chapter 1: formalism

Question 1

In the formalist view, literature doesn’t convey any clear or paraphrasable message; it rather communicates what is otherwise……………
(fallible-ineffable)

Answer 1

ineffable

Question 2

The formalists and the futurists were active in the fierce debates of this area concerning art and its…………with ideology.
(connections-infections)

Answer 2

connections

Question 3

The new critics were more concerned with the………of close reading of individual texts.
(theory-practice)

Answer 3

practice

Question 4

Russian formalism as a school was……….with the rise of Stalin and the official Soviet aesthetic of socialist realism, its influence was transmitted through figures such as Jacobson and Tzvetan Todorov.
(eclipsed-elapsed)

Answer 4

eclipsed

Question 5

It is in art as technique that Shklovsky introduces one of the central aspects of Russian formalism: that of…………
(familiarization-defamiliarization)

Answer 5

defamiliarization

Question 6

Shklovsky quotes Tolstoy as saying that ‘‘whole complex of lives people go on……….,such lives are as if they had never been’’.
(consciously-unconsciously)

Answer 6

unconsciously

Question 7

It is against this background of ordinary perception in general that art assumes its…………
(significance-insignificance)

Answer 7

significance

Question 8

Shklovsky even goes to say that the meaning of a work of art broadens to the extent that artfulness……….
(diminishes-admonishes)

Answer 8

diminishes

Question 9

Shkolovsky claims that art’s purpose is not to make us perceive meaning but to create a specific perception of the object.
(true or false)

Answer 9

true

Question 10

Shlovsky’s formalism can possibly accommodate cultural change and the relative status of…………innovation.
(radical-medical)

Answer 10

radical

Question 11

It is formalism’s insistence on ‘‘the………study which comprised its most significant quarrel with the old tradition’’
(empirical-historical)

Answer 11

empirical

Question 12

The chief characteristics of the formalists, says Eichenbaum ‘‘their…………of all ready made aesthetics and general theories’’.
(rejection-injection)

Answer 12

rejection

Question 13

According to Eichenbaum, the formalists were aware that ‘‘history demanded a really………..attitude.
(revolutionary-evolutionary)

Answer 13

revolutionary

Question 14

In impugning previous approaches to literature, says Eichenbaum, the formalists sought to isolate the study of literature ‘‘secondary, incidental features’’ that might belong to philosophy, psychology, or history.
(true or false)

Answer 14

true

Question 15

Einchenbaum points out that the fundamental formalist distinction between poetic and practical language led to the……………of a whole group of basic questions.
(formulation-instigation)

Answer 15

formulation

Question 16

The next phase of formalist studies, as Eichenbaum explains, attempted to move towards a general theory of verse and the study of narrative plot and specific techniques. (true or false)

Answer 16

true

Question 17

Techniques of plot construction, according to the formalists, included parallelism,………., and the weaving motifs.
(framing-forming)

Answer 17

framing

Question 18

The formalist, Sklovsky, rejected…….accounts of the evolution of literary form.
(conventional-intentional)

Answer 18

conventional

Question 19

While formalist analysis in principle reject the isolation of the literary artifact, their invocation of history is confined to the history of literary form. (true or false)

Answer 19

true

Question 20

Eichenbaum observes that the formalists insisted upon a clear……………between poetry and prose.
(demarcation-meditation)

Answer 20

demarcation

Question 21

As against the broad histories of the Russian academics and the effective rejection of history by the symbolists, the formalists adopted a new understanding of literary history which rejected the idea of some overall unity, coherence, and purpose.
(true or false)

Answer 21

true

Question 22

The formalists saw literary tradition as involving struggle,……….of old values, and competition between various schools.
(destruction-instruction)

Answer 22

destruction

Question 23

The formalists insisted that literary……………..had a distinctive character and that it ‘‘stood alone, quite independent of other aspects of culture’’
(evolution-revolution)

Answer 23

evolution

Question 24

Eichenbaum provides a useful and……….summary of the……..of the formalists’ method.
(provocative/evolution-volcanic/revolution)

Answer 24

provocative/evolution

Question 25

Bakhtin’s writings were produced at a time of momentous…………..in Russia.
(upheavals-heavings)

Answer 25

upheavals

Question 26

Bakhtin was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for alleged…….with the underground Russian Orthodox Church; mercifully, the sentence was commuted to six years’ exile in kazakhstan.
(affiliation-appropriation)

Answer 26

affiliation

Question 27

Bakhtin’s major achievements include the………of an innovative and radical philosophy of language as well as a comprehensive ‘‘theory’’ of the novel.
(formulation-identification)

Answer 27

formulation

Question 28

Bakhtin insists that form and content in discourse ‘‘are one’’. (true or false)

Answer 28

false

Question 29

It quickly becomes apparent that Bakhitan’s view of the novel is dependent upon his broader view of the nature of language as………..
(dialogic-illogic)

Answer 29

illogic

Question 30

Bakhtin has a further, profounder explanation of the concept of…………..
(dialogism-symbolism)

Answer 30

dialogism

Question 31

Bakhtin sees traditional stylistics as……………for analyzing the novel precisely.
(inadequate-adequate)

Answer 31

inadequate

Question 32

Bakhtin’s essential point is that such a………language is not real but merely posited by linguistics.
(unitary-military)

Answer 32

unitary

Question 33

According to Bakhtin, the dialectic between the…………..force of unity and the centrifugal forces of dispersion is a constituting characteristic of language.
(centrifugal-centripetal)

Answer 33

centrifugal

Question 34

What Bakhtin appears to be saying is that the clash of different………….within a word is part of a broader conflict.
(significations-classifications)

Answer 34

significations

Question 35

Bakhtin acknowledges that in actual poetic works, it is possible to find ‘‘features fundamental to……….’’
(prose-poetry)

Answer 35

prose

Question 36

What is interesting is that for Bakhtin, the ideological valence of any position is intrinsically tied to………..the characteristics of language deployed.
(particular-general)

Answer 36

particular

Question 37

Jacobson insists that ‘‘literary criticism’’, which often evaluates literature in………..terms, must be distinguished from ‘‘literary studies’’.
(subjective-objective)

Answer 37

subjective

Question 38

The three functions of language so for mentioned by Jacobson referential, emotive, and………….belong to the traditional model as formulated by the German psychologist Karl Buhler.
(cognitive-conative)

Answer 38

conative

Question 39

Jacobson’s essay ‘‘Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances’’ suggests that language has a………structure.
(bipolar-popular)

Answer 39

bipolar

Question 40

Jacobson notes that the………..of metaphor in literary Romanticism and Symbolism had been widely acknowledged.
(primacy-primary)

Answer 40

primacy

Question 41

Ransom insists on the………uniqueness of poetry, as distinct from prose and other uses of language, as in prose.
(ontological-ideological)

Answer 41

ontological

Question 42

Bakhtin is perhaps best known for his……….philosophy of language.
(radical-medical)

Answer 42

radical