Feminist Criticism #1

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No. of Questions= 10
1.  One of the central assumptions of Feminist criticism is that there is a(n) privileging of culture in which masculine values are promoted.
a) patriarchal
b) bourgeoisie
c) ideological
d) natural
2.  Elaine Showalter coined the term "gynocritics" to refer to__________.
a) the way in which women respond to literature written by males
b) criticism that focuses on literature written by women
c) criticism that focuses on how women appear and are misrepresented in male literature
d) the study of similarities in the writing of men and women
3.  In the so-called French school of feminist criticism, there is a focus on the existence of a woman's language called __________.
a) liree feminine
b) discourse feminine
c) livree feminine
d) ecriture feminine
4.  Feminist criticism assumes that at the heart of any cultural product, there is a(n) __________ conflict or tension.
a) economic
b) class
c) social
d) gender
5.  The so-called American school of feminist literary criticism __________.
a) draws upon Saussure's linguistic theories to highlight a gender-biased binary opposition in language
b) focuses on providing exposés the reduction of women to "the Other" in much literature written by men
c) emphasizes the theme of an awakening feminine consciousness and sense of "sisterhood."
d) emphasizes how sexual politics are an obstacle to the self-fulfillment of both men and women
6.  Which of the following would a Feminist critic most likely address in Jean Stafford's "A Country Love Story?"
a) the binary opposition of the outside world of nature and the entrapment within the house
b) May's imaginative and emotional engagement with the world of nature as opposed to Daniel's interest in intellectual research
c) Daniel's behavior as a reflection of an overactive superego
d) the structure of the story
7.  One assumption that undergirds all Feminist criticism is that __________.
a) women are oppressed by a gender-biased cultural environment
b) women have reached equality
c) women can gain nothing from reading and studying literature written by men.
d) all male literature is sexist.
8.  The so-called British school of feminist criticism __________.
a) gave birth to Elaine Showalter's "gynocritics."
b) takes a linguistic approach to describing the differences between masculine and feminine.
c) borrows from the strategies of Marxist criticism to expose the ideological oppression of women by patriarchal social forces.
d) adapts the tools of psychology to explore the awakening feminine consciousness reflected in literature by and about women.
9.  One important contribution of Elaine Showalter's "gynocritics" has been __________.
a) the rediscovery and retrieval of feminine tradition in writing
b) the promotion of the importance of education in improving the "feminine predicament"
c) a refinement of the "feminist critique" with of the inauthentic images of women common in literature written by men.
d) the use of Structuralism to articulate the oppressive forces of the patriarchy
10.  Which of the following does not reflect the assumptions of strategies of Feminist criticism?
a) Literature dramatizes implicitly and explicitly the differences between the masculine and the feminine.
b) Literature, like history, dramatizes the struggle of individuals with the patriarchy.
c) The function of criticism is to facilitate the awakening of human consciousness to the ways in which gender shapes human experience.
d) There are two categories of images of women in literature: "authentic" portraits of women as positive spiritual forces and "inauthentic" portraits of women as negative, materialistic forces.

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© 1999 Thomas E. Fish
Cumberland College
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