University Interscholastic League Literary Criticism Contest • Sample • Fall 2014

Part 1: Knowledge of Literary Terms and of Literary History 30 items (1 point each)

1. A novel in which actual persons are presented 6. Not associated with the collecting of or the under the guise of fiction is known as a writing of the fairy tale is (are)

A) roman à clef. A) Hans Christian Andersen. B) roman à thèse. B) the Brothers Grimm. C) roman de geste. C) Nathaniel Hawthorne. D) roman-fleuve. D) Rudyard Kipling. E) roman noir. E) Oscar Wilde.

2. The term that denotes a fanciful notion, usually 7. Having died before the appearance of and thus expressed through an elaborate analogy and not able to have experienced the dramatized pointing to a striking parallel between ostensibly spiritual anguish of the human condition that

dissimilar things is a (n) characterizes the Theater of the Absurd is

A) conceit. A) Samuel Beckett. B) dead metaphor. B) Martin Esslin. C) euphemism. C) Thomas Hardy. D) kenning. D) Eugène Ionesco. E) simile. E) Harold Pinter.

3. The final unraveling, or unknotting, of a plot, the 8. A statement that although seemingly contra- solution of a mystery, or an explanation or outcome dictory or absurd may be well founded or true

of a narrative or drama is the is a (n)

A) climax. A) antiphrasis. B) dénouement. B) equivoque. C) epiphany. C) oxymoron. D) peripety. D) paradox. E) recalcitrance. E) paraleipsis.

4. The author of Light in August, The Sound and the 9. The American playwright who won several Fury, The Unvanquished, As I Lay Dying, and Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, the last one post- Absalom, Absalom! is humously in 1957, is

A) John Cheever. A) Eugene O'Neill. B) William Faulkner. B) Robert E. Sherwood. C) Larry McMurtry. C) Alfred Uhry. D) John Steinbeck. D) Tennessee Williams. E) John Updike. E) August Wilson.

5. A composition written as though intended to be 10. A play on words based on the similarity of sung out of doors at night under a window and in sound between two words with different mean-

praise of a loved one is a (n) ings is called a (n)

A) aubade. A) antonomasia. B) ballad. B) hypallage. C) charm. C) polyptoton. D) lament. D) pun. E) serenade. E) understatement.

Literary Criticism Contest • Sample Fall 2011 • page 2

Part 2: The UIL Reading List 20 items (2 points each)

Items 11-12 are associated with Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House. Items 13-14 are associated with Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Items 15-16 are associated with Emily Dickinson's poetry (selected).

11. That Nora in Ibsen's Doll House is incontrovertibly 16. One of the major themes that is found in Emily a dynamic character is emphasized by the Dickinson's poetry is the

A) banning of macaroons. A) importance of traveling abroad. B) dancing of the tarantella. B) joy of childhood. C) decorating of the Christmas tree. C) meaninglessness of nature. D) mailing of a letter. D) proximity of death. E) slamming of a door. E) sorrow of war.

12. The character not serving as a foil in Ibsen's Part 3: Ability in Literary Criticism critique of society is 15 items (2 points each)

A) Christine. Items 17-18 refer to Philip Larkin's B) Helene. Talking in Bed C) Nora. D) Nils. Talking in bed ought to be easiest, E) Torvald. Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest.

13. In the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, Hrothgar's wife is Yet more and more time passes silently.

A) Hrunting. Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest B) Hyelac. Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,

C) Unferth. And dark towns heap up on the horizon. D) Wealhtheow. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why E) Wiglaf. At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find 14. So tell us if what we have heard is true Words at once true and kind, about the threat, whatever it is, Or not untrue and not unkind. this danger abroad in the dark nights, this corpse-maker mongering death . . . . 17. Lines 4 and 6 of Philip Larkin's "Talking in Bed" The fourth line offers an example of a (n) exhibit

A) elegiac. A) compound rhyme. B) flyting. B) eye rhyme. C) hyperbole. C) feminine rhyme. D) kenning. D) masculine rhyme. E) simile. E) near rhyme.

15. Dickinson's lines "So bashful when I spied her, / So pretty, so ashamed! / So hidden in her leaflets, / 18. The final line of the Larkin's "Talking in Bed" Least anybody find [ . . .]" exhibit offers two examples of

A) anaphora. A) a complication. B) caesura. B) double dactyls. C) litotes. C) double entendre. D) sigmatism. D) litotes. E) zeugma. E) a palindrome.