Literary Genre Identification Quiz

Literary Theory and Criticism

• New Criticism is a literary theory that emphasizes the intrinsic elements of a literary work, such as form, structure, language, and style.
• Psychoanalytic Criticism is a literary theory that views works through the lens of psychology, looking at the psychological motivations of the characters or of the authors themselves.
• Semiotics is a literary theory that analyzes literature as a system of signs and symbols that create meaning.
• Poststructuralism is a literary theory that explores the binary oppositions, narrative structures, and cultural codes embedded in the text, highlighting the interplay between language and culture.
• Deconstruction is a literary theory that had an impact on literary studies both as a mode of interpretation and as a theory about language, identity, and the subject, author's psychological state or the psychology of the text itself.

Literary Genres and Forms

• Drama is a type of literature intended for performance, encompassing plays and theatrical works.
• Non-fiction is a form of literature that includes biographies, essays, and other forms of factual writing.
• A literary text is marked by its use of tropes, such as metaphor, simile, and symbolism.
• The purpose of weak implicatures in literary texts is to create ambiguity and open up multiple interpretations.
• A short story is a shorter narrative work, while a novella is a longer narrative work.

Literary Language and Style

• Literary language is distinct from ordinary language due to its use of figurative language, imagery, and other literary devices.
• One of the defining characteristics of a literary text is its use of language to create a unique and expressive voice.
• The most important figure in literary language according to tradition is the poet.
• The two fundamental structures of language according to Roman Jakobson are the metaphoric and the metonymic poles.
• Epic or narrative genres focus on storytelling, while drama genres focus on action and performance.

Marxist and Feminist Criticism

• According to Marxist criticism, the focus of literary analysis is on the economic structures and class relations that underlie the text.
• Marxist critics draw on key concepts such as ideology, hegemony, and alienation in their analysis of literature.
• Marxist critics examine the ways in which literary works reflect and reinforce the dominant ideology of the ruling class.
• The main merit of feminist approaches to literary analysis is that they highlight the ways in which literature reflects and reinforces patriarchal attitudes and values.
• The initial reaction of feminist approaches to literary analysis was to challenge the dominant masculine perspective in literary criticism.
• Feminist approaches highlight the differences between 'male' and 'female' writing, and the ways in which women's writing has been marginalized or excluded from the literary canon.
• The historical context in which feminist approaches emerged was the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
• The focus of feminist approaches in literary analysis is on the ways in which female authors and characters have been represented in literature.