Literary Criticism Notes
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Srishti GuptaLiterary Criticism Notes
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Table of Contents
VICTORIAN CRITICISM ________________________________________________________________ 3
MATTHEW ARNOLD __________________________________________________________________ 5
HENRY JAMES ______________________________________________________________________ 11
G.M. HOPKINS _____________________________________________________________________ 12
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE _______________________________________________________________ 15
GEORGE ELIOT _____________________________________________________________________ 16
T.S. ELIOT _________________________________________________________________________ 18
ROMANTIC CRITICISM _______________________________________________________________ 21
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH _____________________________________________________________ 24
S.T. COLERIDGE _____________________________________________________________________ 36
JOHN KEATS _______________________________________________________________________ 42
ENLIGHTENMENT AGE THINKERS ______________________________________________________ 48
JOHN DRYDEN______________________________________________________________________ 49
ALEXANDER POPE ___________________________________________________________________ 56
SAMUEL JOHNSON __________________________________________________________________ 62
THOMAS HOBBES ___________________________________________________________________ 70
JOHN LOCKE _______________________________________________________________________ 70
GIAMBATTISTA VICO ________________________________________________________________ 71
EDMUND BURKE ____________________________________________________________________ 72
EDWARD GIBBON ___________________________________________________________________ 73
ADAM SMITH ______________________________________________________________________ 73
GREEK CRITICS _____________________________________________________________________ 73
SOCRATES _________________________________________________________________________ 73
PLATO ____________________________________________________________________________ 74
ARISTOTLE_________________________________________________________________________ 75
ROMAN CRITICS ____________________________________________________________________ 76
HORACE___________________________________________________________________________ 76
2
LONGINUS _________________________________________________________________________ 77
QUINTILIAN________________________________________________________________________ 77
3
VICTORIAN CRITICISM
PAPER 2
June 2006
Queen Victoria’s reign, after whom the Victorian period is named, spans:
A. 1833-1901
B. 1837-1901
C. 1840-1905
D. 1842-1905
June 2007
‘Victorian Compromise’ is an expression first used by:
A. David Cecil
B. G.K. Chesterton
C. Lytton Strachey
D. Vincent Buckley
December 2008
The term ‘Victorian’ evokes the attitudes of:
A. Philistinism
B. Moral earnestness
C. Licentiousness
D. Transcendentalism
The most important of the ‘evolutionists’ during the Victorian period was:
A. Erasmus Darwin
B. Robert Chambers
C. Charles Darwin
D. Alfred Russell Wallace
June 2008
Victorian Age witnessed a clash between clash between:
A. Faith and reason
B. Tradition and modernity
C. Oriental and occidental civilisation
D. Romanticism and neo-romanticism
June 2009
4
The following writers have something in common. What is it?
Mary Seacole; J.A. Froude; Mary Kingsley; Anthony Trollope
They are all Victorians; they are all travel writers.
June 2013
Which one of the following best describes the general feeling expressed in literature during the last
decade of the Victorian Era?
A. Studied melancholy and aestheticism
B. The triumph of science and morbidity
C. Sincere earnestness and protestant zeal
D. Raucous celebration combined with paranoid interpretation
June 2015
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the Victorian Age?
A. The rise of a highly competitive industrial technology
B. An emphasis on strictly controlled social behaviour
C. A romantic focus on home and family
D. The growth of rural traditions and movement from large cities
July 2018
During the years 1830 to 1850, the illusion of peace in Victorian England was broken by such
incidents as the disaster of the Indian Mutiny and the incompetent bungling of the Crimean War.
December 2018
Which of the following acts were not passed during the Victorian Era?
A. The Married Women’s Property Rights Act
B. A series of Factory Acts
C. The Custody Act
D. The Women’s Suffrage Act
PAPER 3
September 2013
The ‘Angel in the House’ became a common label for the Victorian ideal of respectable middle-class
femininity. The phrase originated with a popular long poem by:
A. Arthur Munby
B. Arthur Hugh Clough
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C. Charlotte Mew
D. Coventry Patmore
June 2015
Choose the right chronological sequence below:
Tudor Period- Jacobean Period- Restoration Period- Edwardian period
August 2016
Which Victorian novel has the subtitle “New Foes with an Old Face”?
A. Hypatia
B. Sybil
C. Pendennis
D. Phineas Finn
MATTHEW ARNOLD
PAPER 2
December 2005
Select the matching pairs:
A. Sohrab and Rustom- Arnold
B. The Princess- Browning
C. Hugh Selwyn Mauberly- Hopkins
D. The Excursion- Shelley
December 2006
The line “The sea is calm tonight” occurs in:
A. Tennyson’s “Maude”
B. Arnold’s “Thyrsis”
C. Tennyson’s “The Lotus-Eaters”
D. Arnold’s “Dover Beach”
June 2006
Who among the Victorians is called “the prophet of modern society”?
A. Ruskin
B. Carlyle
C. Macaulay
D. Arnold
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December 2007
“Poetry is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by laws of poetic truth and
poetic beauty”. Who, among the following, made the above statement?
A. Dr. Johnson
B. Sidney
C. Matthew Arnold
D. Wordsworth
December 2008
‘Rugby Chapel’ is a poem by Matthew Arnold in the memory of his:
A. Mother
B. Brother
C. Father
D. Sister
Which of the following author-book par is correct?
A. Walter Pater- Unto This Last
B. Browning- The Ring and the Book
C. M. Arnold- Idylls if the King
D. Thackeray- Bleak House
The phrase dissociation of sensibility was first used by:
A. Philip Sidney
B. T.S. Eliot
C. John Dryden
D. Matthew Arnold
June 2008
Sartor Resartus is a text by:
A. Ruskin
B. Arnold
C. Carlyle
D. Burke
Which of the following author-book pair correctly matched?
A. Hard Times- George Eliot
B. Heroes and Hero Worship- Walter Pater
C. Sourab and Rustom- Matthew Arnold
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D. Ethics of the Dust- Macaulay
June 2009
“He is not fully recognised at home; he is not recognised at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that the
poetical performance of ...is, after that of Shakespeare and Milton, undoubtedly most considerable in
our language.” To whom does Matthew Arnold refer in the above statement?
A. Edmund Spenser
B. John Keats
C. William Wordsworth
D. S.T. Coleridge
June 2010
The famous line “where ignorant armies clash by night” is taken from a poem by:
A. Wilfred Owen
B. W.H. Auden
C. Siegfried Sassoon
D. Matthew Arnold
The term ‘Cultural Materialism’ is associated with:
A. Stephen Greenblatt
B. Raymond Williams
C. Matthew Arnold
D. Richard Hoggart
December 2011
“All great literature is, at bottom, a criticism of life”- the statement is attributed to:
A. Thomas Carlyle
B. Matthew Arnold
C. J.S. Mill
D. John Ruskin
June 2011
“The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry...our race, as time goes on. Will find an ever surer
and surer stay”- This claim for poetry is made in
A. Arnold’s “The Study of Poetry”
B. Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry”
C. Sidney’s “An Apology for Poetry”
D. Eliot’s “Of Poetry and Poets”
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The term ‘curtal sonnet’ was coined by:
A. John Milton
B. William Blake
C. Gerald Manley Hopkins
D. Matthew Arnold
“The City of Dreadful Night”, a long poem depicting the late Victorian sense of gloom and despondency,
is written by:
A. Matthew Arnold
B. Robert Browning
C. James Thomson
D. John Davidson
September 2013
Who among the Victorian authors has described themselves as an agnostic?
A. Matthew Arnold
B. Charles Dickens
C. George Eliot
D. Thomas Hardy
December 2014
Match the columns:
1. Apollonian-Dionysian: Friedrich Nietzsche
2. Fancy and Imagination- S.T. Coleridge
3. Hellenism-Hebraism- Matthew Arnold
4. Inscape-Instress- G.M. Hopkins
June 2014
“The greatness of a poet”, Arnold says, “lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life”.
But a critic pointed out it was “not a happy way of putting it, as if ideas were a lotion for the inflamed
skin of suffering humanity.” Who was this critic?
A. T.S. Eliot
B. F.R. Leavis
C. David Lodge
D. Allen Tate
June 2015
9
Matthew Arnold’s “Touchstones” were “short passages, even single lines” of classic poetry beside which
the lines of other poets may be placed in order to detect the presence or absence of high poetic quality.
In his “Study of Poetry” Arnold cited “touchstones” from such non-English poets as Homer and Dante
and also from the English poets, Shakespeare and Milton. Which English poet did he disapprovingly call
“not one of the great classics” in the list below?
A. Chaucer
B. Sidney
C. Spenser
D. Donne
Match the following:
1. The Function of Criticism: T.S. Eliot
2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time: Matthew Arnold
3. The Function of Criticism: From the Spectator to Poststructuralism: Terry Eagleton
4. The Function of English at the Present Time: Richard Ohmann
November 2017
In which poem does Matthew Arnold express the dilemma of: “Wandering between two worlds, one
dead, The other powerless to be born”?
A. Self-Dependence
B. Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse
C. To a Republican Friend
D. Dover Beach
July 2018
In “Memorial Verses” Matthew Arnold pays tribute to three great poets. Who are they?
A. Goethe, Shakespeare, Wordsworth
B. Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton
C. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth
D. Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron
Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians carries biographical sketches of writers and public figures. Identify
the list below that correctly mentions those Eminent Victorians.
A. Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon
B. A.E.W Mason, Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, Matthew Arnold, Robert Bridges
C. E.F. Benson, Cardinal Manning, Lord Tennyson, Beatrice Webb
D. George Harding, General Gordon, Robert Browning, Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
December 2018
10
In his essay “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (1864) Matthew Arnold contended that
A. Creative and critical powers should be ranked equally
B. Creative and critical powers are not comparable in any way
C. Critical power should be ranked higher than creative power
D. Creative power should be ranked higher than critical power
PAPER 3
December 2012
According to Matthew Arnold, ‘touchstones’ help us test truth and seriousness that constitute the best
poetry. What are the ‘touchstones’?
A. The purple passages of lyric poetry
B. Passages from ancient poets
C. The lines and expressions to the great masters
D. Passages of epic strength and vigour
December 2013
The author of the book observes “I have attempted, through the medium of biography, to present
some Victorian visions to the modern eye”. The four main characters in this book are Cardinal
Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold and General Gordon. Who is this author?
A. Matthew Arnold
B. Robert Browning
C. Lytton Strachey
D. Oscar Wilde
June 2015
Match the following:
A. Christina Rossetti: Goblin Market- Story of pleasure-seeking Laura and the conventionally
moral Lizzie who resists temptations
B. Matthew Arnold: Sohrab and Rustom- The tale of a father who inadvertently destroys his son
C. Robert Browning: The Ring and the Book- A sensational 17th century murder presented through
multiple dramatic monologues
D. Arthur Hugh Clough: The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich-Gently satiric account of an Oxford
student on vacation
Which Victorian poet is the author of the following lines?
“God himself is the best Poet,
And the Real is High song”
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A. Lord Tennyson
B. Robert Browning
C. Matthew Arnold
D. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
HENRY JAMES
PAPER 2
June 2008
‘The Figure a poem Makes’ is an essay by:
A. Henry James
B. Sylvia Plath
C. Robert Frost
D. Wallace Stevens
December 2012
The Bloomsbury Group included British intellectuals, critics, writers and artists. Who among the
following belonged to the Bloomsbury Group?
A. John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey
B. E.M. Forster, Roger Fry, Clive Bell
C. Patrick Brunty, Paul Haworth
D. Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Walter Pater
December 2013
“The story and the novel, the idea and the form, are the needle and thread, and I never heard of a guild
of tailors who recommended the use of the thread without the needle, or the needle without the
thread.” This famous passage describing the relation of idea to form is found in
A. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry
B. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria
C. Henry James, The Art of Fiction
D. I.A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism
June 2014
“The artist may be present in his work like God in creation, invisible and almighty, everywhere felt
but nowhere seen.” Henry James is talking here about the artist’s
A. Impersonality
B. Absence
C. Presence
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D. Creativity
Identify the incorrect factor in Henry James’ theory of the novel:
A. It should be sentimental
B. It should be objective
C. It should be realistic
D. It should be viewed as an artistic form
June 2015
The author of the essay “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” is..
A. George Eliot
B. Henry James
C. Oscar Wilde
D. Richard Steele
November 2017
Who made the comment that “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain
called Huckleberry Finn”?
A. Henry James
B. William Faulkner
C. Jack London
D. Ernest Hemingway
PAPER 3
June 2013
What did Henry James describe as “Loose Baggy Monsters”?
A. Novels
B. The Spaniards
C. Epic Poems
D. His trousers
G.M. HOPKINS
PAPER 2
December 2005
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is dedicated to Il Miglior Fabro (“The better Craftsman”) which refers to
A. Ezra Pound
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B. Baudelaire
C. G.M. Hopkins
D. Dante
Select the matching pairs:
E. Sohrab and Rustom- Arnold
F. The Princess- Browning
G. Hugh Selwyn Mauberly- Hopkins
H. The Excursion- Shelley
June 2005
The poet who described poetry as “inspired mathematics” is:
A. T.S. Eliot
B. Hopkins
C. Archibald Macheish
D. Ezra Pound
June 2007
In the poem ‘Windhover’ Hopkins uses:
A. Alternate Rhyme
B. Disyllabic Rhyme
C. Cross Rhyme
D. Split Rhyme
December 2010
Who among the following Victorian poets disliked his middle name?
A. Arthur Hugh Clough
B. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
C. Gerard MANLEY Hopkins
D. Algernon Charles Swinburne
June 2011
The term ‘curtal sonnet’ was coined by:
E. John Milton
F. William Blake
G. Gerald Manley Hopkins
H. Matthew Arnold
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December 2012
The works of Gerald Manley Hopkins were published posthumously by
A. Edwin Muir
B. Edward Thomas
C. Robert Bridges
D. Coventry Patmore
December 2013
In poems like “The Altar” and “Easter Wings”... exploits...
A. John Donne, alliteration
B. Robert Herrick, trimetre
C. G.M. Hopkins, sprung rhythm
D. George Herbert, typographic space
G.M. Hopkins’ ‘Windhover’ is dedicated:
A. To Christ, our Lord
B. To Christ our lord
C. To no one
D. To Christ, the Lord
December 2014
Match the columns:
5. Apollonian-Dionysian: Friedrich Nietzsche
6. Fancy and Imagination- S.T. Coleridge
7. Hellenism-Hebraism- Matthew Arnold
8. Inscape-Instress- G.M. Hopkins
June 2015
Which group of the following poets was called the Auden Group because they developed a style and
viewpoint similar to that of W.H. Auden?
A. Louis MacNeice, C.D. Lewis, Stephen Spender
B. John Masefield, Edwin Muir, Norman McCaig
C. MacDiarmid, G.M. Hopkins, Edwin Muir
D. W. IT. Davies, Robert Bridges, John Masefield
November 2017
Who published the first collected edition of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poems in 1918?
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A. Robert Bridges
B. Coventry Patmore
C. John Betjeman
D. Stephen Spender
January 2017
Dante Gabriel Rossetti founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included
A. Holman Hunt
B. Arthur High Clough
C. Gerald Manley Hopkins
D. John Millais
PAPER 3
December 2014
Poet - Bird
A. John Keats- Nightingale
B. P.B. Shelley- Skylark
C. G.M. Hopkins- Falcon
D. Ted Hughes- Hawk
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
PAPER 3
June 2015
The hermeneutics of suspicion is a term coined by Paul Ricoeur
A. To designate the postcolonial tendency to see theory and related reading manoeuvres as a
global conspiracy
B. To describe interpretive bids that challenge and seek to overcome compartmentalised cultural
experiences
C. Who, following Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, held that textual appearances are deceptive and
texts do not gracefully relinquish their meanings
D. To describe a mode of interpretation that adopts a distrustful attitude towards texts in order
to elicit otherwise inaccessible meanings or implications
PAPER 2
December 2014
Match the columns:
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1. Apollonian-Dionysian: Friedrich Nietzsche
2. Fancy and Imagination- S.T. Coleridge
3. Hellenism-Hebraism- Matthew Arnold
4. Inscape-Instress- G.M. Hopkins
GEORGE ELIOT
PAPER 2
December 2004
Under the Greenwood Tree is written by:
A. Mrs. Gaskell
B. George Eliot
C. Thomas Hardy
D. Emily Bronte
The novel Mary Barton is written by:
A. Mrs. Gaskell
B. George Eliot
C. Emily Bronte
D. Dickens
December 2006
Which is the correct sequence?
Thackeray, Bronte Sisters, George Eliot, D.G. Rossetti
June 2007
Which of the following books was not published in 1859?
A. Darwin: The Origin of Species
B. George Eliot: Adam Bede
C. Mill: On Liberty
D. Ruskin: Unto This Last
June 2008
Which of the following author-book pair correctly matched?
E. Hard Times- George Eliot
F. Heroes and Hero Worship- Walter Pater
G. Sourab and Rustom- Matthew Arnold
H. Ethics of the Dust- Macaulay
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June 2014
George Eliot’s attempt to write a historical novel of the Italian Renaissance was not successful. Which
was this novel?
A. Adam Bede
B. Felix Holt
C. Silas Marner
D. Romola
June 2015
The author of the essay “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” is..
A. George Eliot
B. Henry James
C. Oscar Wilde
D. Richard Steele
August 2016
A fragmentary unfinished novel entitled Emma was published in Cornhill Magazine. Identify the
author.
A. Elizabeth Gaskell
B. Charlotte Bronte
C. Emily Bronte
D. George Eliot
December 2018
...read Adam Bede with such pleasure that she not only keenly recommended it to her relatives but
also commissioned two paintings of scenes from the novel.
A. Horace Nightingale
B. George Eliot
C. Margaret Cavendish
D. Queen Victoria
PAPER 3
September 2013
“With all the eagerness to know the truths of life, she retained very childlike ideas about
marriage..the really delightful marriage must be that when your husband was a sort of a father, and
could even teach you Hebrew, if you wished it.” She is the protagonist in one of George Eliot’s
novels. Who is she?
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A. Romola
B. Hetty Sorel
C. Maggie
D. Dorothea
June 2012
Match the correct pair:
I. George Eliot
II. Saki
III. Emily Bronte
IV. Mark Twain
1. Ellis Bell
2. Mary Anne Evans
3. Samuel Langhorne Clemens
4. H.H. Munro
I-2; II-4; III-1; IV-3
August 2016
Charles Dickens opined that “no man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so like a
woman since the world began.” He was acknowledging the quality of the work of which writer?
A. Walter Scott
B. W.M. Thackeray
C. George Meredith
D. George Eliot
November 2017
Which 19th century novelist expressed a wish to “exterminate the race” of Indians following the 1857
Mutiny of India?
A. W.M. Thackeray
B. Charles Dickens
C. George Eliot
D. Anthony Trollope
T.S. ELIOT
PAPER 2 (Refer to handwritten notes)
PAPER 3
December 2014
19
“While the world moves In appentency on its metalled way of time past and time future” These lines are
from:
A. Little Gidding
B. Dry Salvages
C. Burnt Norton
D. East Coker
July 2016
Identify the correct chronological sequence of the four parts of The Four Quartets.
Burnt Norton - East Coker - The Dry Salvages - Little Gidding
June 2012
“Can one imagine any private soldier, in the nineties or now, reading Barrack-Room Ballads and feeling
that here was a writer who spoke for him? It is very hard to do so..When he is writing not of British but
of “loyal” Indians he carries the ‘Salaam, Sahib’ motif to sometimes disgusting lengths. Yet it remains
true that he has far more interest in the common soldier, far more anxiety that he shall get a fair deal,
than most of the “liberals” of his day and our own. He sees that the soldier is neglected, meanly
underpaid and hypocritically despised by the people whose incomes he safeguards”.
A. This is E.M. Forster’s “India, Again”
B. This is Malcolm Muggeridge on E.M. Forster’s India
C. This is T.S. Eliot on Rudyard Kipling.
D. This is George Orwell on Rudyard Kipling.
December 2013
I have known three generations of John Smiths. The type breeds true. John Smith II and III went to the
same school, university and learned profession as John Smith I. Yet John Smith I wrote pseudo-
Swinburne; John Smith II wrote pseudo- Brooke; and John Smith III is now writing pseudo-Eliot. But
unless John Smith can write John Smith, however unfashionable the result, why does he bother to write
at all? Surely one Swinburne; one Brooke, and one Eliot are enough in any age?
(Robert Graves, “The Poet and his Public”) Which one’s incorrect?
A. Graves is critical of blind adulation and imitation of successful poets.
B. Graves is critical of blind conformity to standards set by Swinburne, Brooke, and Eliot
C. Swinburne, Brooke and Eliot represent the movements: Decadence, the Georgian, and
Modernist, respectively
D. The poets in question are Algernon Charles Swinburne, Stopford Brooke, and Thomas Stearns
Eliot
June 2014
20
Match the following plays with their authors:
Heartbreak House: G.B. Shaw
Loyalties: John Galsworthy
In the Jungle of Cities: Bertolt Brecht
The Family Reunion: T.S. Eliot
December 2015
Who among the following critics discerned in the Shelleyan Lyric the signs of adolescence?
A. F.R. Leavis
B. T.S. Eliot
C. Cleanth Brooks
D. I.A. Richards
June 2015
In his Introduction to The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (1973), Philip Larkin
underlines the importance of a native tradition with seen as the major poet of the Modern Period.
A. W.B. Yeats
B. T.S. Eliot
C. Thomas Hardy
D. D.H. Lawrence
“In the seventeenth century,” writes T.S. Eliot in “The Metaphysical Poets,” “a disassociation of
sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this disassociation, as is natural, was
aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, ...... and .........
A. Ben Jonson and Abraham Cowley
B. George Herbert and Henry Vaughan
C. John Donne and Andrew Marvell
D. John Milton and John Dryden
August 2016
A critical question Eliot’s Prufrock poses, so important to an understanding of his character, is:
A. “To be or not to be?”
B. “What are you thinking of?”
C. “Do I dare?”
D. “Is there nothing in your head?”
21
July 2016
In his poem “Whispers of Immortality” T.S. Eliot says that a dramatist “was much possessed by
death/ And saw the skull beneath the skin” and a poet “knew the anguish of the marrow/ The ague
of the skeleton.” Who are the dramatist and the poet referred to by Eliot?
A. Christopher Marlowe and Andrew Marvell
B. John Webster and John Donne
C. Seneca and Homer
D. Thomas Kyd and Henry Vaughan
November 2017
“You are your words. Your listeners see written on your face the poems they hear like letters carved
in a tree’s bark the sight and sounds of solitudes endured.” These are lines from a poem by ... on the
death of....
A. T.S. Eliot; Robert Frost
B. Siegfried Sassoon; Wilfred Owen
C. Stephen Spender; W.H. Auden
D. Dylan Thomas; Robert Bridges
January 2017
Which of the following lines of T.S. Eliot is used by Anita Desai as the epigraph for her novel,
Baumgartner’s Bombay?
A. “I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” The Waste Land
B. “In my beginning is my end,” East Coker
C. “Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” Burnt Norton
D. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
ROMANTIC CRITICISM
PAPER 2
December 2006
Which of the following prose-writers do not belong to the Romantic Period?
A. Peacock
B. De Quincey
C. Hazlitt
D. Gibbon
June 2007
22
The Romantic Imagination is the title of a book by:
A. Harold Bloom
B. Graham Hough
C. C.M. Bowra
D. M.H. Abrams
December 2008
Pope’s Essay on Man can best be read as a poem of:
A. Classical understanding of nature
B. Anti-romantic view of life
C. Sociological estimate of man
D. Philosophical apprehension of life
11,396 definitions of romanticism were given by:
A. Friedrich Schegel
B. Victor Hugo
C. Edgar Allan Poe
D. F.L. Lucas
The French Revolution had a significant impact on:
A. Victorian Literature
B. Romantic Literature
C. Neo-classic Literature
D. Modern Literature
In which poem does the following line appear? “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting”.
A. Michael
B. Immortality Ode
C. Dejection: An Ode
D. Tintern Abbey
June 2008
The historical novel began in:
A. Restoration Period
B. Augustan Age
C. Victorian Age
D. Romantic Age
June 2009
23
Which of the following is NOT the opening of the well-known Romantic poem?
A. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/My sense
B. Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
C. Margaret, are you grieving/Over Golden grove unleaving?
D. The world is too much with us
Which famous Romantic poem begins with the line: “Hail to thee, blithe spirit! / Bird thou never
wert”?
A. Ode to a Nightingale
B. To the Cuckoo
C. To a Skylark
D. To the Daisy
September 2013
What did Thomas Carlyle mean by “Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe”?
A. Britain’s pre-eminence as a global power will depend on mastery of foreign languages.
B. Abandon the introspection of the Romantics and turn to the higher moral purpose found in
Goethe.
C. Even a foreign author is better than a home-grown scoundrel.
D. Leave England and immigrate to Germany.
December 2014
English plays across several centuries: Twelfth Night, She Stoops to Conquer, The Importance of
Being Earnest, Pygmalion and Blithe Spirit. What is common to them?
All romantic comedies; love and laughter.
December 2015
Which of the following is NOT a school associated with Romantic period in English Literature?
A. The Cockney School
B. The Fireside School
C. The Lake School
D. The Satanic School
July 2018
The 1950s saw the rise of backlash against modernism and New Romanticism that became to be
known as the Movement. Which of the following magazines came to associated with The
Movement?
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A. Departure
B. New Verse
C. London Mercury
D. New Poems
December 2018
The Romantic period produced a fair amount of dramatic criticism. A notable example is “On the
Knocking at the Gate of Macbeth”. Who is the author?
A. Thomas de Quincey
B. Edmund Kean
C. William Hazlitt
D. William Charles Macready
PAPER 3
June 2013
In the Literature of Romanticism there was a widespread frustration with visions experienced in
dreams, in nightmares and other altered states. The following list contains poems which illustrate
this theme, with one exception. Identify the exception.
A. Kubla Khan
B. Confessiosn of an English Opium Eater
C. The Ruined Cottage
D. The Fall of Hyperion
January 2017
Anna Barbauld, Laetitia Elizabeth London, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson and Felicia Hemans are
A. First wave feminists
B. Women poets of the Romantic period
C. Victorian writers of popular fiction
D. Nineteenth century stage artists
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
PAPER 2
June 2011
Which of the following poems features the phrase, “the still, sad music of humanity”?
A. Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
B. Michael: A Pastoral Poem
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C. The Solitary Reaper
D. Tintern Abbey
December 2004
The final version of Wordsworth’s The Prelude appeared in:
A. 1798
B. 1806
C. 1850
D. 1860
“To Suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite” is written by:
A. Shelley
B. Wordsworth
C. Keats
D. Byron
December 2007
‘The Praise of Chimney Sweepers’ is:
A. A poem by William Blake, an essay by Charles Lamb
B. An elegy by William Wordsworth
C. An essay by Charles Lamb
D. An essay by William Hazlitt
“Poetry is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by laws of poetic truth and
poetic beauty”. Who, among the following, made the above statement?
A. Dr. Johnson
B. Sidney
C. Matthew Arnold
D. Wordsworth
June 2007
Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ remains ‘a fragment’ because:
A. He was called by Wordsworth who was living in Porlock at that time
B. Dorothy Wordsworth was upset over their love affair
C. He was interrupted by a caller, a person on business from Porlock
D. He ran out of his stock of opium
June 2008
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‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.’ This occurs in:
A. William Wordsworth
B. S.T. Coleridge
C. Byron
D. Shelley
December 2009
Assertion (A): Dr. Johnson’s The Lives of the Poets carries critical and biographical studies of poets
he admired. It does not, however, carry a life of William Wordsworth.
Reason (R): Dr. Johnson singled out poets whom he not only admired but also adored. This explains
his omission of Wordsworth.
Neither (A) nor (R) is true.
June 2009
In a 1817 review of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Francis Jeffrey coined the term ‘Lake School of
Poets’ grouping..
A. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Crabbe
B. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron
C. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Hazlitt
D. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey
The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge was notably influenced by
A. The Napoleonic Wars
B. The Glorious Revolution
C. The French Revolution
D. Poor Laws
What is common to the following poems?
Wordsworth’s ‘The Recluse’
Shelley’s ‘The Triumph of Life’
Byron’s ‘Don Juan’
Keats’s ‘Hyperion’
A. They are all elegies
B. They are all unfinished poems
C. They are all divided into cantos
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D. They are women-centered poems
“He is not fully recognised at home; he is not recognised at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that the
poetical performance of ...is, after that of Shakespeare and Milton, undoubtedly most considerable in
our language.” To whom does Matthew Arnold refer in the above statement?
A. Edmund Spenser
B. John Keats
C. William Wordsworth
D. S.T. Coleridge
December 2010
In a letter to his brother George in September 1819, John Keats had this to say about a fellow
romantic poet: “He describes what he sees- I describe what I imagine- Mine is the hardest task.” The
under reference is:
A. Wordsworth
B. Coleridge
C. Byron
D. Southey
June 2010
In a 1817 review of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Francis Jeffrey coined the term ‘Lake School of
Poets’ grouping..
A. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Crabbe
B. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron
C. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Hazlitt
D. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey
June 2010
Which romantic poet coined the famous phrase ‘spots of time’?
A. John Keats
B. William Wordsworth
C. S.T. Coleridge
D. Lord Byron
December 2011
Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery is written by:
A. William Wordsworth
B. Robert Southey
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C. John Clare
D. Thomas Gray
The term ‘egotistical sublime’ was coined by:
A. S.T. Coleridge
B. John Keats
C. William Wordsworth
D. William Hazlitt
June 2011
‘To Daffodils’ is a poem, written by:
A. Robert Herrick
B. William Wordsworth
C. John Keats
D. P.B. Shelley
December 2012
Which of the following statements about The Lyrical Ballads is NOT true?
A. It carried only one ballad paper, which was Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
B. It also carried pastoral and other poems
C. It carried a Preface which Wordsworth added in 1800
D. It also printed from Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Who of the following was not a contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge?
A. Robert Southey
B. Sir Walter Scott
C. William Hazlitt
D. A.C. Swinburne
Which of the following poems uses terza rima?
A. John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale
B. P.B. Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind
C. William Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper
D. Alfred Tennyson’s Ulysses
Whom did Keats regard as the prime example of ‘negative capability’?
A. John Milton
B. William Wordsworth
C. William Shakespeare
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D. P.B.Shelley
June 2012
Match the following:
A. Good Sense is the body of poetic genius: Coleridge, Biographia Literaria
B. Poetry is the breath and a finer spirit of all knowledge: Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads
C. Literary Criticism is a description and evaluation of its object: Brooks, The Formalist Critic
D. Nature never set forth the earth in as rich a tapestry as diverse poets have done: Sidney,
Defence/ An Apology for Poetry
December 2013
William Wordsworth’s statement of purpose in publishing the Lyrical Ballads carries the following
phrase: “to choose incidents from common life and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as
possible,.....
A. In a selection of language really used by men
B. In relation to language really used by men
C. In selection of language really used by common man
D. In a deference to language actually used by men
One English poet addressing the other:
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; Thou hast a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as
the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life’s common way, In cheerful godliness...
Whose lines are these? To who are they addressed?
A. W.H. Auden- W.B Yeats
B. P.B. Shelley- William Blake
C. William Wordsworth- John Milton
D. Ben Jonson- Shakespeare
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know
Such harmonius madness
From my lips would flow
Thw world ahould listen the, as I am listening now.
Whose lines are these? To whom are they addressed?
A. John Keats, The Nightingale
B. P.B. Shelley, The Skylark
C. William Wordsworth, The Wye Valley
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D. Robert Browning, The Grammarian
September 2013
Who defined poetry as ‘the best words in the best order’?
A. Wordsworth
B. Coleridge
C. Keats
D. Shelley
Who among the following Romantic poets ended his life, lauded and respected as ‘The Sage of High
Gate’?
A. William Blake
B. S.T. Coleridge
C. P.B. Shelley
D. William Wordsworth
June 2013
Who among the following English poets defined poetic imagination as “a repetition in the finite
mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite ‘I AM’”?
A. Blake
B. Wordsworth
C. Coleridge
D. Shelley
The phrase “dark satanic mills” has become the most famous description of the force at the centre
of the industrial revolution. The phrase was used by:
A. William Wordsworth
B. William Blake
C. Thomas Carlyle
D. John Ruskin
December 2014
In Wordsworth’s Prelude the Boy of Winander is affected by
A. Blindness
B. Deafness
C. Muteness
D. Lameness
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From among the following, identify Coleridge’s companion in a fanciful scheme to establish a
Utopian community of free love on the banks of the Susquehaina river?
A. Lord Byron
B. Robert Southey
C. William Hazlitt
D. William Wordsworth
June 2014
“Competence to age is supplementary to youth, a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that
is to be had. We must ride where we formerly walked: live better and be wise to do so – than we
had means to do in the good old days you speak of.”
Who speaks these words and to whom?
A. Lamb to Bridget
B. Wordsworth to Dorothy
C. Dorothy to Bridget
D. Lamb to Dorothy
The Prelude although begun as early as 1799 and finished in its first version in 1805, was not
published until..
A. 1815
B. 1820
C. 1830
D. 1850
August 2014
“Kubla Khan” is thought to have been written in 1797, but it was not published until 1816. Who
persuaded Coleridge to publish it?
A. Wordsworth
B. Byron
C. Keats
D. Wordsworth’s sister
In Book 5 of Prelude, Wordsworth dreams of an Arab in the desert after reading which great work?
A. Cervantes’ Don Quixote
B. Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner
C. Euclid’s Elements
D. Shakespeare’s The Tempest
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July 2016
Which British University figures in William Wordsworth’s Prelude?
A. Durham
B. Glasgow
C. Cambridge
D. Oxford
Match the work with the author:
The Excursion: William Wordsworth
Christabel: Coleridge
Milton: Blake
Queen Mab: Shelley
November 2017
In the opening book of The Prelude Wordsworth mentions famously that he was “fostered alike by
... and ...” Pick out the right pair.
Beauty and Fear
July 2018
A.R. Ammons parodies a famous poem in his “Swoggled”
I’d rather be suckled by an outworn pagan than get my horn wreathed in an old Triton.
Which poet, which poem?
A. John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
B. John Milton, “On His Blindness”
C. William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much with Us”
D. Elizabeth B. Browning, “How do I Love Thee..?”
An English poet couldn’t help the excitement that an historical event in his lifetime:
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven
Which poet? What ‘dawn’?
A. W.H. Auden; the Spanish Civil War
B. Lord Tennyson; the Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign
C. William Wordsworth; the French Revolution
D. William Blake; the Industrial Revolution
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In “Memorial Verses” Matthew Arnold pays tribute to three great poets. Who are they?
A. Goethe, Shakespeare, Wordsworth
B. Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton
C. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth
D. Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron
December 2018
Who viewed Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge as representatives of a “sect of poets..Dissenters
from the established systems in poetry and criticism” who constituted “the most formidable
conspiracy against sound judgement in matters political”?
A. Henry Vaughan
B. Francisco Franco
C. Ralph Vaughan
D. Francis Jeffrey
PAPER 3
December 2012
Which of the following arrangements is in the correct chronological sequence?
Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution of France- Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the
Rights of Women- Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge-Lyrical Ballads with Preface, second
edition By Wordsworth and Coleridge.
June 2012
Which of the following statements on The Prelude by Wordsworth is not true?
A. It was published posthumously
B. In this poem, he recounts his development as a poet
C. The poem runs to 14 books; at crucial stages the poet celebrates the sublime natural scenery in
developing his spiritual, moral and imaginative nature
D. Poems like Michael, The Old Cumberland Beggar, She dwelt among the untrodden ways, and
Nutting are the highlights of this volume.
December 2013
William Wordsworth had a deep influence on Thomas Hardy. According to Hardy, a particular poem
by Wordsworth was his ‘best cure for despair’. Which is that poem?
A. Michael
B. Tintern Abbey Revisited
C. The Idiot Boy
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D. The Leechgatherer
Identify the sonnet upon sonnet by Wordsworth:
A. London, 1802
B. The world is too much with us
C. Friend! I know not which way
D. Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room
June 2013
“For nature then
The courser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by
to me was all in all”.
In these lines from Tintern Abbey Revisited, Wordsworth is talking about:
A. The second stage in his relationship with Nature
B. The first stage in his relationship with Nature
C. Both the first and second stages in his relationship with Nature
D. The third stage in his relationship with Nature
December 2015
Sweet is the lore which nature brings; Our meddling intellect, Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of
things: We murder to dissect- Wordsworth. Which of the following best summarises the speaker’s
position?
A. Nature is incomplete without a human witness to attest to its beauty
B. Human endeavours will succeed only if the laws of nature are taken into account
C. Nature yields a pleasure superior to that derived from intrusive human inquiry
D. He flaws inherent in human nature are also evident in the natural world
June 2015
In which of the following volumes do you find a charming appreciation of the Wordsworth
household by Thomas de Quincey?
A. The Confessions of an English Opium Eater
B. Lives and Letters, Far Away and Long Ago
C. Notes on My Lake Country Evenings
D. Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets
The term poetic justice was coined by:
A. Coleridge
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B. Thomas Rymer
C. Samuel Johnson
D. Wordsworth
August 2016
“In honoured poverty thy voice did weave/ songs consecrate to truth and liberty,/Deserting these,
thou leavest me to grieve” are lines from “To Wordsworth”. Who is the poet?
A. Coleridge
B. Shelley
C. Byron
D. Keats
Most of the titles of Aldous Huxley’s novels are taken from various literary works. Match them:
I. Brave New World D. Shakespeare’s The Tempest
II. The Doors of Perception A. Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
III. Antic Hay B. Marlowe’s Edward II
IV. Those Barren Leaves C. Wordsworth’s The Tables Turned
July 2016
Antagonised by what he considered to be the provinciality of the Lake Poets, Byron wrote the
preface to which of his works as a rebuke to Wordsworth’s own introduction to “The Thorn”?
A. The Prisoner of Chillon
B. Don Juan
C. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
D. The Vision of Judgement
Which writer of the Romantic period makes the following comment: “The poet is far from dealing
only with these subtle and analogical truths. Truth of every kind belongs to him, provided it can bud
into any kind of beauty, or is capable of being illustrated and impressed by poetic faculty”?
A. Wordsworth in Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
B. William Hazlitt in “On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth”
C. Leigh Hunt in What is Poetry?
D. Keats in one of his letters to his brother
November 2017
The opening lines of Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode:
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“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light The glory and freshness of a dream,” closely resemble Coleridge’s lines:
“There was a time when earth, and sea, and skies, The bright green vale, and the forest’s dark
recess, With all things, lay before mine eyes In steady loveliness.”
Identify the Coleridge poem:
A. Fears in Solitude
B. The Mad Monk
C. To William Wordsworth
D. Dejection: An Ode
S.T. COLERIDGE
PAPER 2
December 2004
Who distinguished between the literature of knowledge and the literature of power?
A. Coleridge
B. De Quincey
C. Hazlitt
D. Lamb
June 2006
Coleridge’s statement that imagination “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate” relates
to:
A. Fancy
B. Primary imagination
C. Secondary imagination
D. Esemplastic imagination
June 2007 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2008
The confessions of an English Opium Eater was written by
A. William Hazlitt
B. S.T. Coleridge
C. Landor
D. De Quincey
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June 2008
Who is given credit for first using the term “romantic”?
A. Friedrich Schlegel
B. Kant
C. Coleridge
D. Schiller
June 2009 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2010
About which nineteenth century English writer was it said that “He had succeeded as a writer not by
conforming to the Spirit of the Age, but in opposition to it”?
A. Lord Byron on Coleridge
B. Coleridge on Keats
C. Hazlitt on Lamb
D. De Quincey on Crabbe
June 2010 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2011 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2012 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
June 2012 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
The confessions of an English Opium Eater was written by
A. William Hazlitt
B. S.T. Coleridge
C. Landor
D. De Quincey
December 2013
Which of the following is NOT a quest narrative?
A. Shelley’s Alastor
B. Byron’s Manfred
C. Coleridge’s Christabel
D. Keats’ Endymion
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“The story and the novel, the idea and the form, are the needle and thread, and I never heard of a guild
of tailors who recommended the use of the thread without the needle, or the needle without the
thread.” This famous passage describing the relation of idea to form is found in
A. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry
B. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria
C. Henry James, The Art of Fiction
D. I.A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism
September 2013 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
June 2013
Who among the following English poets defined poetic imagination as “a repetition in the finite
mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite ‘I AM’”?
A. Blake
B. Wordsworth
C. Coleridge
D. Shelley
Which Romantic poet defined a slave as ‘a person perverted into a thing’?
A. Blake
B. Coleridge
C. Keats
D. Shelley
December 2014 (Refer to MATTHEW ARNOLD and WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2015
“Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of
the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and
speak a plainer and more emphatic language.. The language, too, of these men has been
adopted..because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best pasty of
language is originally derived.”
Which of the following groups of the author’s poems in the Lyrical Ballads (1800) contradict this
statement in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, as pointed out by S.T. Coleridge?
A. Ode on the Intimations of Immortality; Prelude
B. The Tasks, Seasons
C. Michael, Ruth, The Brothers
D. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Hughlands
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August 2016 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
July 2016 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
November 2017
Which character created by Coleridge makes the following account of her harrowing experience?
“Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.”
A. Geraldine
B. Christabel
C. Christabel’s mother
D. The maid who appeared in Christabel’s dream
July 2018
Philip Larkin’s “Sad Steps” notices “The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow loosely as
cannon-smoke to stand apart.” The poem alludes to:
A. Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode
B. The moonlit scenes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
C. Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella
D. T.S. Eliot’s Morning at the Window
Who wrote The Wandering Jew, a poem in four cantos and the short lyric, “The Wandering Jew’s
Soliloquy”?
A. Coleridge
B. Byron
C. Thomas Gray
D. P.B. Shelley
December 2018 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
S.T. Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode opens with an epigraph which is a reference to a ballad called:
A. Ballad of the Goodly Fere
B. La Belle Dame Sans Merci
C. Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence
D. Ballad of the Gilbert
PAPER 3
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December 2012 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
June 2012
In his distinction between fancy and imagination, Coleridge identifies the following:
a. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate
b. It has aggregative and associative power
c. It plays with fixities and definites
d. It has shaping and modifying power.
The correct combination reads:
b. and c. For fancy; a. And d. For imagination
December 2013
Which of the following poems DOES NOT begin in the first person pronoun?
A. Shelley’s Adonais
B. Byron’s Don Juan
C. Keats’ Lamia
D. Coleridge’s The Aerolian Harp
September 2013
Match the critic/poet and statement correctly:
One power alone makes a poet- The Imagination, The Divine Vision: Blake
...what the imagination seizes on beauty must be the truth: Keats
The great instrument of moral good is the imagination: Shelley
Works of imagination should be written in a very plain language: Coleridge
June 2014
Though Coleridge refers to “Motive hunting of a motiveless malignity”, the “human villain” Iago is
far from “motiveless”. His motives are:
A. He has been disappointed of military promotion
B. He suspects Othello of cuckolding him
C. He has been in love with Desdemona
D. He wants to become Othello
Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem in..
A. 8 parts
B. 9 parts
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C. 7 parts
D. 6 parts
December 2015
According to Coleridge, the secondary imagination dissolves, diffuses,...., in order to recreate:
A. Disintegrates
B. Dissipates
C. Displaces
D. Disassociates
June 2015 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
August 2016 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
July 2016
In Biographia Literaria S.T. Coleridge defines the imagination as the faculty by which
A. The soul perceives the phenomenal diversity of the universe
B. The soul perceives the spiritual unity of the universe
C. The mind acquires images by its associative power
D. The mind separates images by its discriminatory power
November 2017 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
In J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace David Lurie is working on an opera on the life of one of the Romantic
poets. Who is the poet?
A. Blake
B. Shelley
C. Byron
D. Coleridge
For Coleridge, our power to perceive symbols gleaned from the world about us is related to the
category of:
A. Primary imagination
B. Secondary imagination
C. Fancy
D. Intuition
Which novel by Joseph Conrad presents a young captain who like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner is
haunted by the “vision of a ship drifting in calm and swinging in light airs, with all the crew dying
slowly about her decks” and who feels “the sickness of my soul...the weight of my sins..my sense of
unworthiness”?
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A. Under Western Eyes
B. The Shadow Line
C. Victory
D. The Rescue
January 2017
Which statement best expresses the theme of Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
A. To kill a living creature is immoral
B. People should honour and respect all living things
C. Prayer can accomplish miracles
D. True harmony is achieved only through cooperative effort
JOHN KEATS
PAPER 2
December 2004 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2006
The quotation “a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM”
appears in:
A. Lyrical Ballads
B. Biographia Literaria
C. In Defense of Poetry
D. Letters of Keats
The quotation “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any
irritable reaching after fact and reasons” is a definition of:
A. Negative capability
B. Secondary Imagination
C. Criticism of Life
D. Dissociation of sensibility
December 2007
John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale was composed in:
A. 1818
B. 1819
C. 1820
D. 1821
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June 2007
Ode on the Spring was written by:
A. Thomas Gray
B. John Keats
C. Abraham Cowley
D. William Collins
December 2008
The correct chronological order of the following poets is:
Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats
June 2009 (Also refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
Assertion (A): Literary and historical periodization often has nothing to do with the lifetime of
writers. This we see two writers born in the same year belonging to two separate periods.
Reasoning (R): Thomas Carlyle and John Keats were born in 1795. In standard literary histories, Keats
is a Romantic and Carlyle is a Victorian
Both (A) and (R) are true.
Match the following elegies with the persons for whom they were written for:
Lycidas: Edward King
Arthur Hugh Clough: Thyrsis
Adonias: Keats
A.H. Hallam: In Memoriam
December 2010 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and S.T. COLERIDGE)
June 2010 (Also refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
In Keats’ poetic career, the most productive year was:
A. 1816
B. 1817
C. 1820
D. 1819
December 2011
Which of the following poem by Keats uses the Spenserian stanza?
A. Endymion
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B. The Fall of Hyperion
C. The Eve of St. Agnes
D. Lamia
The term “egotistical sublime” was coined by:
A. Coleridge
B. John Keats
C. Wordsworth
D. William Hazlitt
June 2011 (Also refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
Byron’s The Vision of Judgement is a satire directed against
A. Charles Lamb
B. John Keats
C. Henry Hallam
D. Robert Southey
December 2012 (Also refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
Whom did Keats regard as the prime example of negative capability?
A. John Milton
B. Wordsworth
C. Shakespeare
D. Shelley
December 2013 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and S.T. COLERIDGE)
September 2013 (Refer to S.T. COLERIDGE)
In the Fall of Hyperion Keats’ muse figure is:
A. Thea
B. Moneta
C. Lamia
D. Calliope
June 2013 (Refer to S.T. COLERIDGE)
December 2014
The island setting of Latmos figures in Keats’
A. Endymion
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B. The Eve of St. Agnes
C. Lamia
D. Hyperion
August 2016 (Refer to S.T. COLERIDGE)
Match the following:
Madeline: Keats
Prometheus: Shelley
Urizen: Blake
Childe Harold: Byron
January 2017
In The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream Keats sees a ladder leading upwards and is addressed by a
prophetess in the following words: “None can usurp this height../But those to whom the miseries of
the world/ Are misery, and will not let them rest.” Who is the prophetess?
A. Urania
B. Moneta
C. Melete
D. Mneme
Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” combines two poetic forms:
A. Lyric
B. Dramatic Monologue
C. Ballad
D. Sonnet
July 2018 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
December 2018
Who among the following exemplified the role of the “peasant poet”?
A. John Clare
B. John Keats
C. William Cobbett
D. Robert Burns
Which interpretation of Keats’ “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” best represents the mimetic
perspective?
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A. The line is an ironic quotation, the equation of “beauty” and “truth” as we “all know on earth”
suggests that reality is an illusory concept and that the primary function of art is to construct a
world within an aesthetic reality of its own.
B. Those aspects of reality which we perceive to be “beautiful” are the only worthy subject matter
of the artist, and it is the artist’s job to observe closely and isolate those sublime elements from
the flux of the mundane
C. The author’s arbitrary imposition of order upon the chaotic impressions of reality constitutes
the only “truth” in a work of art
D. A work of literature is “beautiful” in so far as it offers an accurate representation of its subject
matter, with fully realized characters and vivid description of events.
PAPER 3
December 2012
Who is John Keats’s ‘Sylvan Historian’?
A. Fanny Brawne
B. Nightingale
C. The Grecian Urn
D. The Bridge of Quietness
June 2012
When Keats writes about the ‘beaker full’ of ‘The blushful Hippocrene’, Hippocrene is:
A. The fountain of the horse
B. A spring sacred to the Muses
C. Mount Helicon produced from a blow of Pegasus
D. Both A and B
December 2013
Which of the following poems DOES NOT begin in the first person pronoun?
E. Shelley’s Adonais
F. Byron’s Don Juan
G. Keats’ Lamia
H. Coleridge’s The Aerolian Harp
June 2013 (Refer to S.T. Coleridge)
In Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn the key ideas are best described as the following except one. Which
one?
A. Movement versus stasis
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B. Disappointing live versus eternal bliss
C. Scars of history versus consolations of art
D. Beauty versus truth
June 2013
“She dwells with Beauty- Beauty that must die”, wrote Keats in one of his odes, referring to
A. Indolence
B. Autumn
C. Melancholy
D. Psyche
December 2014
Poet - Bird
A. John Keats- Nightingale
B. P.B. Shelley- Skylark
C. G.M. Hopkins- Falcon
D. Ted Hughes- Hawk
December 2015
One of the most quoted statements on poetry by John Keats is reproduced with blanks below.
If Poetry ..... as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it ..... at all.
Come not; had better not come
June 2015
In his famous letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817) John Keats wrote: “I am certain of nothing
but the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination- What the imagination seizes as
Beauty must be truth.” Which of the following sentences follows this passage?
A. Now I am sensible all this is a mere sophistication, however it may neighbour to any truths, to
excuse my own indolence...
B. The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream- he woke and found it true
C. This however I am persuaded of, that nothing beside imagination can give us sweet sensations
and pleasurable thoughts
D. My pains at last some respite shall afford, while I behold the battles imagination maintains.
August 2016 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
July 2016 (Refer to WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)
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P.B. Shelley’s Julian and Maddalo is a conversation between Julian and Count Maddalo.
Who do these two characters represent?
A. Julian represents Keats and Count Maddalo, Byron
B. Julian represents Shelley and Count Maddalo, Byron
C. Julian represents Shelley and Count Maddalo, William Godwin
D. Julian represents Mary Shelley and Count Maddalo, William Godwin
January 2011
What would help a reader recognize Keats’ To Autumn as a poem from the Romantic period?
A. Its logical succession of images
B. Its concise use of couplets
C. Its lavish natural imagery
D. Its use of iambic pentameter
ENLIGHTENMENT AGE THINKERS
PAPER 2
December 2012
The Enlightenment was characterised by
A. Accelerated industrial production and general well-being of the public
B. A belief in the universal authority of reason and emphasis on scientific experimentation
C. The Protestant work ethic and compliance with Christian values of life
D. An undue faith in predestination and neglect of free will
December 2011
The Enlightenment believed in the universal authority of
A. Religion
B. Tradition
C. Reason
D. Sentiments
June 2009
What century is variously called the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Sensibility, the Augustan Age,
and the Age of Prose and Reason?
A. Sixteenth century
B. Seventeenth century
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C. Eighteenth century
D. Nineteenth century
JOHN DRYDEN
PAPER 3
November 2017
The Indian Queen is:
A. A heroic tragedy in rhymed couplets by John Dryden
B. A long poem in free verse by Keki Daruwalla
C. An autobiography of an Indian princess in exile
D. A fictional account of the Life of Maharani Gayatri
July 2016
Which of the following ancient critics does Alexander Pope commend as exemplary in Essay on
Criticism?
A. Aristotle, Quintilian, Dryden, Dionysius, Horace
B. Aristotle, Longinus, Quintilian, Durfey, Dryden
C. Aristotle, Horace, Dionysius, Quintilian, Longinus
D. Aristotle, Horace, Durfey, Quintilian, Longinus
John Dryden’s two philosophic-religious poems are
A. Absalom and Achitophel
B. A Layman’s Faith
C. Annus Mirabilis
D. The Hind and the Panther
August 2016
The form of Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is
A. An essay
B. An epic poem
C. A dialogue
D. A play
June 2015
In 1688, Dryden wrote Of Dramatic Poesie: An Essay which uses…separate characters to dramatise
the conflicting viewpoints which new theatrical activity had produced.
A. Three
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B. Two
C. Four
D. Six
In John Dryden’s Essay on Dramatic Poesy Neander defends the English invention of
A. Romantic comedy
B. Action tragedy
C. Tragic-comedy
D. Morality plays
December 2015
Identify the one erroneous statement on Neoclassicism listed below.
A. Lodovico Castelvetro and Torquato Tasso greatly influenced English writers like Milton and
Dryden.
B. Neoclassicism took its final form during the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715)
C. Boilean’s L’Art poetique influenced Pope’s Essay on Criticism
D. The English realtion to Neoclassicism was one of dialogue. Most literally, this dialogue is
effected in Addison’s An Essay on Dramatic Poesy
June 2014
The centre of his plays is a proud character on Marlowe’s model, with a bold license in speech and
action, full of elaborate metaphors, phrase tumbling after phrase, as he asserts himself in the French
Court. Dryden unjustly described his style as “a dwarfish thought, dressed up in gigantic words”.
Who is this Jacobean playwright?
A. John Fletcher
B. John Webster
C. George Chapman
D. John Marston
“No man is truly great, who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
Nothing can be said to be great that has a distinct limit, or that borders on something evidently
greater than itself. Besides, what is shortlived and pampered into mere notoriety, is of a gross and
vulgar in itself.” This passage describing the quality of greatness is taken from
A. “Of Studies” by Francis Bacon
B. “The Indian Jugglers” by William Hazlitt
C. Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson
D. An Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden
Identify the critics and their respective works.
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A. Horace-Ars Poetica
Aristotle-Poetics
Quintilian-Institutio Oratoria
Ben Jonson-Discoveries
Sidney-An Apology for Poetry
Dryden- An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
Longinus-On the Sublime
B. Horace- Poetics
Aristotle-Ars Poetica
Quintilian-On the Sublime
Longinus-Discoveries
Ben Jonson-Institutio Oratoria
Sidney-An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
Dryden-An Apology for Poetry
C. Horace-On the sublime
Aristotle-Poetics
Quintilian-Discoveries
Longinus-Institutio Oratoria
Ben Jonson- An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
Sidney- Arc Poetics
Dryden- An Apology for Poetry
D. Horace- Ars Poetica
Aristotle-Poetics
Quintilian- Institutio Oratoria
Longinus- On the sublime
Ben Jonson- An Apology for Poetry
Sidney- An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
Dryden-Discoveries
June 2013
“A Tun of Man in thy large Bulk is writ, but sure thou’rt but a Kilderkin of wit” In the above lines
what does Dryden mean by Kilderkin?
A. A trivial instance
B. A small barrel of wine
C. Kith and kin
D. A small amount, as contrasted with ‘tun’
June 2012
One of the most important themes the speakers debate in Dryden’s An Essay on Dramatic Poesy is
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A. European and non-European perceptions of reality
B. English and non-English perceptions of reality
C. The relative merits of French and English theatre
D. The relative merits of French and English poetry
Which of the following statements on John Dryden is incorrect?
A. John Milton and John Dryden were contemporaries
B. Dryden was a Royalist, while Milton fiercely opposed monarchy.
C. Dryden wrote a play on the Mughal Emperor Humayun.
D. Dryden was appointed the Poet Laureate of England in 1668
December 2012
‘Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a
reasonable creature,..but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself...a good bookis the precious
life-blood of a master spirit.” Where is the passage from?
A. Milton’s Aeropagitica
B. Sidney’s Apologie for Poetry
C. Dryden’s Preface to the Fables
D. Marvell’s The Rehearsal Transposed
PAPER 2
June 2012
“He found it [English] brick and left it marble”, remarked one great writer on another. Who were
they?
A. Milton on Shakespeare
B. Dryden on Milton
C. Johnson on Dryden
D. Jonson on Shakespeare
John Dryden’s Absalom and Achotophel is a
A. Religious tract
B. Political allegory
C. Comic verse epic
D. Comedy
Name the poet who chooses his successor and the successor poet whom Dryden satirises in his
famous poem.
A. James Shirley and Chris Shirley
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B. Henry Treece and Charles Triesten
C. Richard Flecknoe and Thomas Shadwell
D. Thomas Percy and Samuel Pepys
December 2012
In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), who opens the discussion on behalf of the ancients?
A. Lisideius
B. Crites
C. Eugenius
D. Neander
Match the following texts with their respective themes:
Areopagitica (Milton): The liberty for unlicensed printing
Leviathan (Hobbes): Absolute sovereignty
Alexander’s Feast (Dryden): The power of music
The Way of the World (Congreve): Fashion, courtship, seduction
June 2011
MacFlecknoe is an attack on Dryden’s literary rival
A. Richard Flecknoe
B. Thomas Shadwell
C. John Wilmot
D. Matthew Prior
June 2007
The lines ‘Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way’ are
quoted from:
A. Pope’s Dunciad
B. Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
C. Dryden’s MacFlecknoe
D. Swift’s A Tale of a Tub
December 2007
Choose the correct chronological sequence:
Milton’s Paradise Lost-Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress-Dryden’s Hind and the Panther- Hutchinson’s
Memoirs
June 2006
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The subtitle of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel is
A. There was no subtitle
B. A satire
C. A satire on the True Blue Protestant Poets
D. A poem
June 2005
Read the passage from A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams et al (Page 300) and answer the
following questions.
‘Poetic license’ means:
A. Liberty with diction, alone
B. Liberty with diction and norms of common discourse
C. Liberty with historical truth
D. Liberty with representations of fictional characters
‘Linguistic freedom’ is
A. Freedom with diction, newly-coined words, syntax
B. Freedom with the use of colloquial language
C. Freedom with the use of figurative construction
D. Freedom with literal truth
How do you justify the linguistic freedom taken?
A. On the basis of scholarship embedded
B. On the basis of form
C. On the basis of the success of the effect
D. On the basis of the thematic grandeur
“Diction” means
A. Severity of prose
B. Devices of metre and rhyme
C. Poetic license
D. Syntax and word order
“Poetic license” applies to
A. Poets alone
B. All literary
C. Dramatists only
D. Epic writers only
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December 2004
Dryden’s All For Love is an adaptation of
A. Philaster
B. Romeo and Juliet
C. Antony and Cleopatra
D. Edward II
July 2018
One of the following statements about the eponymous saint of Dryden’s “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”
is incorrect. Identify the statement.
A. St. Cecilia was a Roman Lady, and early Christian martyr
B. St. Cecilia was an Armenian devotee of the Christian faith
C. St. Cecilia’s festival is celebrated on 22 November in England
D. St. Cecilia was a patroness of music who was fabled to have invented the organ
January 2017
The Medall, a poem written by John Dryden in 1681, is sub-titled
A. A Satire against Sedition
B. A Satire against Tyranny
C. A Satire against Greed
D. A Satire against Apostasy
November 2017
In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy whom does John Dryden refer to as “the most learned and judicious
Writer which any Theater ever had”?
A. John Webster
B. Christopher Marlowe
C. Ben Jonson
D. William Shakespeare
December 2015
John Dryden described a major English poet as “a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere he
shines”. Identify him
A. Geoffrey Chaucer
B. John Gower
C. George Herbert
D. Robert Herrick
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December 2014
The Hind and the Panther Transvers’d to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse is a
satire on
A. Alexander Pope
B. Jonathan Swift
C. John Dryden
D. Samuel Butler
The first official royal Poet Laureate in English literary history was....
A. Ben Jonson
B. William Davenant
C. John Dryden
D. Thomas Shadwell
June 2013
John Dryden in his heroic tragedy All for Love takes the story of Shakespeare’s
A. Troilus and Cressida
B. The Merchant of Venice
C. Antony and Cleopatra
D. Measure for Measure
September 2013
Dryden’s dramatisation of Paradise Lost is entitled
A. All for Love
B. The State of Innocence
C. Annus Mirabilis
D. Religio Medici
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. Pope’s Dunciad
D. Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
ALEXANDER POPE
PAPER 3
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July 2016
Which of the following ancient critics does Alexander Pope commend as exemplary in Essay on
Criticism?
A. Aristotle, Quintilian, Dryden, Dionysius, Horace
B. Aristotle, Longinus, Quintilian, Durfey, Dryden
C. Aristotle, Horace, Dionysius, Quintilian, Longinus
D. Aristotle, Horace, Durfey, Quintilian, Longinus
August 2016
Which work by a famous poet does Thomas de Quincey refer to as “the feeblest and least
interesting” of his writings “being substantially a mere versification, like a metrical multiplication
table, of common places, the most mouldy with which criticism has baited its rat-traps”?
A. John Dryden’s An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
B. Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism
C. Shelley’s Defence of Poetry
D. Sidney’s An Apologie for Poetry
Which of these lines in NOT in Pope’s Essay on Criticism?
A. Wretches hang that jury men may dine
B. A little learning is a dangerous thing
C. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
D. The sound must seem an echo to the sense
June 2015
“Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night, God said Let Newton be! And all was Light.”
Alexander Pope’s famous couplet impressively captures.
A. Newton’s confirmation of the Genesis passage where God ordains Light
B. Newton’s empirical observations of Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
C. Newton’s application of principles of motion to account for many natural phenomena
D. Newton’s discovery that all colours are contained in white light
June 2014
Joseph Addison called him “The Miracle of the present age” and Alexander Pope wrote the epitaph
for the monument erected in his memory. Who is he?
A. John Locke
B. Isaac Newton
C. Ashley Cooper
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D. Christopher Wren
September 2013
Which of the following statements is not a correct description of Pope’s The Dunciad?
A. The Dunciad is an attack on bad writers and bad writers
B. It is a pessimistic commentary on the civilization of the time
C. It is about the coronation of Theobald
D. It wishes to satirise Theobald only
June 2012
Alexander Pope’s An Essay in Criticism:
A. Purports to define “wit” and “nature” as they apply to the literature of his age
B. Claims no originality in the thought that governs this work
C. Is a prose essay that gives us such quotes as “A little learning is a dangerous thing!”
D. Appeared in 1701
(Marks given to all)
December 2012
Which of the following statements on Pathetic Fallacy is NOT TRUE?
A. The term applies to descriptions that are not true but imaginary and fanciful.
B. Pathetic Fallacy is generally understood as human traits being applied or attributed to non-
human things in nature.
C. In its first use, the term was used with disapproval because nature cannot be equated with the
human in respect of emotions and responses.
D. The term was originally used by Alexander Pope in his Pastorals (1709).
September 2013
In the Rape of Lock Belinda’s guardian sylph is unable to prevent the Baron’s fatal mischief because
A. He discovers an earthly lover lurking in Belinda’s heart
B. He is disturbed by Clarissa’s speech
C. The view is blocked by the imposing figure of Sir Plume
D. He is yet to return from a visit to the Cave of Spleen.
PAPER 2
December 2004
Pope’s An Essay on Man is based on the ideas of:
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A. Lord Petrie
B. Theobald
C. Lord Bolingbroke
D. Lord Harvey
December 2006
Which of Alexander Pope’s Poems begins with the line “Shut, shut the door, good John, fatigued I
said”
A. Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
B. Dunciad
C. Epistles
D. Rape of the Lock
June 2006
Pope’s Essay on Criticism sums up the art of poetry as taught first by
A. Aristotle
B. Horace
C. Longinus
D. Plato
December 2007
The expression “Thy hand, great Anarch” occurs in a satire by
A. Dryden
B. Pope
C. Johnson
D. Swift
December 2008
Pope’s Essay on Man can best be read as a poem of
A. Classical understanding of nature
B. Anti-romantic view of life
C. Sociological estimate of man
D. Philosophical apprehension of life
June 2008
The main idea of Pope’s the Dunciad was taken from:
A. Absalom and Achitophel
60
B. Mac Flecknoe
C. The Medal
D. An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
December 2010
Whom does Alexander Pope satirise in the portrait of Sporus?
A. Lady Wortley Montague
B. Joseph Addison
C. Lord Shaftsbury
D. Lord Harvey
June 2010
Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was published in 1712 in
A. Three cantos
B. Four cantos
C. Five cantos
D. Two cantos
December 2011
Put the following books of Pope in a sequence of publication.
An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, An Essay on Man
December 2012
In the Rape of the Lock Pope repeatedly compares Belinda to
A. The sun
B. The moon
C. The North star
D. The rose
December 2013
Sir Plume is a character in...
A. Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
B. Congreve’s The Way of the World
C. Pope’s The Rape of the Lock
D. Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Strategem
September 2013
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Which of the following descriptions is not applicable to Pope’s The Rape of The Lock?
A. A mock-heroic poem
B. Written in heroic couplets
C. Pope’s tribute to Queen Anne
D. Produced in two versions, consisting of 2 and 5 cantos
December 2014
Who does Alexander Pope refer to in the following lines?
“Born to no pride; inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walked innoxious through his age,”
A. Pope’s father
B. Pope himself
C. Dr. Arbuthnot
D. The Duke of Marlborough
December 2015
In his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot Pope tells us that as a poet he had benefitted from “This saving
counsel, ‘keep your piece nine years’”- which enjoins on writer’s patience and great care before they
rush to print. Whose “counsel” is Pope referring to?
A. Longinus’s In On the Sublime
B. Horace’s In Ars Poetica
C. Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria
D. Aristotle’s Poetics
June 2015
In the lines “With gold jewels cover every part, /And hide with ornaments their want of art.” (Essay
on Criticism), Pope rejects
A. The “Follow nature” fallacy
B. Artificiality
C. Aesthetic order
D. Poor taste
July 2016
Who among the following translated Homer?
A. Thomas Gray
62
B. Samuel Johnson
C. Oliver Goldsmith
D. Alexander Pope
November 2017
What happens to the lock of hair at the end of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock?
A. It is given back to its rightful owner
B. It is preserved in a monument
C. It turns into a star
D. It is presented to the poet as a token of gratitude
January 2017
Alexander Pope revised the Rape of the Lock three times. In the final revision of the poem in 1717
he inserted a speech by
A. Belinda
B. Clarissa
C. Betty
D. Thalestris
July 2018
The four Moral Essay of Alexander Pope are addressed to carefully selected figures. Identify:
A. Timons, Newton, Martha Blount, Wellington
B. Lord Cobham, Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall, Chandos
C. Martha Blount, Lord Cobham, Bathhurst, Burlington
D. William III, John Haydn, Joseph Addison, John Dennis
June 2011
In the Rape of the Lock, Belinda’s lapdog is named
A. Luck
B. Shock
C. Pluck
D. Muck
SAMUEL JOHNSON
PAPER 3
November 2017
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Which of the following characters finds that complete happiness is elusive and that “while you are
making the choice of life, you neglect to live”?
A. Lovelace in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa
B. Rasselas in Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas
C. Matthew Bramble in Tobias Smollett’s Humphry Clinker
D. Harley in Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling
In his views on the death of Cordelia in King Lear, which is the ground NOT specifically cited by
Samuel Johnson?
A. It is contrary to the natural ideas of justice
B. It is contrary to neoplatonic idea of decorum
C. It is contrary to the hope of the reader
D. It is contrary to the faith of chronicles
July 2016
Published in 1604, the first monolingual English Dictionary was
A. Nathaniel Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
B. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language
C. Robert Cawdery’s Table Alphabetical
D. Thomas Blount’s Glossographia
June 2015
“I suffered from impaired eye-sight, depression and poverty and left Oxford without a degree. After
a period as a teacher and my marriage to a widow twice my age, I left for London, to begin writing
for a magazine, I produced mu own journal.” Choose the correct answer, identifying the writer, the
magazine and the journal.
A. John Milton, The Examiner’s Magazine, London Magazine
B. Joseph Addison, The Freeholder, The Tatler
C. Richard Steele, The Guardian, The Spectator
D. Samuel Johnson, The Gentlemen’s Magazine, The Rambler
December 2015
Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief, was Samuel Johnson’s criticism of a famous
poem. Which poem was it?
A. P.B. Shelley’s Adonais
B. Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella
C. Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written on a Country Churchyard
D. John Milton’s Lycidas
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June 2014
What is Johnson’s opinion regarding the “violation” of the three unities in the plays of Shakespeare?
A. Shakespeare should’ve followed the unities.
B. Shakespeare followed the important Unity of Action satisfactorily.
C. Shakespeare’s plays suffered because they did not follow the Unities
D. Unity of Time and Place arise from false assumptions
December 2014
Two among the following poets wrote the “Village” poems that address the perennial theme of rural
poverty
A. Oliver Goldsmith
B. William Collins
C. Samuel Johnson
D. George Gabbe
(Marks given to all)
December 2013
Virginia Woolf borrowed the idea of the common reader from Dr. Johnson. To which particular work
of Johnson’s does she remain indebted?
A. The Lives of the Most Eminent English poets; the essay on Milton
B. The Lives of the Most Eminent English poets; the essay on Gray
C. Preface to Shakespeare
D. The Patriot
“Nothing odd will do long. ...did not last long.” Dr. Johnson had this to say about one of the
eighteenth century novels. Identify it from the following list:
A. Tom Jones
B. The Female Quixote
C. Tristram Shandy
D. Clarissa
PAPER 2
June 2012
Match the following.
James Joyce: Richard Ellman
T.S. Eliot: Peter Ackroyd
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Life of Johnson: James Boswell
Lives of Poets: Samuel Johnson
December 2012
Who, among the following is credited with the making of the first authoritative Dictionary of the
English Language?
A. Bishop Berkeley
B. Samuel Johnson
C. Edmund Burke
D. Horace Walpole
December 2011
Match the following authors with their respective works.
The Vanity of Human Wishes: Samuel Johnson
The Vicar of Wakefield: Oliver Goldsmith
The Beggar’s Opera: John Gay
She Stoops to Conquer: Oliver Goldsmith
June 2010
Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language was published in the year
A. 1710
B. 1755
C. 1739
D. 1759
December 2009
Dr. Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes expresses
A. Epicureanism
B. Humanism
C. Stoicism
D. Cynicism
Assertion (A): Dr. Johnson’s The Lives of Poets carries critical and biographical studies of poets he
admired. It does not, however, carry a life of William Wordsworth.
Reason (R): Dr. Johnson singled out poets whom he not only admired but also adored. This explains
his omission of Wordsworth.
Neither (A) nor (R) is true.
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June 2008
With whom was Dr. Johnson intimately associated in his personal life?
A. Boswell
B. Dryden
C. Alexander Pope
D. Lord Bolingbroke
The most obvious feature of Johnson’s The Lives of Poets is the equipoise between
A. Language and form
B. Style and content
C. Biography and criticism
D. Myth and archetype
December 2007
Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare appeared in
A. 1752
B. 1765
C. 1791
D. 1760
The term ‘metaphysical poets’ was first used by
A. Ben Jonson
B. Dr. Johnson
C. Helen Gardner
D. Dryden
June 2006
Dr. Johnson started
A. The Postman
B. The Spectator
C. The Rambler
D. The Tatler
December 2006
Which of the following is not a work by Dr. Johnson?
A. Preface to the English Dictionary
B. Preface to Shakespeare
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C. Lives of the English Poets
D. Cowley
June 2005
Dr. Johnson’s The Lives of the Poets is an example of:
A. Psychological criticism
B. Biographical criticism
C. Historical criticism
D. Archetypal criticism
December 2005
Dr. Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in
A. 1755
B. 1756
C. 1757
D. 1758
December 2004
Which of the following works by Johnson is an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal?
A. London
B. Vanity of Human Wishes
C. The Life of Savage
D. Rasselas
December 2018
In imitation of which classical poet did Samuel Johnson write his London and the Vanity of Human
Wishes?
A. Horace
B. Homer
C. Juvenal
D. Tasso
The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphysical race, is that of pursuing his
thoughts to their last ramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality; for of the greatest
things the parts are little; what is little can be but pretty, and by claiming dignity becomes
ridiculous. Thus all the power of description is destroyed by a scrupulous enumeration, and the
force of metaphors is lost, when the mind by the mention of particulars is turned more upon the
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original than the secondary sense, more upon that from which the illustration is drawn than that to
which it is applied.
What Dr. Johnson actually faults here is:
A. The metaphysical insistence on the particular than the general
B. The force of metaphors that blunts description
C. The mind that goes astray toward the original
D. The metaphysical poets’ tendency to saunter away
July 2018
Samuel Johnson has the following to say about an English poet.
“These images are marked by glittering accumulations of ungraceful ornaments: they strike rather
than please. The images are magnified by affection: the language is laboured into harshness. The
mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence- ‘Double, double, toil and trouble.’ He has
a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and
there is too little appearance of ease and nature.”
Identify the poet.
A. Thomas Gray
B. John Dryden
C. John Milton
D. Thomas Wyatt
January 2017
Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the English Poets combines the following except
A. Analytical criticism
B. Literary history
C. Personal biography
D. Socratic dialogue
November 2017
Samuel Johnson denounced the metaphysical poets saying, “About the beginning of the
seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets.” In the
biography of which of the following poets in his Lives of Poets did Johnson make this remark?
A. Dryden
B. Thomas Parnell
C. Abraham Cowley
D. Alexander Pope
69
July 2016
Shakespeare famously neglects to observe Aristotle’s rules concerning the three dramatic unities,
and Samuel Johnson undertakes to defend Shakespeare from these criticisms in his Preface to
Shakespeare. Which of the Aristotelian dramatic unities does Johnson believe Shakespeare to
observe most successfully?
A. Time
B. Place
C. Action
D. Johnson does not feel Aristotelian unities are important.
August 2016
What attributes of Shakespeare’s characterisation does Johnson admire in his Preface to
Shakespeare?
A. The way his characters represent particular times and places.
B. The way his characters exhibit quirks representative of their humours or professions
C. The way his characters portray the general passions and principles of human nature
D. The way his characters portray real individuals
June 2015
Samuel Johnson wrote London in imitation of
A. Horace
B. Ovid
C. Juvenal
D. Moschus
Samuel Johnson’s use of the term “metaphysical” in a piece of criticism was
A. Approving
B. Disapproving
C. Positive
D. Accidental
December 2015
Samuel Johnson’s “Dissertation upon Poetry” is part of which of his following works?
A. The final section of his Preface to Shakespeare
B. A chapter of his novel Rasselas
C. The epilogue of his Lives of Poets
D. One of his Rambler essays
70
December 2013
Samuel Johnson’s Lives of Poets (1781) was originally a series of introductions to the poets he wrote
for a group of London publishers. They were collected in:
A. Lives of English Poets: Critical and Biographical Essays
B. Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the works of English Poets.
C. Notes, Biographical and Critical, on the Works of English Poets
D. Lives of English Poets: Biographical and Critical Poets
THOMAS HOBBES
PAPER 3
August 2016
In Thomas Hobbes’s grand metaphor in Leviathan, a commonwealth is like
A. A great ship piloted by one man, but managed by the efforts of many
B. An artificial man imbued with the strength of many men
C. An octopus whose many tentacles represent the competing interests of men
D. An ostrich, which thrusts its head in the sand to avoid danger and self-examination
PAPER 2
June 2006
Who among the following cautioned against the dangers of popular liberty.
A. Mary Wollstonecraft
B. Edmund Burke
C. Thomas Hobbes
D. John Locke
December 2018
Match the writer with the work.
George Puttenham: The Art of English Poesy
Thomas Spart: The History of the Royal Society
Lewis Bayly: The Practice of Piety
Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan
JOHN LOCKE
PAPER 2
December 2006
71
John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is about:
A. Nature of human behaviour
B. Nature of the human mind
C. Nature of human society
D. Nature of human ideology
December 2010
The concept of human mind as tabula rasa or blank tablet was propounded by
A. Bishop Berkeley
B. David Hume
C. Francis Bacon
D. John Locke
June 2013
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a classic statement of...
A. Aesthetic
B. Empiricist
C. Nationalist
D. Realist
December 2015
Who, among the following, advanced the theory that the mind is a tabula rasa at birth, and acquires
all ideas by experience?
A. John Locke
B. John Wesley
C. Isaac Watts
D. Denis Diderot
January 2017
Match the author with the work.
John Locke: Two Treatises on Government
William Dampier: Voyages
Jeremy Collier: A Short View of the Immortality and Profanity of the Stage
Thomas Rhymer: A Short View of Tragedy
GIAMBATTISTA VICO
PAPER 2
72
December 2014
New Science is a work associated with
A. Ernest Cassirer
B. Wilhelm von Humboldt
C. G. Battista Vico
D. Immanuel Kant
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is a work associated with
A. Wilhelm von Humboldt
B. Ernst Cassirer
C. Immanuel Kant
D. Battista Vico
EDMUND BURKE
PAPER 3
December 2015
A famous challenge to the Neoclassical tents of form and reason in aesthetic considerations came
from Edmund Burke. His work was titled
A. An Enquiry into the Philosophical Origin of Our Ideas of the sublime and the Beautiful
B. Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
C. An Enquiry into the Philosophical Origin of Our Ideas of the Beautiful and the Sublime
D. Philosophical Enquiry into Our Original Ideas of the Beautiful and the Sublime
PAPER 2
December 2006
Edmund Burke denounced The French Revolution in
A. Political Philosophy
B. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
C. Reflections
D. The Annual Register
June 2010
Who among the following wrote a book with the title The Age of Reason?
A. William Godwin
B. Edmund Burke
C. Thomas Paine
73
D. Edward Gibbon
EDWARD GIBBON
PAPER 3
December 2015
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes was a great achievement by Edward
Gibbon. It was published between 1776 and 1788, two significant dates that
A. Signalled the end of the Napoleonic wars and the rise of Feudalism
B. Signalled the American Revolution and the French Revolution
C. Covered the fall of peasantry and the rise of bureaucracy in England
D. Suggest the period of Queen Anne’s reign
December 2014
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon is a significant work in ... volumes.
A. 3
B. 4
C. 5
D. 6
December 2006
Which of the following prose-writers do not belong to the Romantic Period.
A. Peacock
B. De Quincey
C. Hazlitt
D. Gibbon
ADAM SMITH
GREEK CRITICS
SOCRATES
PAPER 3
September 2013
Which philosophers do Dante encounter in Limbo, the first circle of hell?
A. Socrates
B. Aristotle
74
C. Heraclitus
D. Plato
December 2012
Which of the following plays gained notoriety for its caricature of the philosopher Socrates?
A. The Birds
B. The Wasps
C. The Clouds
D. The Frogs
PLATO
PAPER 3
November 2017
In his theory of Mimesis, Plato says that all art is mimetic by nature; art is an imitation of life. To
argue his case he gives the example of a
A. Cloud
B. Chair
C. Tree
D. River
December 2014
The issue of privileging speech over writing was taken up for discussion in Plato’s
A. Ion
B. Republic Book III
C. Republic Book X
D. Phaedrus
PAPER 2
June 2011
Plato censured poetry because he believed it
A. Eliminates the ego
B. Promotes sensuality
C. Distorts reality
D. Cripples the imagination
December 2018
75
Why did Plato banish the poet from his ideal state?
A. Poetry makes an artificial distinction between form and content
B. Poetry deals with form, to the neglect of content
C. The poet can never produce a completely accurate replica of the reality it seeks to represent,
and moreover the purpose of art is not to describe reality but to change it
D. In representing the sensual aspects of reality, the poet fails to discern the transcendent reality
behind mere appearance
January 2017
Who among the following Greek philosophers has a bearing on the composition of Shelley’s
Adonais?
A. Miletus
B. Socrates
C. Plato
D. Aristotle
ARISTOTLE
PAPER 3
June 2015
Aristotle argued that poetry provides a/an ... outlet for the release of intense emotions.
A. Safe
B. Dangerous
C. Uncertain
D. Unreliable
December 2012
In Aristotle’s Poetics we read that it is the imitation of an action that is complete and whole, and of a
certain magnitude...having a beginning, a middle, and an end. What is ‘it’?
A. Tragedy
B. Epic
C. Poetry
D. Farce
PAPER 2
June 2005
The soul of tragedy, according to Aristotle is:
76
A. Thought
B. Character
C. Plot
D. Spectacle
December 2007
‘Anagnorisis’ is a term used by Aristotle for describing
A. The moment of discovery by the protagonist
B. The reversal of fortune for the protagonist
C. The happy resolution of the plot
D. The convergence of the main plot and the sub plot
June 2015
In which chapter of Poetics does Aristotle use the word ‘catharsis’ in his definition of tragedy?
A. Chapter IV
B. Chapter VI
C. Chapter ITT
D. Chapter V
ROMAN CRITICS
HORACE
PAPER 2
December 2006
The author of Ars Poetica is
A. Plato
B. Horace
C. Virgil
D. Aristotle
December 2018
Who among the ancients prescribed that poetry should both instruct and delight?
A. Longinus
B. Plotinus
C. Aristotle
D. Horace
77
July 2018
What does the phrase ut pictura poesis from Horace’s Art of Poetry mean?
A. As in painting, so in poetry
B. Poetry beggars pictorial description
C. As in poetry, so in painting
D. Picture above all poetry
September 2013
Who among the following theorists formulated the concept of utile dulci, profit combined with
delight?
A. Plato
B. Aristotle
C. Horace
D. Longinus
LONGINUS
PAPER 3
January 2017
What, among the following, is ruled out by Longinus as a way of achieving the sublime?
A. Great thoughts
B. Immoderate emotion
C. Noble diction
D. Dignified and elevated word arrangement
September 2013
According to Longinus, the sublime has the following features except:
A. It is the essence of all great poetry and oratory
B. It is interested in the usual rhetorical goal of persuasion
C. It valorises a special use of language
D. It is a matter of reader-response
QUINTILIAN
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