This exam will demonstrate your mastery of course outcomes:

• Understand literary theory as occurring in all literary interpretation
•  Identify, explain, and apply theoretical concepts orally and in writing

Each exam should:

• Make a specific argument answering the central question above,
• Discuss at least six critical concepts related to all four aspects of the rhetorical triangle and quote the text to help you define them,
• Apply your critical stance to Paradise and one other "text" (defined in the broadest sense to include any moment of communication or interpretation), and
• Be presented in the following format:
• Introduction: What is literary theory? How does it relate to interpretation and/or authorship? How would you describe your critical stance?
• Body discussion: concepts and application
• Conclusion: What is your view of this exploration of literary theory? How is it relevant to your academic work, your personal life, and/or your career plans?

• Take-home, two-hour, open-book, open-note essay due on the final examination date
• In-class, two-hour, open-book, open-note essay
• In-class five-minute presentation (consider listeners' needs for visual assistance) and discussion (audience members will be responsible for asking at least two helpful questions of their peers as part of their grades)

A. What is your understanding of the importance of the text to interpretation?

• Can interpretation occur without a text?
• What exactly is a text?
• How do texts function? Try situating a text’s function within Saussure’s equation: sign = signifier + signified (Johnson 40).
• Do texts have fixed meanings? In other words, can we ever locate the signified? (Johnson 42)
• What is the relationship between a text and the discourse in which it is situated?
• Do narratives really function to “keep us in line” (Miller 69)? Why or why not?
• How does figurative language operate, and why is it important to literature?
• What is the difference between “form” and “structure”?
• Can a text be objective (wholly free of rhetoric or ideology)? Why or why not?
• How are texts cultural products?

• What exactly is the author’s importance to interpretation of a text?
• Is the author a genius whose intention we must determine in order to correctly interpret a text? If so, what are the ways we can determine intention?
• Is the person interpreting the text (the literary critic) less important than the author?
• What is “the intentional fallacy” as defined by Wimsatt and Beardsley (Pease 111; Patterson 140), and do you agree with it?
• What does it mean to argue that the author is dead (Pease 112), and do you agree?
• Do you think the author’s unconscious can influence a text’s meaning beyond what the author intended? If so, how might this occur, and how can an interpreter deal with this?

• What is the reader’s role in interpreting a text?
• Does it matter who the reader is, or should we expect all interpretations of the same text to be similar?
• How is reading a kind of performance?
• How does a reader’s interpretation participate in his or her culture?
• Is it appropriate for readers to create a canon of valuable literature? Can canon production be avoided?
• How should readers evaluate texts? Are ethics important, or should art be valued as art only?
• How might a reader’s reading of texts destabilize power associated with the canon?

• How does the context of a text affect interpretation?
• Should an understanding of an author’s context (for example, the author’s historical moment or biographical background) affect interpretation? Why or why not?
• Should a text’s context (for example, the fact that a text is assigned in a particular course or is read for entertainment) affect interpretation? Why or why not?
• Should a reader’s context (for example, the reader’s historical moment or biographical background) change interpretation? Why or why not?
• Should current views about privilege and power (consider gender, race, ethnicity, class, imperialism/nationalism, etc.) affect interpretation of texts that don’t belong to our current context? Why or why not?
• Should we continue to study, assign, and admire texts that were valuable at one time but that are difficult or offensive for today’s readers? Why or why not?
• Why is it important to examine ideology embodied in texts in relation to our own beliefs?