Modern Literary Theory and Criticism MCQs 2026

T. S. Eliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" argues that the poet must

1. Areject all past literature entirely✓
2. Bdevelop a historical sense and submit to the tradition while individual talent modifies it✓
3. Cwrite only autobiographical verse✓
4. Dignore language and metre✓

Eliot's concept of the "objective correlative" refers to

1. Athe poet's private diary entries✓
2. Ba literal translation of Greek drama✓
3. Cthe author's stated intention in a preface✓
4. Da set of objects, situations or events that evoke a particular emotion in the reader✓

In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Eliot advocates poetic impersonality by comparing the mind of the poet to

1. Aa confessional autobiography✓
2. Ba political manifesto✓
3. Ca random word generator✓
4. Da catalyst or medium in which feelings and experiences combine✓

New Criticism is best characterized by

1. Abiographical study of the author's childhood only✓
2. Bmarket analysis of book sales✓
3. Cexclusive focus on historical documents outside the poem✓
4. Dclose reading of the text as an autonomous verbal structure✓

Cleanth Brooks's "well-wrought urn" metaphor suggests that a poem

1. Ais merely decorative pottery✓
2. Bmust preach a moral lesson explicitly✓
3. Cachieves unity in which meaning cannot be paraphrased without loss✓
4. Dshould be reduced to a prose summary✓

Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity refers to

1. Apure cultural authenticity without mixture✓
2. Bthe mixed, in-between cultural identities produced in colonial contact✓
3. Ccomplete assimilation to the colonizer✓
4. Dthe rejection of all translation✓

Wimsatt and Beardsley's "intentional fallacy" holds that

1. Areaders should ignore the text entirely✓
2. Bthe author's stated intention is not a reliable standard for judging meaning✓
3. Conly biography determines interpretation✓
4. Dintention always equals final meaning✓

The "affective fallacy" criticized by Wimsatt and Beardsley confuses

1. Aform with metre only✓
2. Bplot with character only✓
3. Cthe poem with its psychological effects on the reader✓
4. Dtranslation with original✓

I. A. Richards pioneered practical criticism by

1. Astudying student responses to poems without author or title✓
2. Bpublishing only author biographies✓
3. Cbanning ambiguity in poetry✓
4. Dignoring language as emotive✓

F. R. Leavis is associated with

1. ARussian Formalist defamiliarization✓
2. Bmoral seriousness and the "great tradition" in the English novel✓
3. CLacanian mirror stage theory✓
4. Ddeconstructive free play only✓

Structuralism in literary theory treats texts as

1. Apurely unique unpatterned utterances✓
2. Bonly authorial confession✓
3. Csystems of underlying relations and conventions✓
4. Dexclusively historical documents without form✓

Ferdinand de Saussure distinguished langue from parole as

1. Awritten versus oral literature only✓
2. Bepic versus lyric genres✓
3. Ctragedy versus comedy✓
4. Dthe language system versus individual speech acts✓

Roman Jakobson's model of poetic function emphasizes

1. Athe message focusing on the message itself (verbal artifice)✓
2. Bonly the channel of transmission✓
3. Conly the context of situation✓
4. Donly the addressee's emotions✓

Claude Lévi-Strauss applied structuralism to myths by seeking

1. Aauthorial childhood trauma only✓
2. Bmarket price of folktales✓
3. Crandom plot summaries✓
4. Dunderlying binary oppositions and recurring patterns✓

Roland Barthes in "The Death of the Author" argues that

1. Aonly the author's biography matters✓
2. Btexts have one fixed doctrinal meaning✓
3. Ccriticism should ignore language✓
4. Dthe birth of the reader comes at the cost of the author's authority✓

Marxist literary criticism examines literature in relation to

1. Aonly rhyme schemes✓
2. Bmaterial conditions, class relations and ideology✓
3. Conly authorial handwriting✓
4. Donly printing fonts✓

Georg Lukács valued the realist novel for

1. Aescapist fantasy detached from history✓
2. Bpure language games without society✓
3. Csentimental individualism only✓
4. Dpresenting typical characters in relation to social totality✓

Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony explains how

1. Aliterature has no ideological dimension✓
2. Bdominant groups secure consent through cultural leadership✓
3. Call texts are politically neutral✓
4. Dpower operates only by brute force✓

Raymond Williams is a key figure in

1. ANew Critical close reading alone✓
2. Bpure psychoanalytic dream analysis✓
3. Ccultural materialism and Marxist cultural studies✓
4. Dformalist metre scansion only✓

Terry Eagleton's Marxist criticism emphasizes that

1. Aliterature is a form of ideology embedded in material production✓
2. Btexts float free of history✓
3. Conly beauty matters in art✓
4. Dcriticism should avoid politics✓

Feminist literary criticism challenges

1. Aall close reading as such✓
2. Bthe existence of women writers only✓
3. Cmetrical analysis in poetry✓
4. Dpatriarchal assumptions in canon, representation and interpretation✓

Elaine Showalter's "gynocriticism" focuses on

1. Aonly male-authored classics✓
2. Bthe history and styles of women's writing✓
3. Conly Freudian dream symbols✓
4. Donly deconstructive wordplay✓

Judith Butler's influence on feminist theory includes the idea that gender is

1. Abiologically determined and unchangeable✓
2. Bperformative rather than a fixed natural essence✓
3. Cirrelevant to literary texts✓
4. Didentical to biological sex always✓

Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic examines

1. Aonly medieval epic heroes✓
2. Bonly American frontier humor✓
3. Chow nineteenth-century women writers responded to patriarchal literary tradition✓
4. Donly Restoration comedy plots✓

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?" addresses

1. Ametrical patterns in sonnets✓
2. BShakespeare's comic subplots only✓
3. Cwhether marginalized voices can be represented without epistemic violence✓
4. DRomantic nature imagery only✓

Edward Said's Orientalism argues that Western representations of the East are

1. Adiscursive constructions serving imperial power✓
2. Bobjective scientific facts only✓
3. Cfree of political interest✓
4. Didentical to Eastern self-descriptions✓

Postcolonial criticism commonly examines

1. Ahow colonialism shapes representation, identity and literary form✓
2. Bonly Elizabethan sonnet rhyme✓
3. Conly Greek metre in isolation✓
4. Donly printing technology✓

Frantz Fanon's work is foundational for postcolonial theory because it analyzes

1. Aiambic pentameter in blank verse✓
2. Bpsychological and political effects of colonial domination✓
3. CVictorian novel serialisation only✓
4. DRestoration comedy staging✓

The concept of "otherness" in postcolonial studies refers to

1. Aliterary friendship between equals✓
2. Bdefining the colonized as alien and inferior to the colonizer's self✓
3. Cpurely formal rhyme schemes✓
4. Dauthorial grammar alone✓

Sigmund Freud's influence on literary criticism includes reading texts for

1. Aonly counting syllables✓
2. Bonly authorial income✓
3. Conly library catalogues✓
4. Dunconscious desires, repression and symbolic displacement✓

Freudian dream-work involves processes such as

1. Aiambic substitution only✓
2. Bstanzaic rhyme only✓
3. Ccondensation and displacement✓
4. Dpastoral convention only✓

Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage describes

1. Athe final chapter of a novel✓
2. Ba type of sonnet rhyme✓
3. Cthe infant's jubilant yet alienating identification with its reflected image✓
4. Da Marxist labor theory✓

Lacan's Symbolic order is associated with

1. Alanguage, law and the Name-of-the-Father structuring subjectivity✓
2. Bpure nature without culture✓
3. Conly visual art without words✓
4. Dmetrical scansion alone✓

Jacques Derrida's deconstruction challenges

1. Aonly spelling errors✓
2. Bonly book binding✓
3. Cthe metaphysics of presence and stable binary oppositions✓
4. Donly library shelving✓

Derrida's différance suggests that meaning is

1. Afully present in one word✓
2. Bdeferred and differentiated through endless signification✓
3. Cfixed by authorial intention only✓
4. Dunaffected by context✓

Deconstructive reading often exposes

1. Ainternal contradictions or aporias within a text✓
2. Bonly historical dates✓
3. Conly rhyme labels✓
4. Donly page numbers✓

Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence" describes

1. Acomplete rejection of all reading✓
2. Bhow strong poets misread precursors to clear imaginative space✓
3. Cpure imitation without change✓
4. Dindifference to tradition✓

Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogism emphasizes that

1. Athe novel should have one monologic voice only✓
2. Blanguage and the novel are fundamentally social and multi-voiced✓
3. Cmeaning is private and incommunicable✓
4. Dform has no social dimension✓

Bakhtin's carnivalesque is developed in his study of

1. AWordsworth's nature lyrics only✓
2. BPope's heroic couplets only✓
3. CRabelais and folk culture's subversive laughter✓
4. DSpenserian stanza only✓

Russian Formalists introduced ostranenie (defamiliarization) to describe

1. Arealistic copying of daily life only✓
2. Bmoral preaching in fiction✓
3. Cart making the familiar strange to renew perception✓
4. Dbiographical confession only✓

Viktor Shklovsky argued that art's function is to

1. Aimpart the sensation of things as they are perceived, not as they are known✓
2. Bmirror reality without technique✓
3. Celiminate form entirely✓
4. Drecord facts like journalism only✓

T. S. Eliot's critical modernism aligns with his poetry through

1. Apure frontier realism only✓
2. Bsentimental melodrama only✓
3. Cunpatterned spontaneous prose only✓
4. Dimpersonality, tradition and allusive density✓

The hermeneutic circle in interpretation means

1. Aunderstanding parts through the whole and the whole through parts✓
2. Bignoring context entirely✓
3. Creading only one line in isolation✓
4. Drefusing any revision of views✓

Reader-response criticism associated with Iser and Fish stresses

1. Athe reader's active role in constructing textual meaning✓
2. Bthat texts have no language✓
3. Cthat only authors read✓
4. Dthat history is irrelevant always✓

Bakhtin's heteroglossia refers to

1. Athe diversity of social languages within the novel✓
2. Ba single unified authorial style only✓
3. Cpure silence in narrative✓
4. Dabsence of social context✓

Post-structuralism differs from structuralism mainly by

1. Areturning to author worship only✓
2. Bignoring language entirely✓
3. Cquestioning stable structures and decentering meaning✓
4. Daffirming fixed binaries✓

Michel Foucault's discourse theory examines how power operates through

1. Aknowledge regimes, institutions and disciplinary practices✓
2. Bonly rhyme in poetry✓
3. Conly woodcut illustrations✓
4. Donly author birthdays✓

Louis Althusser influenced Marxist literary theory through the concept of

1. Aideological state apparatuses shaping subjectivity✓
2. Bpurely spontaneous unmediated art✓
3. Cmetrical feet in verse only✓
4. Dauthorial handwriting analysis✓

Ecocriticism attends to literature's representation of

1. Aonly courtly love conventions✓
2. Bonly sonnet sequences only✓
3. Conly printing history alone✓
4. Dnature, environment and human-nonhuman relations✓

New Historicism associated with Stephen Greenblatt reads literary texts alongside

1. Aonly metre and rhyme✓
2. Bonly authorial dreams✓
3. Conly grammar drills✓
4. Dcontemporary historical documents and power relations✓