Theory of Literature MA Studies

Study Guide

1. Describe the three-part conception of the sign according to the Stoics. (sound, lecton and object)

2. What was the role of semiosis in C.S. Peirce's theory of the sign?

3. Explain the iconic, index and symbolic sign in C.S. Peirce's theory.

4. Explain de Saussure's concept of the sign (the signified/signifier,). Provide an example (doesn't have to be the one about the tree).

5. De Saussure called language arbitrary and differential. Explain why.

6. What are langue and parole?

7. What are syntagma and paradigm?

8. What is the synchronic approach to language?

9. What is the diachronic approach to language?

10. What is the main difference between Peirce's and Saussure's view on the nature of the sign and its relation to its meaning?

11. Name two groups crucial to the development of formalism.

12. Name three people involved with the creation of the formalist school.

13. The famous definition by Jakobson of the poetic language - what did he mean when he wrote about these two axes?

14. What was sujet?

15. What did defamiliarization mean for Russian formalists?

16. Explain the six functions of the language according to Jakobson.

17. Why is metaphor synchronic and metonymy diachronic?

18. What kind of research did Vladimir Propp do and what was its importance in the development of structuralism?

19. How can you apply the langue/parole division to other cultural phenomena (literature, film, dress etc.)?

20. Name three representatives of New Criticism.

21. Why did New Critics like John Donne so much? (viz. Cleanth Brooks)

22. What does Cleanth Brooks mean by writing “The paraphrase is not the real core of meaning which constitutes the essence of the poem”, or “the heresy of paraphrase”?

23. What was the relation between form and meaning for New Critics?

24. What is “affective fallacy”, “intentional fallacy', who invented these expressions?

25. Name three people involved with structuralism.

26. In what way can be myth analysed like a language according to Levi-Strauss?

27. What are the five codes applied by Roland Barthes in his S/Z?

28. What did Roland Barthes mean by “the death of the author”?

29. What are readerly and writerly texts and what kind of pleasure do they give the reader?

30. What are the three parts of human personality according to Freud? Describe them briefly.

31. How did Freud explain Hamlet's vacillating behaviour?

32. Why is metaphor similar to the psychological mechanism of condensation?

33. Why is metonymy similar to the psychological mechanism of displacement?

34. What is the collective unconscious and archetypes?

35. What does Lacan mean when he writes about “the incessant sliding of the signified under the signifier” and the upholstery buttons?

36. What does hermeneutics have to do with the Greek god Hermes?

37. How does the hermeneutic circle work?

38. List three philosophers connected with hermeneutics..

39. What is the “fusion of the horizon” or Horizonverschmelzung?

40. Why is it so important for Derrida that a new science of writing - grammatology - should emerge?

41. What is aporia in deconstructive criticism?

42. Name three critics involved with reader-response theory.

43. What is the role of blanks and negations in the process of reading as described by Iser?

44. Who is the founding father of speech-act theory and what is the title of his most important work?

45. How can speech-act theory be put to work in literary studies (three approaches).

46. According to Michaels and Knapp, what are the two forms of contemporary theory? What key mistake do they say that adherents of both forms make?

47. What case about our assumptions concerning "intentionality" does Michaels and Knapp's "wave poem" analogy help them set forth? What assumption do they say we make when we see a set of marks recognizable as writing? What happens if we are unable to make that assumption?

48. In their analysis of deconstructive theorist Paul de Man, Michaels and Knapp bring up one of his favorite examples: in the Confessions, Rousseau says that when questioned about the disappearance of a household item, for no reason he blurted out the name of a fellow servant, "Marion," thus condemning the bearer of that name to a shameful dismissal. What lesson do Michaels and Knapp say de Man draws from that episode, and why do they disagree with his conclusion?

49. What is the term used by Bakhtin to describe the multiplicity of languages used by one individual?

50. Why is monoglossia centripetal and heteroglossia centrifugal?

51. Why is Marx's philosophy dialectical and materialistic?

52. What are base and superstructure in Marxist view on culture?

53. How do ideologies produce false consciousness?

54. What is alienation from the Marxist point of view?

55. Name three representatives of the Frankfurt School.

56. “Amusement under late capitalism is prolongation of work”, write Horkheimer and Adorno. What do they mean?

57. What did Virginia Woolf try to illustrate by her story of a fictitious Shakespeare's sister?

58. What did Virginia Woolf try to illustrate by her story of a fictitious author who dared to write “Chloe liked Olivia”? Why did this sentence amaze her so much?

59. In what way are sex and gender related to the signified/signifier duo?

60. What do the clichés “women are mysterious” and “the people of the East are mysterious” have in common?

61. What does it mean that “Europe invented Orient”?

62. In what way the East is “the Other” of the West?

63. Why, according to Said, can't Orientalism simply be dismissed as the product of Western imperialism?

64. What is Said's view on whether "pure knowledge" can be kept separate from "political knowledge"?

65. What are the similarities and differences between New Historicism and Marxism?

66. What is the attitude of New Historicism to New Criticism?

67. What is the “circulation of power” and ”hegemony” from New Historicist point of view?

68. Why is for a New Historicist critic Shakespeare's laundry list as important as Shakespeare's drama?

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