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

English Literature MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)

 Que- What was most frequently considered a source of pleasure and an object of inquiry by Augustan poets ? 

a. civilization  

b. woman  

c. God  

d. nature 


Answer- nature


Que- What literary work best captures a sense of the political turmoil, particularly regarding the issue of religion, just after the Restoration ? 

a. Gay's Beggar's Opera  

b. Butler's Hudibras  

c. Fielding's Jonathan Wild  

d. Pope's Dunciad 


Answer- Pope's Dunciad


Que- The poem 'The Battle of Maldon' celebrates events which took place in the 10th century, but who was it between______________? 

a. Danes and English  

b. Dutch and English  

c. Normans and English  

d. French and English 


Answer- Danes and English


Que- Which of the following charges were commonly leveled at the novel by its detractors at the dawn of the Romantic era ? 

a. Too many of its readers were women.  

b. It required less skill than other genres.  

c. It lacked the classical pedigree of poetry and drama.  

d. all of the above 


Answer- all of the above


Que- Which of the following texts addresses class as a social and economic reality ? 

a. William Godwin's Inquiry Concerning Political Justice  

b. Percy Bysshe Shelley's England in 1819  

c. William Godwin's Caleb Williams  

d. all of the above 


Answer- all of the above


Que- What did Byron deride with his scathing reference to "'Peddlers,' and 'Boats,' and 'Wagons'!" ? 

a. the neo-classical influence of Pope and Dryden  

b. the clumsiness of Shakespeare's plots  

c. the Orientalist fantasies of Coleridge  

d. Wordsworth's devotion to the ordinary and everyday 


Answer- Wordsworth's devotion to the ordinary and everyday


Que- A "classic" book is usually one that possesses what quality ? 

a. It has universal appeal.  

b. It can stand the test of time.  

c. It makes connections.  

d. All of the above. 


Answer- All of the above.


Que- Which of the following women exposed themselves to scandal by writing racy stories for the popular press ? 

a. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Wroth, and Elizabeth Cary  

b. Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood  

c. Anne Finch, Anne Killigrew, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu  

d. Rachel Speght, Katherine Philips, and Frances Burney 


Answer- Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood


Que- What word did writers in this period use to express quickness of mind, inventiveness,a knack for conceiving images and metaphors and for perceiving resemblances between things apparently unlike ? 

a. wit  

b. sprezzatura  

c. naturalism  

d. gusto 


Answer- wit


Que- What London locale, where many poor writers lived, became synonymous with hacks and scandal mongers ? 

a. Elephant and Castle  

b. Grub Street  

c. Covent Garden  

d. Cheapside 


Answer- Grub Street


Que- What was most frequently considered a source of pleasure and an object of inquiry by Augustan poets ? 

a. civilization  

b. woman  

c. God  

d. nature 


Answer- nature


Que- John Dryden wrote "Absalom and Achitophel." Who was Achitophel, historically speaking ? 

a. King David's son  

b. A Judge of Israel  

c. Bathsheba's first husband  

d. Absalom's advisor 


Answer- Absalom's advisor


Que- In which Dickens novel does Pip appear? 

a. Bleak House  

b. Great Expectations  

c. A Tale of Two Cities  

d. The Pickwick Papers 


Answer- Great Expectations


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 of the following best describes the sort of language and tone most often used when Romantic writers discuss the French Revolution ? 

a. snide indifference  

b. biblical reverence  

c. condemning censure  

d. satirical derision 


Answer- biblical reverence


Que- Who did Dryden use Absalom to represent, allegorically, in his satire "Absalom and Achitophel" ? 

a. The Duke of Monmouth  

b. Charles II  

c. The Earl of Shaftesbury  

d. Cromwell 


Answer- The Duke of Monmouth


Que- Who wrote: "Reader, I married him." ? 

a. Jane Austen  

b. Charlotte Bronte  

c. Edith Wharton  

d. Emily Bronte 


Answer- Charlotte Bronte


Que- Who remained without the vote following the Reform Bill of 1832 ? 

a. about half of middle class men  

b. almost all working class men  

c. all women  

d. A, B and C 


Answer- A, B and C


Que- How many children were there in the Bronte family? 

a. 3 

b. 4 

c. 5 

d. 6 


Answer- 4


Que- Which of the following was probably not a stock phrase in eighteenth-century poetry ? 

a. verdant mead  

b. checkered shade  

c. simian rivalry  

d. shining sword 


Answer- simian rivalry


Que- Which of the following was a typically Romantic means of achieving visionary states ? 

a. opium  

b. dreams  

c. childhood  

d. A, Band C 


Answer- A, Band C


Que- Horace's doctrine "ut pictura poesis" was interpreted to mean______________? 

a. A picture is worth a thousand words.  

b. Poetry is the supreme artistic form.  

c. Art should hold a mirror up to nature.  

d. Poetry ought to be a visual as well as a verbal art. 


Answer- Poetry ought to be a visual as well as a verbal art.


Que- Which Romantic writer(s) wrote in more than one of these popular literary forms: essay, novel, drama, poetry ? 

a. Percy Bysshe Shelley  

b. William Wordsworth  

c. George Gordon, Lord Byron  

d. all of the above 


Answer- all of the above


Que- Most neoclassical poets viewed the world in terms of a strictly ordered hierarchy. What was this hierarchy called ? 

a. The Way of the World  

b. The Foundational Ladder  

c. The Order of Angels  

d. The Great Chain of Being 


Answer- The Great Chain of Being


Que- What mock epic begins: "What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things" ? 

a. Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe"  

b. Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"  

c. Pope's "The Dunciad"  

d. Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel" 


Answer- Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"


Que- Who wrote: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan /A stately pleasure dome decree…"? 

a. Samuel Taylor Coleridge  

b. Robert Browning  

c. John Keats  

d. Walt Whitman 


Answer- Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Que- The Faerie Queene was written during the reign of which monarch ? 

a. James I  

b. Mary Tudor  

c. Elizabeth Tudor  

d. Henry VII 


Answer- Elizabeth Tudor


Que- What drove William Cowper to break down and become a recluse ? 

a. the conviction that he was damned forever  

b. the loss of his fortune in the \South Sea Bubble\  

c. the vindication of Newtonian physics  

d. condemnation of his work by Jeremy Collier 


Answer- the conviction that he was damned forever


Que- What London locale, where many poor writers lived, became synonymous with hacks and scandal mongers ? 

a. Elephant and Castle  

b. Grub Street  

c. Covent Garden  

d. Cheapside 


Answer- Grub Street


Que- Which of the following is not an example of Restoration comedy ? 

a. Etherege's The Man of Mode  

b. Wycherley's The Country Wife  

c. Behn's The Rover  

d. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus 


Answer- Marlowe's Doctor Faustus


Que- While compiling what sort of book did Samuel Richardson conceive of the idea for his Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded ? 

a. a history of everyday life  

b. an instructional manual for manners  

c. a book of devotion  

d. a book of model letters 


Answer- a book of model letters


Que- Who wrote: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall / looking as if she were alive." ? 

a. Lord Byron  

b. Oscar Wilde  

c. Robert Browning  

d. William Wordsworth 


Answer- Robert Browning


Que- Which of the following is not indebted to the Gothic genre ? 

a. William Beckford's Vathek  

b. Matthew Lewis's The Monk  

c. Tobias Smollett's Roderick Randsom  

d. Ann Radcliffe's The Italian 


Answer- Tobias Smollett's Roderick Randsom


Que- What are the names of the two feuding families in Romeo and Juliet ? 

a. Capulet And Montague  

b. Breslow and Felsher  

c. Fuech and Goodside  

d. Dawson and Hurley 


Answer- Capulet And Montague


Que- Which of the following is not an example of Restoration comedy ? 

a. Etherege's The Man of Mode  

b. Wycherley's The Country Wife  

c. Behn's The Rover  

d. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus 


Answer- Marlowe's Doctor Faustus


Que- With its forbidden themes of incest, murder, necrophilia, atheism, and torments of sexual desire, Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, created which literary genre ? 

a. the revenge tragedy  

b. the Gothic romance  

c. the epistolary novel  

d. the comedy of manners 


Answer- the Gothic romance


Que- Whose great Dictionary, published in 1755, included more than 114,000 quotations ? 

a. William Hogarth  

b. Jonathan Swift  

c. Samuel Johnson  

d. Ben Jonson 


Answer- Samuel Johnson


Que- Which of the following English groups were supportive of the French Revolution during its early years ? 

a. Republicans  

b. Liberals  

c. Radicals  

d. both B and C 


Answer- both B and C


Que- In which county was Jane Austin born ? 

a. Sussex  

b. Hampshire  

c. Yorkshire  

d. Norfolk 


Answer- Hampshire


Que- Which sorts of political reform took place during the Romantic period ? 

a. Parliamentary reform, increasing representation of the working classes  

b. Labor reform, improving working conditions for industrial laborers  

c. Educational reform, producing a dramatic increase in literacy  

d. A and C only 


Answer- A and C only


Que- Who in the Romantic period developed a new novelistic language for the workings of the mind in flux ? 

a. Maria Edgeworth  

b. Sir Walter Scott  

c. Thomas De Quincey  

d. Jane Austen 


Answer- Jane Austen


Que- Who wrote: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." ? 

a. John Keats  

b. William Shakespeare  

c. Samuel Butler  

d. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 


Answer- John Keats


Que- What served as the inspiration for P.B Shelley's poems to the working classes ?A Song: "Men of England" and England in 1819?  

a. the organization of a working class men's choral group in Southern England  

b. the Battle of Waterloo  

c. the Peterloo Massacre  

d. the storming of the Bastille 


Answer- the Peterloo Massacre


Que- Which of the following periodical publications (reviews and magazines) appeared in the Romantic era ? 

a. London Magazine  

b. The Spectator  

c. The Edinburgh Review  

d. A and C only 


Answer- A and C only


Que- His "To Penthurst" is considered to be one of the primary texts of the neoclassical movement ? 

a. Sir John Denham  

b. Ben Jonson  

c. Thomas Carew  

d. John Dryden 


Answer- Ben Jonson


Que- What is the term we now use for what the Romantics called "mesmerism," one of the "occult" practices that allowed people to explore altered states of consciousness ? 

a. smoking opium  

b. hypnotism  

c. psychoanalysis  

d. dream interpretation 


Answer- hypnotism


Que- Wordsworth described all good poetry as_______________? 

a. the rhythmic expression of moral intuition  

b. the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings  

c. the polite patter of a corrupted age  

d. the divine gift of grace 


Answer- the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings


Que- Which of the following was not considered a type of the alienated, romantic visionary ? 

a. Prometheus  

b. Satan  

c. Cain  

d. George III 


Answer- George III


Que- Which of the following descriptions would not have applied to any Romantic text ? 

a. a spiritual autobiography written in an epic style  

b. a lyric poem written in the first person  

c. a comedy of manners  

d. a political tract demanding labor reform 


Answer- a comedy of manners


Que- Which of the following was a major factor in the unprecedented economic wealth of Great Britain during the eighteenth century ? 

a. formal diplomatic relations with China  

b. the exploitation of colonial resources, labor, and the slave trade  

c. the American and French revolutions  

d. the creation of the bourgeois novel as a commodity 


Answer- the exploitation of colonial resources, labor, and the slave trade

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