Rise of English
New Criticism
Structuralism
Deconstruction
Theory post-1985
200

This famous British university is associated with the professionalization of English as an academic subject.

What is Cambridge?

200

The New Critics described this mistake as the erroneous practice of interpreting a text based on the author’s intended meaning rather than the text itself.


What is the intentional fallacy?

200

In Structuralism, this concept is divided into two parts: the signified and the signifier.

What is a sign?

200

This French philosopher remains the most influential scholar associated with Deconstruction.

Who is Derrida?

200

This French historian has been a major figure in recent theory, and his works include The Order of Things, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1.

Who is Foucault?

400

This British scholar helped make literary studies an academic discipline, and was so influential that his detractors called his students "_____ites."

Who is F. R. Leavis?

400

Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom--many of the scholars associated with New Criticism lived and worked in this region of the United States.

What is the South?

400

When I'm thinking of the mental concept of a word, I'm thinking of this idea.

What is the signified?

400

Deconstruction refers to the slippery, ever-changing quality of language using this term that can mean both "to differ" and "to defer" in French.

What is différance?

400

Jefferey Williams writes that this term has become the most desirable adjective for scholars working in literary and cultural theory.

What is smart?

600

This quarterly journal became a significant source of the new literary scholarship being written in the 1920s.

What is Scrutiny?

600

Don't make this mistake of evaluating a text based on the emotional response it elicits from the reader.

What is the affective fallacy?

600

When I'm looking at the letters or other symbols that make up a word, I'm looking at this concept.

What is the signifier?

600

Deconstruction is generally included as one method among others that followed Structuralism--a group referred to by this term.

What is Poststructuralism?

600

Terry Eagleton describes some of the trends in theory over the last forty years that include New Historicism, Feminist criticism, and this approach, that explores the condition of societies formerly governed by European nations.

What is postcolonialism?
800

She married her literature professor, then went on to become a prominent critic in her own right.

Who is Q. D. Leavis?

800

Damned if you do, damned if you don't: the New Critics highly valued this type of statement in literature.

What is paradox?

800

Structuralists say we make meaning through the relationships between words, such as in this type of pairing. 

What is a binary opposition?

800

Dog/Cat, White/Black, Male/Female--Deconstruction suggests that many of these contrasts are this condition (which is truly one half of its own famous pair).

What is false?

800

Eagleton uses this term to describe approaches to literature that seek to understand the meaning of the text.

What is interpretive?

1000

This approach to literary studies was pioneered by the British scholar William Empson, and has since become the foundational method in English.

What is close reading?

1000

The author’s intentions, the reader’s responses, or the work’s social or historical context--none of these are as important to New Critics as this aspect of literature.

What is the text?

1000

This Swiss linguist defined much of the methodology we refer to as Structuralism

Who is Saussure?

1000

This long word summarizes the idea that Western culture has valued masculinity, presence, and speech over femininity, absence, and writing.

What is phallologocentrism?

1000

Eagleton uses this term for approaches to literature that seek to understand why the literary work matters.

What is metadiscursive?