disbelief" in his 1817 work
Biographia Literaria.
2-D: Jacques Derrida famously
wrote this in Of Grammatology (1967), a foundational text for Deconstruction.
3-A: Cleanth Brooks used this as
the opening line of his chapter in The Well Wrought Urn (1947), a cornerstone
of New Criticism.
4-B: Marshall McLuhan introduced
this phrase in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964),
shifting focus to how a medium influences its message.
Q.8 John Dryden’s An Essay of
Dramatic Poesy (1668) is written in the form of a dialogue among four
characters. Which character represents Dryden himself, defending English drama?
1.Crites
2.Eugenius
3.Lisideius
4.Neander
Answer: 4
Explanation: Neander represents
Dryden and defends English drama.
Q.9 Alexander Pope’s An Essay on
Criticism (1711) advises critics that to follow "Nature" is to follow
the rules of:
1. The
physical, wild landscapes of the Romantic universe
2. The
ancient classical masters, particularly Homer and Virgil
3. The
spontaneous impulses of human psychology
4. The
strict geometric laws of the scientific revolution
Answer: 2
Explanation: For Pope, following
Nature means following the rules of the ancient classical masters.
Q.10 Dr Samuel Johnson’s
pioneering work The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–1781) is
highly celebrated for establishing which critical methodology?
1. Purely
text-based, formalist close reading
2. A
combination of biographical history and aesthetic criticism
3. Psychoanalytic
interpretation of authorial trauma
4. Structural
analysis of folktale motifs
Answer: 2
Explanation: Johnson’s Lives
combines biographical history with aesthetic criticism.
Q.11 Which of the following terms
are coined in a famous essay In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens?
1. Womenism
2. Intersectionality
3. Ecofeminism
4. Gynocriticism
Answer: 1
Explanation: Alice Walker coined
the term "Womanism" in her 1983 collection In Search of Our Mothers'
Gardens
Q.12 Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari’s radical text Anti-Oedipus (1972) launches a major post-structuralist
critique against traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, replacing the unified
human subconscious with the concept of:
1.The Collective Unconscious
Archetype
2.The Schizoanalytic
Desire-Machine
3.The Interpellated Subject
4.The Mirror Configuration
Answer: 2
Explanation: Deleuze and Guattari
replace the unified subconscious with the concept of the Schizoanalytic
Desire-Machine (desiring-machines) in Anti-Oedipus.
Q.13 Arrange the following
foundational postcolonial and anti-colonial texts in the correct chronological
sequence of their publication (from earliest to latest):
A. Orientalism
B. Black Skin, White Masks
C. The Empire Writes Back
D. The Location of Culture.
1. b a c d
2. b c d a
3. a b c d
4. b a d c
Answer: 2
Explanation: The publication years
are:
B. Black Skin, White Masks
(Published in 1952 by Frantz Fanon)
A. Orientalism (Published in 1978
by Edward Said)
C. The Empire Writes Back
(Published in 1989 by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin)
D. The Location of Culture
(Published in 1994 by Homi K. Bhabha)
Q.14 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s A
Defence of Poetry (1821) famously ends with the declaration that poets are the:
1. Unacknowledged
legislators of the world
2. Guardians
of traditional religious morality
3. Mirrors
of historical inevitability
4. Architects
of empirical science
Answer: 1
Explanation: Shelley declares that
poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Q.15 Match the critical terms
(1–4) with their associated theorists/critics (A–D):
Terms:
(1)Necropolitics
(2)Biopolitics
(3)Decolonising the Mind
(4)Rhizome
Critics:
A. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
B. Gilles Deleuze & Félix
Guattari
C. Achille Mbembe
D. Michel Foucault
Which of the following
combinations is correct?
1.1–D, 2–C, 3–B, 4–A
2.1–C, 2–D, 3–A, 4–B
3.1–C, 2–A, 3–D, 4–B
4.1–D, 2–A, 3–C, 4–B
Answer: 2
Explanation: Necropolitics is
associated with Achille Mbembe, Biopolitics with Michel Foucault, Decolonising
the Mind with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and Rhizome with Gilles Deleuze & Félix
Guattari.
Q.16 Which prominent standard of
critical evaluation did Hippolyte Taine introduce in his History of English
Literature (1863)?
1. Text,
Texture, and Irony
2. Author,
Publisher, and Marketplace
3. Race,
Milieu, and Moment
4. Sign,
System, and Structure
Answer: 3
Explanation: Hippolyte Taine
introduced the critical triad of Race, Milieu, and Moment (Race, Surroundings,
and Epoch) in his History of English Literature.
Q.17 Roman Jakobson, a bridge
between Russian Formalism and structural linguistics, outlined six
communication functions. Which function dominates when the focus of a message
is placed squarely on its own aesthetic form?
1. The
Referential function
2. The
Emotive function
3. The
Phatic function
4. The
Poetic function
Answer: 4
Explanation: The Poetic function
dominates when the focus of the message is on its own aesthetic form.
Q.18 In "Tradition and the
Individual Talent" (1919), T.S. Eliot argues that the progress of an
artist is a continual:
1. Assertion
of their unique, eccentric biographical personality
2. Self-sacrifice
and a continual extinction of personality
3. Rebellion
against the dead canons of Western European literature
4. Adaptation
to the popular commercial demands of the publishing market
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eliot argues that the
progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice and extinction of
personality.
Q.19 T.S. Eliot used the term
"Objective Correlative" in his essay on Hamlet to describe:
1. A
set of objects, a situation, or a chain of events that serves as the formula
for a particular emotion
2. The
scientific baseline used to measure a text's historical accuracy
3. The
grammatical alignment between a character's dialogue and their interior
thoughts
4. The
structural balancing of plot components in classical tragedy
Answer: 1
Explanation: The Objective
Correlative is a set of objects, a situation or a chain of events that serves
as the formula for a particular emotion.
Q.20 In Principles of Literary
Criticism (1924), I.A. Richards pioneered a method of close textual reading
without external context, which formed the bedrock of:
1. Structuralism
2. Practical
Criticism
3. Marxist
Cultural Materialism
4. Reader-Response
Theory
Answer: 2
Explanation: Richards’ method
formed the bedrock of Practical Criticism and New Criticism.
Q.21 Match the critical concept on
the left with its primary theorist on the right.
Column A: The Concepts
(1) Abjection
(2) Interpretive Communities
(3) Interpellation
(4) Horizon of Expectation
Column B: The Theorists
A. Stanley Fish
B. Hans Robert Jauss
C. Julia Kristeva
D. Louis Althusser
Options
1.1-C, 2-A, 3-D, 4-B
2.1-C, 2-D, 3-A, 4-B
3.1-D, 2-A, 3-C, 4-B
4.1-A, 2-C, 3-D, 4-B
Answer: 1
Explanation:
1-C: Abjection was developed by
the psychoanalytic theorist Julia Kristeva in her 1980 book Powers of Horror.
2-A: Interpretive Communities is a
foundational concept in Reader-Response criticism, popularized by Stanley Fish
in Is There a Text in This Class? (1980).
3-D: Interpellation is a Marxist
concept coined by Louis Althusser in his influential essay "Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970).
4-B: Horizon of Expectation is a
core concept in Reception Aesthetics, introduced by German theorist Hans Robert
Jauss.
Q.22 Which New Critic authored
Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), exploring the complex layers of meaning
inherent in poetic language?
1. Cleanth
Brooks
2. John
Crowe Ransom
3. William
Empson
4. Allen
Tate
Answer: 3
Explanation: William Empson
authored Seven Types of Ambiguity.
Q.23 Which structuralist critic
authored Morphology of the Folktale (1928), analyzing Russian fairy tales down
to a fixed set of 31 linear narrative functions?
1. Vladimir
Propp
2. Tzvetan
Todorov
3. Gérard
Genette
4. Yuri
Lotman
Answer: 1
Explanation: Vladimir Propp
authored Morphology of the Folktale (1928) and analyzed Russian fairy tales
into 31 narrative functions.
Q.24 The Russian Formalist Viktor
Shklovsky coined the term Ostranenie, which is translated as:
1. Defamiliarization
2. Historical
materialism
3. The
collective unconscious
4. Dialogic
imagination
Answer: 1
Explanation: Ostranenie is
translated as Defamiliarization (making the familiar strange).
Q.25 Russian Formalism splits
narrative into two parts: Fabula and Syuzhet. What do these terms mean?
1. Fabula
is the physical text; Syuzhet is the reader's interpretation
2. Fabula
is the raw chronological sequence of events; Syuzhet is the artistic
arrangement of the plot
3. Fabula
is the allegorical meaning; Syuzhet is the literal meaning
4. Fabula
is the author's biography; Syuzhet is the fictional setting
Answer: 2
Explanation: Fabula is the
chronological sequence of events; Syuzhet is the artistic arrangement of the
plot.
Q.26 In his Course in General
Linguistics (1916), Ferdinand de Saussure posits that the linguistic sign is
composed of:
1. An
absolute truth and a historical context
2. A
signifier and a signified
3. A
word and a physical, material object in the real world
4. A
phonetic syllable and a grammatical sentence
Answer: 2
Explanation: Saussure divides the
linguistic sign into the signifier (sound-image) and the signified (concept).
Q.27 Saussure distinguishes
between Langue and Parole. Langue refers to:
1. The
individual speech acts generated by a single speaker
2. The
dead, ancestral languages that no longer evolve
3. The
systemic rules and conventions of a language shared by a social community
4. The
elite literary dialect used by canonical authors
Answer: 3
Explanation: Langue refers to the
systemic rules and conventions of a language shared by a community.
Q.28 Who applied structural
linguistics to anthropology and narrative, creating structural analyses of
mythologies in essays like "The Structural Study of Myth"?
1. Claude
Lévi-Strauss
2. Jacques
Lacan
3. Mikhail
Bakhtin
4. Northrop
Frye
Answer: 1
Explanation: Claude Lévi-Strauss
applied structural linguistics to the study of myth.
Q.29 In Anatomy of Criticism
(1957), Northrop Frye catalogued literature into four seasonal mythoi (Spring,
Summer, Autumn, Winter). Which genre corresponds to Winter?
1.Comedy
2.Romance
3.Tragedy
4.Irony and Satire
Answer: 4
Explanation: Winter corresponds to
Irony and Satire in Frye’s scheme.
Q.30 Roland Barthes' transitional
essay "The Death of the Author" (1967) argues that the true unity of
a text lies not in its origin, but in its:
1.Socioeconomic publisher
2.Destination
3.Grammatical structures alone
4.Subconscious political ideology
Answer: 2
Explanation: Barthes argues that
the true unity of a text lies in its destination (the reader).
Q.31 Jacques Derrida officially
launched Deconstruction during a 1966 conference at Johns Hopkins University
with his lecture titled:
1."What is an Author?"
2."The Structural Study of
Myth"
3."Structure, Sign, and Play
in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
4."The Death of the
Author"
Answer: 3
Explanation: Derrida launched
Deconstruction with the lecture “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of
the Human Sciences.”
Q.32 Derrida’s coined term
Différance combines two French concepts. What are they?
1.To destroy and to construct
2.To differ and to defer
3.To signify and to define
4.To repeat and to alter
Answer: 2
Explanation: Différance combines
the meanings “to differ” and “to defer.”
Q.33 Which post-structuralist
critic developed the concept of "Discourse," exploring how language
operates as a system of power and institutional control in Discipline and
Punish?
1.Jean Baudrillard
2.Michel Foucault
3.Gilles Deleuze
4.Paul de Man
Answer: 2
Explanation: Michel Foucault
developed the concept of Discourse in relation to power and institutional
control.
Q.34 In S/Z (1970), Roland Barthes
draws a distinction between two types of text. A "Writerly"
(scriptible) text is one that:
1.Forces the reader into a passive
consumer role, accepting fixed meanings
2.Encourages the reader to become
an active producer of meanings
3.Is written exclusively in
archaic, classical prose styles
4.Cannot be deciphered due to
syntactic errors
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Writerly text
encourages the reader to become an active producer of meanings.
Q.35 Sigmund Freud’s concept of
the "Uncanny" (Das Unheimliche) refers to the psychological
experience of encountering something that is:
1.Completely alien and never seen
before
2.Simulating an idealized future
utopia
3.Simultaneously familiar and yet
strangely hidden
4.Entirely rational and easily
categorised by the conscious mind
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Uncanny is
something simultaneously familiar and strangely hidden that triggers repressed
anxieties.
Q.36 Jacques Lacan reinterpreted
Freud through structural linguistics, famously stating that the unconscious is:
1. Structured
like a language
2. A
chaotic reservoir of biological animal instincts without syntax
3. Fully
visible within the surface syntax of realistic prose
4. Eradicated
once an individual masters standard grammar
Answer: 1
Explanation: Lacan stated that the
unconscious is structured like a language.
Q.37 Match the Cultural Studies
terms in List I with their respective theorists in List II:
List I:
(1) Encoding/Decoding
(2) Cultural Materialism
(Renaissance/Textual focus)
(3) Cultural Capital
(4) Structure of Feeling
List II:
I. Pierre Bourdieu
II. Raymond Williams
III. Stuart Hall
IV. Jonathan Dollimore & Alan
Sinfield
Choose the correct matching
combination:
1. 1-I, 2-II, 3-III, 4-IV
2. 1-II, 2-I, 3-IV, 4-III
3. 1-III, 2-IV, 3-I, 4-II
4. 1-IV, 2-III, 3-II, 4-I
Answer: 3
Explanation: Encoding/Decoding is
associated with Stuart Hall, Cultural Materialism with Jonathan Dollimore &
Alan Sinfield, Cultural Capital with Pierre Bourdieu, and Structure of Feeling
with Raymond Williams.
Q.38 Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of
Influence (1973) uses a psychoanalytic framework to argue that strong poets
engage in a psychological struggle against:
1.The economic limitations imposed
by corporate publishing houses
2.The artistic achievements of
their literary precursors
3.The critical interpretations
written by contemporary reviewers
4.Their own internal moral and
religious constraints
Answer: 2
Explanation: Strong poets struggle
against the artistic achievements of their literary precursors.
Q.39 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
revolutionized Queer Theory and gender studies with which seminal 1990 text,
which analyzes the structural instability of the homo/heterosexual definition
in Western literature?
1.Gender Trouble
2.Epistemology of the Closet
3.Bodies That Matter
4.The History of Sexuality
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet (1990) analyzes the structural
instability of the homo/heterosexual definition in Western literature.
Q.40 In classical Marxist theory,
the economic mode of production is called the ________, while the cultural,
legal, and political institutions are called the ________.
1.Signifier / Signified
2.Base / Superstructure
3.Langue / Parole
4.Text / Context
Answer: 2
Explanation: The economic mode of
production is the Base; cultural, legal and political institutions form the
Superstructure.
Q.41 Which Marxist theorist
introduced the concept of "Hegemony" to describe how the ruling class
maintains power through cultural consent rather than brute force?
1.Louis Althusser
2.Antonio Gramsci
3.Walter Benjamin
4.Georg Lukács
Answer: 2
Explanation: Antonio Gramsci
introduced the concept of Hegemony.
Q.42 Louis Althusser expanded
Marxist theory by introducing the concept of "Interpellation," which
refers to the process by which:
1.Workers successfully revolt
against factories
2.Ideology hails or constitutes
concrete individuals as subjects
3.Authors consciously remove
political themes from fiction
4.Critics strip a text down to its
linguistic signs
Answer: 2
Explanation: Interpellation is the
process by which ideology hails individuals as subjects.
Q.43 Match the foundational
feminist terms in List I with their corresponding theorists in List II:
List I (Feminist Terms)
(1) Intersectionality
(2) Gynocriticism
(3) The Mythical Norm
(4) Gender Performativity
List II (Theorists)
I. Elaine Showalter
II. Judith Butler
III. Audre Lorde
IV. Kimberlé Crenshaw
Choose the correct matching
combination:
1. 1-I, 2-IV, 3-II, 4-III
2. 1-IV, 2-I, 3-III, 4-II
3. 1-IV, 2-III, 3-I, 4-II
4. 1-II, 2-I, 3-IV, 4-III
Answer: 2
Explanation: Intersectionality is
associated with Kimberlé Crenshaw, Gynocriticism with Elaine Showalter, The
Mythical Norm with Audre Lorde, and Gender Performativity with Judith Butler.
Q.44 Which spatial theorist
authored The Production of Space (1974), fundamentally shaping spatial literary
criticism by arguing that space is not a passive container but a socially
produced construct tied to power?
1.Edward Soja
2.Henri Lefebvre
3.David Harvey
4.Michel de Certeau
Answer: 2
Explanation: Henri Lefebvre
authored The Production of Space and argued that space is a socially produced
construct tied to power.
Q.45 In The Madwoman in the Attic
(1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue that 19th-century women writers
had to navigate distinct structural stereotypes of women created by male
writers. The title itself is drawn from a character by?
1.Anne Brontë
2.Charlotte Brontë
3.George Eliot
4.Emily Brontë
Answer: 2
Explanation: The title itself is
drawn from a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, where
Rochester's hidden first wife, Bertha Mason, is kept locked in an attic.
Q.46 Which French intellectual
authored The Second Sex (1949), providing a foundational philosophical baseline
for second-wave feminism with the statement, "One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman"?
1.Simone de Beauvoir
2.Julia Kristeva
3.Monique Wittig
4.Hélène Cixous
Answer: 1
Explanation: Simone de Beauvoir
authored The Second Sex and made the famous statement that one is not born, but
rather becomes, a woman.
Q.47 Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer coined which famous term in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) to
describe the industrialization of mass entertainment that pacifies the public?
1.The Hegemonic Superstructure
2.The Culture Industry
3.The Ideological Apparatus
4.The Hyperreal Matrix
Answer: 2
Explanation: Adorno and Horkheimer
coined the term “The Culture Industry” to describe the industrialization of
mass entertainment that pacifies the public.
Q.48 Which postcolonial theorist
introduced the concepts of "Hybridity," "Mimicry," and
"Third Space" in The Location of Culture (1994)?
1.Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
2.Frantz Fanon
3.Homi K. Bhabha
4.Chinua Achebe
Answer: 3
Explanation: Homi K. Bhabha
introduced Hybridity, Mimicry and Third Space.
Q.49 In her seminal essay
"Can the Subaltern Speak?", Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak analyzes the
tragic case of which young woman to illustrate how subaltern female agency and
political involvement are systematically misread and overwritten by patriarchal
narratives?
1.Phoolan Devi
2. Anarkali
3.Bhubaneswari Bhaduri
4.Dopdi Mejhen
Answer: 3
Explanation: Spivak analyzes the
case of Bhubaneswari Bhaduri to show how subaltern female agency is misread and
overwritten by patriarchal narratives.
Q.50 Which Marxist cultural
theorist and critic authored Marxism and Form (1971) and The Political
Unconscious (1981), arguing that narrative is fundamentally a socially symbolic
act?
1.Terry Eagleton
2.Raymond Williams
3.Fredric Jameson
4.Pierre Bourdieu
Answer: 3
Explanation: Fredric Jameson
authored Marxism and Form and The Political Unconscious, arguing that narrative
is a socially symbolic act.
