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.