Criticism, Theory and Culture | 2024 August Shift 1

Correct Answer: 2 (A and D only)

Explanation: In his treatise On the Sublime, Longinus identifies five genuine sources of sublimity. Options A and D are considered outcomes or related concepts, but not the specific "sources" he listed.

The Five Genuine Sources are:

1. Grandeur of Thought: The ability to form great ideas (relates to B).
2. Strong and Inspired Emotion: Passion or pathos.
3. Figures of Speech: Effective use of rhetorical figures.
4. Noble Diction: Choice of elevated words and metaphors.
5. Dignified Composition: The harmonious arrangement of words.

Note: Spontaneity (C) is often discussed by Longinus as the "natural" side of genius (Physis) which supports these sources, but "Creation of imaginative feelings" and the "General effect" are not part of the technical list of five.

Correct Answer: 3 (Attack on poetry in The School of Abuse by Stephen Gosson)

Explanation: Stephen Gosson's Puritan tract, The School of Abuse (1579), famously attacked poetry as being "the mother of lies" and a waste of time. Ironically, Gosson dedicated the work to Philip Sidney. Sidney's Apologie was a masterful rebuttal, arguing that the poet "nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth."

Correct Answer: 4 (Samuel Johnson)

Explanation: Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, bestowed this title upon Dryden. He famously noted that Dryden "found [English poetry] brick and left it marble," acknowledging him as the first systematic critic who established principles for English literature.

Correct Answer: 1 (Essay on Criticism)

Explanation: This quote is often misquoted as "A little knowledge," while Pope actually wrote "A little learning is a dangerous thing" in his 1711 poem, An Essay on Criticism. It refers to the Pierian spring (the fountain of knowledge), suggesting one should either learn deeply or not at all.

Correct Answer: 2 (Samuel Johnson)

Explanation: Samuel Johnson defined taste as an active, rational faculty. For him, the critic's job was to use this 'taste' to evaluate both the strengths and flaws of a work, grounded in a combination of common sense and classical standards.

Correct Answer: 1 (The Historical Order)

Explanation: Jacques Lacan’s model of the human psyche is built on the Triad of the RSI (Real, Symbolic, Imaginary). "The Historical Order" is not a part of this specific psychic framework. The Imaginary is the realm of the ego and mirror stage, the Symbolic is the realm of language and law, and the Real is that which cannot be symbolized.

Correct Answer: 2 (Roman Jakobson)

Explanation: Roman Jakobson, a leader of the Russian Formalist circle, coined the term literaturnost (literariness). Formalists argued that critics should not focus on biography or history, but on the specific linguistic devices that transform ordinary language into literature.

Correct Answer: 3 (B, D, C, A, E)

Chronology of Publication:

1. Mythologies (1957): Roland Barthes’ semiotic analysis of cultural signs (like wrestling or wine).
2. Écrits (1966): Jacques Lacan’s massive collection of essays on psychoanalysis and the Symbolic order.
3. Of Grammatology (1967): Jacques Derrida’s foundational text for Deconstruction.
4. The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969): Michel Foucault’s methodology on discourse and history.
5. The Postmodern Condition (1979): Lyotard’s report defining postmodernism as "incredulity toward metanarratives."

Key Exam Tip: Most major "French Theory" texts that transformed the humanities were published in the late 1960s (often called the 'High Theory' era).

Correct Answer: 3 (Classical Socialism)

Explanation: In The Postmodern Condition (1979), Lyotard defines postmodernism as "incredulity toward metanarratives" (grand narratives). He argues that universal systems of thought—such as the Enlightenment quest for total knowledge or the Marxist/Socialist promise of total liberation—have lost their legitimacy in the computerized, pluralistic age.

Key Concept: Lyotard suggests that instead of one "Grand Narrative," we now rely on petit récits (little narratives) or localized knowledge.

Correct Answer: 1 (John Crowe Ransom)

Explanation: John Crowe Ransom published The New Criticism in 1941. This book gave the movement its name and established the groundwork for a formalist approach to literature that dominated American universities for decades.

Note on other options: Wimsatt and Beardsley are famous for co-authoring "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy," which are pillars of New Criticism, but it was Ransom who authored the title volume mentioned in the question.

Correct Answer: 3

Correct Matches & Key Themes:

• Raymond Williams → Preface to Film (A–II): Williams is a founding father of Cultural Studies. While famous for Culture and Society, he co-authored this 1954 film study exploring how art relates to social experience.
• Herbert Marcuse → One Dimensional Man (B–III): A giant of the Frankfurt School. This book argues that modern industrial society creates "false needs" and a "one-dimensional" consumer mindset that prevents revolutionary change.
• Fredric Jameson → Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (C–I): The definitive Marxist critique of postmodern aesthetics, describing it as a product of global capitalism characterized by "pastiche" and "depthlessness."
• Richard Hoggart → The Uses of Literacy (D–IV): This 1957 work examined the impact of mass media on working-class culture in Britain and led to the founding of the CCCS at Birmingham.

Correct Answer: 2 (B, C, E, D, A)

Chronology of Publication:

1. Culture and Society (1958): Traces the concept of 'culture' through the Industrial Revolution.
2. The Long Revolution (1961): Analyzes cultural institutions and democratic progress.
3. Modern Tragedy (1966): A Marxist reading of the evolution of tragic forms.
4. The Country and the City (1973): Explores the urban/rural divide in English literature.
5. Keywords (1976): A "vocabulary of culture and society" mapping the shifts in meaning of critical terms.

Correct Answer: 4 (B, C, E only)

Explanation:

• Meme (B): Richard Dawkins introduced this in The Selfish Gene (1976).
• Culture Industry (C): Adorno and Horkheimer coined this in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944).
• Womanism (E): Alice Walker coined this in In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (1983) to represent Black feminism.

Correction: Performativity was coined by J.L. Austin (not Derrida) and Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) was coined by Louis Althusser (not Bakhtin).

Correct Answer: 1 (B, D, A, E, C)

Chronology by Birth Year:

1. Walter Benjamin (1892): Frankfurt School critic.
2. Mikhail Bakhtin (1895): Russian philosopher of Dialogism and Carnivalesque.
3. Simone de Beauvoir (1908): Existentialist feminist; author of The Second Sex.
4. Roland Barthes (1915): Structuralist and semiotician.
5. Jean Baudrillard (1929): Postmodernist; known for Simulacra and Simulation.

Correct Answer: 2 (Wolfgang Iser)

Explanation: Wolfgang Iser was a leading figure in the Constance School of Reader-Response Theory. His work shifts the focus from the text as a finished product to the "act" of the reader bringing the text to life.

Key Concepts by Iser:

• The Implied Reader: A structure within the text that predisposes how a reader will receive it.
• Gaps/Blanks: Portions of the text that are not explicitly stated, requiring the reader's active participation to fill them.
• The Virtual Text: The "reality" of a book that exists only in the space between the physical text and the reader's imagination.

Note: While Hans Robert Jauss and Stanley Fish also belong to Reader-Response studies, Jauss is famous for the Horizon of Expectations and Fish for Interpretive Communities.

Correct Answer: 4 (B, C, E only)

Detailed Analysis:

• Biopolitics (B): Michel Foucault used this to describe how modern states exercise power over life—regulating births, health, and life expectancy to manage populations.
• Hypertext/Hypotext (C): Gérard Genette, in Palimpsests (1982), defined "hypotext" as an earlier text (source) and "hypertext" as a later text that transforms or imitates it (e.g., Joyce’s Ulysses is a hypertext to Homer’s Odyssey).
• Dream Work (E): Sigmund Freud’s concept explaining how the latent content (hidden wishes) is disguised via mechanisms like condensation and displacement into manifest content (the dream as remembered).

Why others are wrong: Desiring Machines (D) is a concept by Deleuze and Guattari (not Gramsci). Statement A misrepresents the specific technical usage of diegesis (narrated) vs mimesis (enacted) by the Greeks.

Correct Answer: 2

Explanation: This question connects major post-colonial thinkers with their seminal non-fiction and political works:

• Ngugi Wa Thiong’o → The Language of Languages (A–III): A recent collection (2022) that builds on his famous Decolonising the Mind, focusing on the power dynamics of translation and linguistic imperialism.
• Aimé Césaire → Discourse on Colonialism (B–IV): A 1950 classic by the Martinican poet and politician that exposes the hypocrisy of European "civilization."
• Frantz Fanon → Toward the African Revolution (C–I): A posthumous collection (1964) of essays that captures Fanon's tactical and philosophical shift toward active resistance.
• Chinua Achebe → There Was a Country (D–II): Subtitled "A Personal History of Biafra," this 2012 memoir was Achebe's last major work before his death.

Correct Answer: 1 (B, D, E Only)

Detailed Analysis:

• Poetic Justice (B): Coined by Thomas Rymer in The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered (1678). He believed literature must distribute rewards and punishments more fairly than real life does.
• Nihilism (D): While the word existed in philosophical circles, Ivan Turgenev popularized it in Fathers and Sons (1862) to describe the radical rejection of traditional values by the youth.
• The Nine Worthies (E): In his preface to Le Morte d'Arthur, William Caxton discusses these historical/legendary figures who personified the ideals of chivalry.

Why others are wrong: Nation Language (A) was coined by Kamau Brathwaite (Barbadian poet). Neo-colonialism (C) was coined by Kwame Nkrumah (the first president of Ghana).

Correct Answer: 3

Correct Matches & Core Definitions:

• Culture Industry → Adorno & Horkheimer (A–II): From Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). They argue that mass-produced culture (movies, radio, magazines) functions like a factory to produce standardized content that keeps the public passive.
• Anxiety of Influence → Harold Bloom (B–IV): Bloom's 1973 book suggests that new poets are "haunted" by the greatness of their precursors and must misread or "swerve" from their influence to find their own voice.
• Cultural Materialism → Raymond Williams (C–I): A theory that analyzes how "culture" is not just ideas but is produced under specific material and economic conditions. Williams is the pioneer of this Marxist approach.
• Dialogism → Mikhail Bakhtin (D–III): Central to his study of the novel (especially Dostoevsky), referring to the constant interaction between multiple voices, meanings, and social perspectives within a text.

Correct Answer: 2 (B, C, D Only)

Explanation: This question tests knowledge of contemporary Queer and Trans literature:

• Torrey Peters (B): A trans woman whose novel Detransition, Baby became a significant cultural milestone in trans fiction.
• Casey McQuiston (C): A non-binary author known for queer rom-coms like Red, White & Royal Blue.
• Alyssa Huynh (D): A queer writer and activist who explores the intersections of identity and safety in works like Safe Space.

Note: David Gauntlett (A) is a prominent media theorist focused on "making" and digital culture, but he does not identify within the literary category of LGBTQ+ writers.