Literary Criticism – 03 (Practice Questions & detailed answer)

Q11. The form of Japanese theater, kabuki, ——————-.

1) enjoys, lavishly designed sets, costumes, and makeup all contributing to its popularity

2) was first developed in medieval Japan, and introduced and taken up in Europe (first in France) early in the 16th century

3) is, like its sister form, the Noh theater, a highly abstract type of “artistic theatre” with very minimal action

4) uniquely employs an all-woman cast (thus making it a particular favorite in feminist criticism)

Q12. The term ‘Gilded Age’ would originally refer to features of the American society as in the —————-.

1) decade of prosperity ensuing World War I

2) idyllic Romantic life of the early settlers in the American East

3) 1920s pre-depression period

4) post-Civil War (1861-1865) era

Q13- As a philosophical system based on the doctrines of Plato, Neoplatonism ————–.

1) sets up a vision of existence in which all things emanate from the universe of visible manner

2) incorporates elements of Asian mysticism with the ideas of Plato and, in some periods, was frequently combined with Christian mysticism

3) was developed in its modern form by such Enlightenment philosophers as Hume and Rousseau in the 18th century

4) finds its fullest modern expression in two works by Kant: The Critique of Judgment and The Critique of Pure Reason

Q14- Which of the following about the ‘heroic couplet’ is TRUE?

1) It would often take advantage of two end-stopped lines which were broken into two subunits by Caesuras, or medial pause in their syntax

2) It was the predominant English measure, along with blank verse, for all the poetic kinds during the Neoclassical period

3) As a verse form, it was first introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer in such works as The Legend of Good Woman

4) The closed neoclassic couplet was later partly taken up in such characteristically Romantic poems as Keats’ Endymion

Q15- The ‘term: term definition’ DO NOT, as far as narratology is concerned, match in —————.

1) ‘story: the organized and meaningful structure of a literary plot’

2) ‘narrative: the explicit or implicit person or audience to whom the narrator addresses the narrative’

3) ‘fabula: the elemental materials of a story’

4) ‘syuzhet: the concrete representation used to convey the story

Answers

Q11 – Option 1 (Kabuki is a form of Japanese theater that employs dance, music, and story. Its lavishly designed sets, costumes, and makeup all contribute to the popularity of the form, which has existed since the 17th century. Long regarded as inferior to its rival forms, the NO¯ and Bunraku, Kabuki is an actor’s theater. The actors, all men, some of whom are female impersonators, are more important than the play. The great Kabuki actors have large devoted followings, particularly the onnagata, or female impersonator.)

Q12 – Option 4 (Gilded Age is a term for the post–Civil War era when rampant acquisitiveness became a prominent feature of American society. These were years of great changes in American society: technological advances such as the inventions of the telegraph and the telephone; the growth of industry; massive increases in immigrant populations; the rapid development of new urban centers like Chicago and San Francisco; and the feverish spread of speculation in land and on the stock market. The name derives from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), a novel written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. The novel satirizes unscrupulous land speculation and its connections with corrupt politicians. The social criticism built into this novel reflected the spirit of realism/naturalism that defined the literature of the age.)

Q13 – Option 2 (A philosophical system based on the doctrines of Plato. The system was established by the philosopher Plotinus in the third century B.C. in the city of Alexandria. Incorporating elements of Asian mysticism with the ideas of Plato, Neoplatonism set up a vision of existence in which all things emanate from The One or The Good. Neoplatonism exerted a powerful influence on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in which it frequently combined with Christian mysticism. Neoplatonic themes have been identified in a number of important Renaissance texts, including Castiglione’s The Courtier (1528) and Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609))

Q14 – Option 3 (Heroic Couplets are lines of iambic which rhyme in pairs: aa, bb, cc, and so on. The adjective “heroic” was applied in the later seventeenth century because of the frequent use of such couplets in heroic (that is, epic) poems and in heroic dramas. This verse form was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer (in The Legend of Good Women and most of The Canterbury Tales), and has been in constant use ever since.

Q15 – Option 1 (Narratologists, do not treat a narrative in the traditional way, as a fictional representation of life and the world, but as a systematic and purely formal construction. A primary interest of structural narratologists is in the way that narrative discourse fashions a story—a mere sequence of events in time—into the organized and meaningful structure of a literary plot. (The Russian formalists had made a parallel distinction between the fabula—the elemental materials of a story—and the syuzhet, the concrete representation used to convey the story.))