English Literature MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions) - Schoolingaxis.com

English Literature MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)

 Que- What was \restored\in 1660 ? 

a. the monarchy, in the person of Charles II  

b. the dominance of the Tory Party  

c. the \Book of Common Prayer\  

d. toleration of religious dissidents 


Answer- the monarchy, in the person of Charles II


Que- Who wrote The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, a novel that abandons clock time for psychological time ? 

a. Henry Fielding  

b. Laurence Sterne  

c. Samuel Richardson  

d. Tobias Smollett 


Answer- Laurence Sterne


Que- John Donne is, in some sense, the originator of metaphysical poetry. But who is most closely associated with the "founding" of neoclassical poetry ? 

a. William Wordsworth  

b. Alexander Pope  

c. Ben Jonson  

d. George Herbert 


Answer- Ben Jonson


Que- Which of the following is a typically Romantic poetic form ? 

a. the fractal  

b. the figment  

c. the fragment  

d. the aubade 


Answer- the fragment


Que- In which work do you read: "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. " ? 

a. The Canturbury Tales  

b. The Dark Angel  

c. The Wild Swans of Coole  

d. The Second Coming 


Answer- The Second Coming


Que- When the Parliament, controlled by the puritans, took power in England, one of the acts that greatly influenced Literature of that time was_____________? 

a. The closing of theatres  

b. The return of the King.  

c. King Arthurs' dead  

d. King to exile 


Answer- The closing of theatres


Que- What is Shakespeare's longest play ? 

a. Taming of the Shrew  

b. Romeo and Juliet  

c. A Midsummer Night's Dream  

d. Hamlet 


Answer- Hamlet


Que- Which of the following became the most popular Romantic poetic form, following on Wordsworth's claim that poetic inspiration is contained within the inner feelings of the individual poet as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" ? 

a. the lyric poem written in the first person  

b. the sonnet  

c. doggerel rhyme  

d. the political tract 


Answer- the lyric poem written in the first person


Que- The crisis over the Exclusion Bill effectively divided the country into which two political parties ? 

a. the Republicans and the Royalists  

b. the Royalists and the Whigs  

c. the Tories and the Whigs  

d. the Royalists and the Tories 


Answer- the Tories and the Whigs


Que- Which poet, critic and translator brought England a modern literature between 1660 and 1700 ? 

a. Addison  

b. Bunyan  

c. Crabbe  

d. Dryden 


Answer- Dryden


Que- Why didn't Alexander Pope attend an English university ? 

a. He lived in Italy until the age of 27  

b. Asthma, headaches, and spinal deformity made him an invalid  

c. He was a Catholic, and therefore forbidden from attending  

d. He just wasn't bright enough 


Answer- He was a Catholic, and therefore forbidden from attending


Que- Which of the following is not a common feature of neoclassical poetry ? 

a. Imitation of classical forms and allusion to mythology  

b. An effort to represent human nature  

c. Use of the rhymed couplet  

d. Fantastic comparisons 


Answer- Use of the rhymed couplet


Que- Who began the tradition of revenge play ? 

a. Goorge peele  

b. Samuel daniel  

c. Phineas fletcher  

d. Thomas kyd 


Answer- Thomas kyd


Que- Pope made money by selling subscriptions to his translation of this classical epic ? 

a. The Bahagavad Gita  

b. The Odyssey  

c. The Illiad  

d. The Aeneid 


Answer- The Illiad


Que- In which work do you read: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall /looking as if she were alive." ? 

a. Porphyria's Lover  

b. My Last Duchess  

c. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  

d. Fra Lippo Lippi 


Answer- My Last Duchess


Que- Which two writers can be described as writing historical novels ? 

a. Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley  

b. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge  

c. Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth  

d. Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë 


Answer- Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth


Que- Which of the following best describes the doctrine of empiricism ? 

a. All knowledge is derived from experience.  

b. Human perceptions are constructed and reflect structures of political power.  

c. The search for essential or ultimate principles of reality.  

d. The sensory world is an illusion. 


Answer- All knowledge is derived from experience.


Que- Which book was not written by Jane Austen ? 

a. Sense and Suspensibility  

b. Emma  

c. Pride and Prejudice  

d. Mansfield Park 


Answer- Sense and Suspensibility


Que- Romantic poetry about the natural world uses descriptions of nature _______________? 

a. to depict a metaphysical concept of nature by endowing it with traits normally associated with humans  

b. as a means to demonstrate and discuss the processes of human thinking  

c. symbolically to suggest that natural objects correspond to an inner,  

d. All the above 


Answer- All the above


Que- According to Samuel Johnson, \No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for_____________? 

a. love.\  

b. honor.\  

c. money.\  

d. his party.\ 


Answer- money.\


Que- Which phrase indicates the interior flow of thought employed in high-modern literature ? 

a. automatic writing  

b. confused daze  

c. total recall  

d. stream of consciousness 


Answer- stream of consciousness


Que- What event allowed mainstream theater companies to commission and perform work that was politically, socially, and sexually controversial without fear of censorship ? 

a. the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain's office in 1968  

b. the illegal performance of work by Howard Brenton and Edward Bond  

c. the collapse of liberal humanist consensus in the late 1960s  

d. the foundation of the Field Day Theater Company in 1980 


Answer- the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain's office in 1968


Que- Which of the following phrases best characterizes the late-nineteenth century aesthetic movement which widened the breach between artists and the reading public, sowing the seeds of modernism ? 

a. art for intellect's sake  

b. art for God's sake  

c. art for the masses  

d. art for art's sake 


Answer- art for art's sake


Que- Which phrase indicates the interior flow of thought employed in high-modern literature ? 

a. automatic writing  

b. confused daze  

c. total recall  

d. stream of consciousness 


Answer- stream of consciousness


Que- Who wrote the dystopian novel Nineteen- Eighty-Four in which Newspeak demonstrates the heightened linguistic selfconsciousness of modernist writers ? 

a. George Orwell  

b. Virginia Woolf  

c. Evelyn Waugh  

d. Orson Wells 


Answer- George Orwell


Que- How did one critic sum up Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot ? 

a. \nothing happens-twice\  

b. \political correctness gone mad\  

c. \kitchen sink drama\  

d. \angry young men 


Answer- \nothing happens-twice\


Que- With which enormously influential perspective or practice is the early-twentiethcentury thinker Sigmund Freud associated ? 

a. eugenics  

b. psychoanalysis  

c. phrenology  

d. anarchism 


Answer- psychoanalysis


Que- Which thinker had a major impact on early-twentieth-century writers, leading them to re-imagine human identity in radically new ways ? 

a. Sigmund Freud  

b. Sir James Frazer  

c. Immanuel Kant  

d. all but C 


Answer- all but C


Que- Who wrote the dystopian novel Nineteen- Eighty-Four in which Newspeak demonstrates the heightened linguistic selfconsciousness of modernist writers ? 

a. George Orwell  

b. Virginia Woolf  

c. Evelyn Waugh  

d. Orson Wells 


Answer- George Orwell


Que- Which text exemplifies the anti- Victorianism prevalent in the early twentieth century ? 

a. Eminent Victorians  

b. Jungle Books  

c. The Way of All Flesh  

d. both A and C 


Answer- both A and C


Que- What was the significance of the voyage of the Empire Windrush ? 

a. It brought the last group of English convicts to Australia in 1901.  

b. It was sunk by the German navy in 1914, bringing the United States into World War I.  

c. It brought the first group of immigrants from Jamaica to England in 1948.  

d. It delivered a small dog into space in 1959, and returned it to earth. 


Answer- It brought the first group of immigrants from Jamaica to England in 1948.


Que- In the 1930s, younger writers such as W. H. Auden were more_____________ but less __________than older modernists such as Eliot and Pound. 

a. popular; reverenced  

b. brash; confident  

c. radical; inventive  

d. anxious; haunting 


Answer- radical; inventive


Que- Which thinker had a major impact on early-twentieth-century writers, leading them to reimagine human identity in radically new ways? 

a. Sigmund Freud  

b. Sir James Frazer  

c. Immanuel Kant  

d. all but C 


Answer- all but C


Que- What characteristics of seventeenth century Metaphysical poetry sparked the enthusiasm of modernist poets and critics ? 

a. its intellectual complexity  

b. its union of thought and passion  

c. its uncompromising engagement with politics  

d. A and B 


Answer- A and B


Que- Which poet could be described as part of \The Movement\of the 1950s ? 

a. Thom Gunn  

b. Dylan Thomas  

c. Philip Larkin  

d. both A and C 


Answer- both A and C


Que- What was the impact on literature of the Education Act of 1870, which made elementary schooling compulsory ? 

a. the emergence of a mass literate population at whom a new mass-produced literature could be directed  

b. a new market for basic textbooks which paid better than sophisticated novels or plays  

c. a popular thirst for the \classics,\ driving contemporary writers to the margins  

d. none of the above 


Answer- the emergence of a mass literate population at whom a new mass-produced literature could be directed


Que- Which novel did T. S. Eliot praise for utilizing a new "mythical method" in place of the old "narrative method" and demonstrates the use of ancient mythology in modernist fiction to think about "making the modern world possible for art" ? 

a. Virginia Woolf's The Waves  

b. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness  

c. James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake  

d. James Joyce's Ulysses 


Answer- James Joyce's Ulysses


Que- Which of the following has been a significant development in British theater since the abolition of censorship in 1968 ? 

a. the rise of workshops and the collaborative ethos  

b. the diversifying impact of playwrights from the former colonies  

c. the death of the musical  

d. all but C 


Answer- all but C


Que- When was the ban finally lifted on D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, written in 1928? 

a. 1930 

b. 1945 

c. 1960 

d. 2000 


Answer- 1960


Que- Which of the following phrases best characterizes the late-nineteenth century aesthetic movement which widened the breach between artists and the reading public, sowing the seeds of modernism ? 

a. art for intellect's sake  

b. art for God's sake  

c. art for the masses  

d. art for art's sake 


Answer- art for art's sake


Que- Which of the following is not associated with high modernism in the novel ? 

a. stream of consciousness  

b. free indirect style  

c. irresolute open endings  

d. narrative realism 


Answer- narrative realism


Que- Which events in and after the 1960s contributed significantly to the decentralization of England from London to a more regional focus, ultimately also making way for a less homogenous vision of England and the popularity of postcolonial fiction ? 

a. Radio announcers were permitted to speak in regional dialects and multicultural accents.  

b. The Arts Council designated many of its resources to supporting regional arts councils.  

c. Regional radio and television stations appeared throughout the country.  

d. all of the above 


Answer- all of the above


Que- Which of the following writers did not come from Ireland ? 

a. W.B. Yeats  

b. James Joyce  

c. Seamus Heaney  

d. none of the above 


Answer- none of the above


Que- Which of the following was originally the Irish Literary Theatre ? 

a. the Irish National Theatre  

b. the Independent Theatre  

c. the Abbey Theatre  

d. both A and C 


Answer- both A and C


Que- Which British dominion achieved independence in 1921-22, following the Easter Rising of 1916 ? 

a. the southern counties of Ireland  

b. Canada  

c. Ulster  

d. India 


Answer- the southern counties of Ireland


Que- Which of the following is not associated with high modernism in the novel ? 

a. stream of consciousness  

b. free indirect style  

c. irresolute open endings  

d. narrative realism 


Answer- narrative realism


Que- When was the ban finally lifted on D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, written in 1928? 

a. 1930 

b. 1945 

c. 1960 

d. 2000 


Answer- 1960


Que- Which of the following would be considered postcolonial novelists, defined as coming historically after the era of England's large-scale imperialism ? 

a. Salman Rushdie  

b. Joseph Conrad  

c. Rabindranath Tagore  

d. John Ruskin 


Answer- Salman Rushdie


Que- What did Henry James describe as "loose baggy monsters" ? 

a. novels  

b. plays  

c. the English  

d. publishers 


Answer- novels


Que- Which of the following novels display postwar nostalgia for past imperial glory ? 

a. E. M. Forster's A Passage to India  

b. Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea  

c. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness  

d. Paul Scott's Staying On 


Answer- Paul Scott's Staying On

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