MH Literature and Literary Theory 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which term describes a narrative told by a character who is unreliable or whose account is contradicted by other evidence in the text?
- Unreliable narrator (Correct answer)
- Omniscient narrator
- Heterodiegetic narrator
- Extradiegetic narrator
Correct answer: Unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator's credibility is compromised, requiring readers to read against the narration to discern the true state of events.
Question 2: The 'hermeneutic circle' in literary interpretation refers to:
- Understanding parts of a text through the whole and vice versa (Correct answer)
- A recurring metaphor in a text
- The process of decoding symbols
- A method of comparing multiple texts
Correct answer: Understanding parts of a text through the whole and vice versa
The hermeneutic circle describes the interpretive process where understanding individual parts depends on grasping the whole, which itself depends on understanding its parts.
Question 3: Which 20th-century literary movement rejected traditional narrative forms in favor of fragmentation and stream of consciousness?
- Modernism (Correct answer)
- Naturalism
- Romanticism
- Neoclassicism
Correct answer: Modernism
Modernism, exemplified by Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner, broke from linear narrative to reflect the complexity of subjective experience.
Question 4: Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of 'dialogism' argues that literary language is:
- Always in dialogue with other voices and discourses (Correct answer)
- A pure expression of a single authorial voice
- A neutral medium for conveying ideas
- Determined by grammatical rules alone
Correct answer: Always in dialogue with other voices and discourses
Bakhtin argued that all language, especially in novels, is inherently dialogic — shaped by and responding to other social voices.
Question 5: The term 'intertextuality,' coined by Julia Kristeva, refers to:
- The way texts absorb and transform other texts (Correct answer)
- The relationship between a text and its author
- A method of close reading
- The historical context of a text
Correct answer: The way texts absorb and transform other texts
Kristeva argued that every text is a mosaic of quotations, absorbing and transforming other texts rather than being a wholly original creation.
Question 6: Which rhetorical figure involves attributing human qualities to non-human entities, frequently used in poetry?
- Personification (Correct answer)
- Metonymy
- Synecdoche
- Anaphora
Correct answer: Personification
Personification grants human characteristics or emotions to animals, objects, or abstract concepts to create vivid imagery.
MH Literature and Literary Theory 2
Which term describes a narrative told by a character who is unreliable or whose account is contradicted by other evidence in the text?