English Literature MCQs

Option A: A traditional form with repeated consonant sounds

Option B: An Anglo-Saxon form written in iambic pentameter with traditional rhymes

Option C: A popular form in the 9th and 10th centuries

Option D: A form brought to England in the years during the Norman invasion

Correct Answer: A traditional form with repeated consonant sounds ✔

Option A: The term is an allusion to Beowulf’s golden torque.

Option B: The term represents the comitatus ethic.

Option C: The term is an example of kenning.

Option D: The term is an example of caesura.

Correct Answer: The term is an example of kenning. ✔

Option A: Faith

Option B: Time spent in prayer

Option C: Donations made to the monastery

Option D: Good deeds

Correct Answer: Good deeds ✔

Option A: Caedmon’s Hymn

Option B: The Battle of Maldon

Option C: The Canterbury Tales

Option D: The Dream of the Rood

Correct Answer: The Battle of Maldon ✔

Option A: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

Option B: “Piers Plowman”

Option C: “The Canterbury Tales”

Option D: “The Book of Margery Kempe”

Correct Answer: “The Canterbury Tales” ✔

Option A: Episodic French and German poetry

Option B: Resemblance to an epic

Option C: Supernatural themes involving dragons and monsters

Option D: All of these answers

Correct Answer: All of these answers ✔

Option A: Wergild is connected to the idea that bloodshed leads to more bloodshed.

Option B: Wergild contributes to the claustrophobic, doom-laden atmosphere.

Option C: Wergild relates to the concept of wyrd.

Option D: All of these answers

Correct Answer: All of these answers ✔

Option A: The merchant

Option B: The knight

Option C: The prioress

Option D: The plowman

Correct Answer: The merchant ✔

Option A: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History

Option B: Caedmon’s Hymn

Option C: Chretien de Troyes Yvain, or le Chevalier au Lion

Option D: Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Correct Answer: Chretien de Troyes Yvain, or le Chevalier au Lion ✔

Option A: A pause or break in a line of poetry

Option B: Giving inanimate objects human qualities

Option C: A metaphorical compound

Option D: The image used to share qualities in a metaphor or simile

Correct Answer: A pause or break in a line of poetry ✔

Option A: The mock epic

Option B: The lyric ballad

Option C: The lai

Option D: The heroic epic

Correct Answer: The lai ✔

Option A: The Matter of Germany

Option B: The Matter of Rome

Option C: The Matter of Britain

Option D: The Matter of England

Correct Answer: The Matter of Germany ✔

Option A: The knightly ideal

Option B: Conversion to Christianity

Option C: Sexual purity

Option D: Feudal loyalty

Correct Answer: Conversion to Christianity ✔

Option A: As a mutually beneficial relationship between rulers and warriors

Option B: As an economic system of rewards used to ensure warriors reliability

Option C: As a pre-feudal power structure based on the distribution of economic and military resources

Option D: All of these answers

Correct Answer: All of these answers ✔

Option A: The Church moved away from using Latin.

Option B: The trend of educational reforms was reversed.

Option C: England returned to its pre-feudal state.

Option D: The primary language became French

Correct Answer: The primary language became French ✔

Option A: The poem could be easily sung in all churches and was widely accepted.

Option B: The poem’s theme of alienation becomes familiar to Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Option C: The poem illustrates Caedmon’s erudition and scholarship.

Option D: The poem is widely believed to be the first written poem in Old English.

Correct Answer: The poem is widely believed to be the first written poem in Old English. ✔

Option A: Exile

Option B: Abandoned mead-halls

Option C: Loneliness

Option D: All of these answers

Correct Answer: All of these answers ✔

Option A: The Battle of Maldon

Option B: The Seafarer

Option C: The Wanderer

Option D: The Dream of the Rood

Correct Answer: The Dream of the Rood ✔

Option A: “The Dream of the Rood”

Option B: “The Wanderer”

Option C: “The Seafarer”

Option D: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

Correct Answer: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” ✔

Option A: The court of Richard II

Option B: The church

Option C: The military

Option D: The literary tradition

Correct Answer: The church ✔

Option A: He was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret.

Option B: He was an architect who designed The Chandigarh Legislative Assembly building in Punjab, India.

Option C: He was the architect who designed The Robie House in Chicago, Illinois.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: Surrealism

Option B: Dadaism

Option C: Symbolism

Option D: Realism

Correct Answer: Realism ✔

Option A: Magical realism often accepts both a materialist and a supernatural view of the real.

Option B: Magical realism differs from fantasy and science fiction in that it considers the impossible as normal.

Option C: The term “magical realism” was first coined by Franz Roh, a German art critic.

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: Nature

Option B: Christianity

Option C: Pastoral landscapes

Option D: World War II

Correct Answer: World War II ✔

Option A: Charles Baudelaire

Option B: William Butler Yeats

Option C: Rudyard Kipling

Option D: Napoleon III

Correct Answer: Rudyard Kipling ✔

Option A: A fascination with the past but a past that is used out of its original context as pastiche

Option B: A reinforcement of master narratives

Option C: A rejection of master narratives

Option D: Both A and C

Correct Answer: Both A and C ✔

Option A: Giorgio de Chirico

Option B: Salvador Dalí

Option C: Marcel Duchamp

Option D: Paul Gauguin

Correct Answer: Paul Gauguin ✔

Option A: His safe return home

Option B: The defeat of the Germans

Option C: His death and escape from suffering.

Option D: His ability to finally kill an enemy soldier

Correct Answer: His safe return home ✔

Option A: Raymond Williams

Option B: Jacques Derrida

Option C: Fredric Jameson

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Jacques Derrida ✔

Option A: “The modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text.”

Option B: “Once the Author is gone, the claim to “decipher” a text is quite simple.”

Option C: “A text never consists of multiple writings, it is always the product of a monolithic culture.”

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: B. “Once the Author is gone, the claim to “decipher” a text is quite simple.” ✔

Option A: Ravinder Reddy

Option B: Rummana Hussain

Option C: Dadabhai Naoroji

Option D: A and B only

Correct Answer: A and B only ✔

Option A: Edward Said

Option B: Arundhati Roy

Option C: Salman Rushdie

Option D: Homi Bhaba

Correct Answer: Edward Said ✔

Option A: As an interpretation of the Biblical Second Coming of Christ

Option B: As an attempt to support European colonialism in Africa

Option C: As a howl of despair concerning the current state of the world

Option D: Both A and C

Correct Answer: Both A and C ✔

Option A: It was originally written in English.

Option B: It celebrates the almost divine power of the poet.

Option C: It suggests that poetry is demonic in nature.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: It celebrates the almost divine power of the poet. ✔

Option A: James Joyce

Option B: Voltaire

Option C: Virginia Woolf

Option D: Y.B. Yeats

Correct Answer: Voltaire ✔

Option A: In English literature, we cannot refer to “the tradition” or to “a tradition;” at most, we employ the adjective in saying that the poetry of so-and-so is “traditional” or even “too traditional.”

Option B: Tradition is the great conversation which links all English literature and is a coherent and stable cannon.

Option C: All of the above

Option D: A and B only

Correct Answer: A and B only ✔

Option A: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Option B: Isabel Allende

Option C: James Joyce

Option D: Allejo Carpentier

Correct Answer: James Joyce ✔

Option A: The work celebrates the young Jean and his Jesuit school education as a model for the best possible education of the young.

Option B: It ends with the famous line “the horror, the horror.”

Option C: It explores Jean’s decision to become a recluse and a social drop-out.

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: It explores Jean’s decision to become a recluse and a social drop-out. ✔

Option A: As an omniscient narrative of love and loss

Option B: As a third-person narrative of the Great Depression

Option C: As a domestic stream of consciousness narrative

Option D: A and B only

Correct Answer: As a domestic stream of consciousness narrative ✔

Option A: The short work speaks of the daunting search for truth and knowledge.

Option B: It is obsessed with the descriptions of an endless and ultimately incomprehensible library.

Option C: Borges takes great pains to show how the key to understanding the library is reason.

Option D: The library is analogous to the universe.

Correct Answer: Borges takes great pains to show how the key to understanding the library is reason. ✔

Option A: Salvador Dalí

Option B: Pablo Picasso

Option C: Juan Miró

Option D: Man Ray

Correct Answer: Salvador Dalí ✔

Option A: Argentina

Option B: Brazil

Option C: Mexico

Option D: Britain

Correct Answer: Argentina ✔

Option A: The Great Depression lasted for one hundred years.

Option B: The Great Depression was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by Western civilization since industrialization.

Option C: The Great Depression was a severe economic downturn in the industrialized world that began in 1929 and lasted for approximately ten years.

Option D: B and C only

Correct Answer: B and C only ✔

Option A: Seamus Heaney

Option B: James Joyce

Option C: William Butler Yeats

Option D: E.M. Forster

Correct Answer: E.M. Forster ✔

Option A: “Pax romana”

Option B: “Veni, vidi, vici”

Option C: “Dux bellorum”

Option D: “Pro patria mori”

Correct Answer: “Pro patria mori” ✔

Option A: A term used to describe contemporary cultural production

Option B: A literary movement concerned with extreme self-reflexivity

Option C: An attempt to break down the barriers between high and low culture

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: It destroys notions of high and low culture and replaces it with mass culture.

Option B: It is an industry in the sense that its aim is to standardize aesthetic taste and value.

Option C: It is a radical rethinking of mass culture in that it promotes the values of high culture and attempts to eradicate more popular forms of expression.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: Maurice Tabard

Option B: Ansel Adams

Option C: Hans Bellmer

Option D: Man Ray

Correct Answer: Ansel Adams ✔

Option A: “Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys”

Option B: “And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands”

Option C: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

Option D: “Mother died today”

Correct Answer: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” ✔

Option A: W.B. Yeats

Option B: Jorge Luis Borges

Option C: Mario Vargas Llosa

Option D: Charles Baudelaire

Correct Answer: A. W.B. Yeats ✔

Option A: Mimicry

Option B: Ambivalence

Option C: Hybridity

Option D: Serendipity

Correct Answer: Serendipity ✔

Option A: It was an urban modernization project that reorganized Parisian city streets so that the bourgeoisie could flaunt their new wealth.

Option B: It was an urban renovation project which offered social services in city slums.

Option C: It was a political movement intended to overthrow Napoleon III.

Option D: It was a religious movement intended to celebrate the values of Christianity.

Correct Answer: It was an urban modernization project that reorganized Parisian city streets so that the bourgeoisie could flaunt their new wealth. ✔

Option A: It is a philosophical term which means “imitation” or “mimicry.”

Option B: It is a philosophical and critical term meaning “otherness.”

Option C: It is a critical term, which describes the act of expression and the presentation of self-identity, theorized by academics, such as Erich Auerbach.

Option D: A and C only

Correct Answer: A and C only ✔

Option A: The term “Vorticism” was coined in 1914 by the avant-gardist Ezra Pound.

Option B: Practitioners of Vorticism often saw themselves just as much as educators as artists as they taught the public a new, more graphic language.

Option C: The periodical and manifesto named BLAST attempted to expound Vorticism’s principal tenets.

Option D: The practice of Vorticism in artistic circles grew after World War I.

Correct Answer: The practice of Vorticism in artistic circles grew after World War I. ✔

Option A: Stroller, idler, walker

Option B: An inhabitant of a rural village

Option C: A religious believer

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Stroller, idler, walker ✔

Option A: It is an excellent example of “Magical Realism.”

Option B: It is concerned with the post-colonial situation of India before and after its partitioning into India and Pakistan.

Option C: It is a book that tells the story of the Sinai family.

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: The Franco-Prussian War

Option B: The American Civil War

Option C: World War I

Option D: World War II

Correct Answer: World War I ✔

Option A: A group of self-imposed American expatriates living in Paris that included Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, and Henry Miller

Option B: A group of artists and writers who were deeply marked by the traumas of World War I

Option C: Any American in self-exile in Europe to avoid fighting in World War I

Option D: A and B only

Correct Answer: A and B only ✔

Option A: It contains almost hellish imagery, such as: “Melting like dirty wax,/decayed candles, the bums sinking lower,/faces submerged under hams.”

Option B: It explores the theme of the perversion of language.

Option C: It deeply identifies with Dante’s “Inferno” in terms of tone and thick description.

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: Joyce’s “The Dead”

Option B: Hemingway’s “My Old Man”

Option C: Woolf’s “A Haunted House”

Option D: Borges’ “The Library of Babel”

Correct Answer: Borges’ “The Library of Babel” ✔

Option A: A way of questioning Victorian moral conceptions

Option B: A musical invention of the modern age that allows for experimentation of form

Option C: An example of subjective artistic expression

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: Chinua Achebe

Option B: Edward Said

Option C: Arundhati Roy

Option D: Salman Rushdie

Correct Answer: Chinua Achebe ✔

Option A: Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto”

Option B: James Joyce’s “Ulysses”

Option C: Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”

Option D: T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”

Correct Answer: Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto” ✔

Option A: The Suffragette Emmeline Pankhust

Option B: King George V

Option C: King Edward VII

Option D: King James II

Correct Answer: King George V ✔

Option A: It ends with the lines: “Eternity./It is the sea run off/ With the sun.”

Option B: It suggests that the quest for knowledge and enlightenment is deeply satisfying.

Option C: The poem speaks of the necessity of seeking human approval and communal acceptance.

Option D: It begins with the lines: “I kissed the dawn of summer.”

Correct Answer: It ends with the lines: “Eternity./It is the sea run off/ With the sun.” ✔

Option A: The culture industry is classified by ruthless uniformity of all ideas.

Option B: The culture industry is the chief method by which technology brings true democracy to all.

Option C: The culture industry is a fundamental way to promote individuality.

Option D: The culture industry is chiefly intended to offer consumers the opportunity to classify wants and desires as well as corresponding production.

Correct Answer: The culture industry is classified by ruthless uniformity of all ideas. ✔

Option A: Lyme disease

Option B: Staph infections

Option C: Shell shock

Option D: A and C only

Correct Answer: Shell shock ✔

Option A: The British East India Company was originally a group of London businessmen engaged in importing spices from South Asia.

Option B: The British East India Company first entered South Asia as importers of British Tea.

Option C: The British East India Company was essentially a covert British army.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: The British East India Company was originally a group of London businessmen engaged in importing spices from South Asia. ✔

Option A: The profound and often troubling relationships among characters

Option B: The novel’s experimental structure

Option C: The novel’s radically unique narrative voice

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: “Something that replaces reality with its representation”

Option B: “A stable referent to a knowable original cultural artifact”

Option C: “An exact imitation of the material world”

Option D: “A basic affirmation of everyday reality”

Correct Answer: “Something that replaces reality with its representation” ✔

Option A: The avant-garde, a military term meaning “advanced guard,” was founded in France in the mid-19th century.

Option B: The term avant-garde itself means “advanced guard,” and the military role of the advanced guard and the role of the avantgarde art movement are much of the same.

Option C: The realist painter Gustave Courbet never considered himself a member of the avant-garde.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: The realist painter Gustave Courbet never considered himself a member of the avant-garde. ✔

Option A: Produce works of art that were meaningless

Option B: Reject artistic production that was obligatorily moral in character

Option C: Avoid all forms of prose

Option D: Make art profitable above all else

Correct Answer: Reject artistic production that was obligatorily moral in character ✔

Option A: The Anglo-Irish war began with the resistance of the Irish Republican Army.

Option B: The Anglo-Irish war never involved a guerrilla campaign.

Option C: In the course of the Anglo-Irish War, only a few hundred members of the Irish Republican Army were actively resisting British rule.

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: The Anglo-Irish war began with the resistance of the Irish Republican Army. ✔

Option A: The end of the novella depicts Marlow’s conversation with the Kurtz’s Intended.

Option B: The work considers the dark side of European colonialism.

Option C: Marlow comes to understand the necessity of European leadership in Africa.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: An assault on the notion that there is any knowable truth

Option B: An assault on the sexual mores of the Victorian Age

Option C: A reaffirmation of Romantic notions of the sublime

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: An assault on the notion that there is any knowable truth ✔

Option A: The shift from agriculturally-based to industrial societies in the West

Option B: The decline of traditional religious beliefs in Europe

Option C: The rise of traditional social identities and the decline of personal identity

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: It begins with the famous line: “North Richmond Street being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free.”

Option B: It speaks of the author’s illicit relationship with a young girl.

Option C: It is a dramatization of the relationship between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Option D: It is an analysis of “Exodus” from “The Holy Bible.”

Correct Answer: It begins with the famous line: “North Richmond Street being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free.” ✔

Option A: Marxism

Option B: Post-Colonial Theory

Option C: Deconstruction

Option D: Feminism

Correct Answer: Post-Colonial Theory ✔

Option A: Marx

Option B: Freud

Option C: Darwin

Option D: Aristotle

Correct Answer: Marx ✔

Option A: Because of the increasing prominence of department stores in Paris

Option B: Because of the advent of arcade projects

Option C: Because they began to purchase products as they walked the urbanscape

Option D: Because they were threatened by police with jail

Correct Answer: Because of the increasing prominence of department stores in Paris ✔

Option A: Cubism

Option B: Vorticism

Option C: Futurism

Option D: A and B only

Correct Answer: Cubism ✔

Option A: Sexual mores

Option B: The importance of the irrational

Option C: Bourgeois sensibility

Option D: All of the above

Correct Answer: All of the above ✔

Option A: Arundhati Roy

Option B: Salman Rushdie

Option C: Seamus Heaney

Option D: Vladimir Nabokov

Correct Answer: Vladimir Nabokov ✔

Option A: There is an undeniable “tension between the death-instinct and the sexual instincts.”

Option B: Repetition-compulsion does not help to come to terms with one’s own mortality.

Option C: Most victims of trauma do not exhibit “the compulsion of the human psyche to repeat traumatic events over and over again.”

Option D: Talk therapy will not help cure one’s psychological neuroses concerning past trauma.

Correct Answer: There is an undeniable “tension between the death-instinct and the sexual instincts.” ✔

Option A: “The Dead”

Option B: “The Surrealist Manifesto”

Option C: “The Heart of Darkness”

Option D: “To the Lighthouse”

Correct Answer: “The Dead” ✔

Option A: His career ended when he was jailed for criminal “gross indecency.”

Option B: He believed that art should be something more than the reproduction and appreciation of the natural world.

Option C: Wilde was the author of such poems as “Bénédiction,” “L’Albatros,” and “élévation.”

Option D: He was notorious for his use of paradox.

Correct Answer: Wilde was the author of such poems as “Bénédiction,” “L’Albatros,” and “élévation.” ✔

Option A: Some academic scholars suggest that “TheWasteland” is an extrapolation of the search for the Holy Grail.

Option B: “The Wasteland” is an excellent example of modernist symbolism.

Option C: Eliot’s poem takes great pains to illustrate the breakdown of stable meaning in the modern world.

Option D: “The Wasteland” is often used as an excellent example of poetic realism.

Correct Answer: “The Wasteland” is often used as an excellent example of poetic realism. ✔

Option A: It is a lyrical novel that explores cultural identity and decline of an Indian family.

Option B: It is a Romantic novel that explores the decline of a Russian family.

Option C: It is a stream-of-consciousness narrative that explores cultural identity in nineteenth-century Ireland.

Option D: It is a lyrical novel that explores the decline of a Caribbean family.

Correct Answer: It is a lyrical novel that explores cultural identity and decline of an Indian family. ✔

Option A: “Was it for this-”

Option B: “Riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”

Option C: “And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.”

Option D: “April is the cruellest month”

Correct Answer: “April is the cruellest month” ✔

Option A: Realism strives to depict humans within a certain social context.

Option B: Realism depicts the tension between harsh reality and ideals.

Option C: Realism gives up the search for truth and instead embraces moral relativism.

Option D: Realism explores ethical quandaries within a social context.

Correct Answer: Realism gives up the search for truth and instead embraces moral relativism. ✔

Option A: Aestheticism

Option B: Naturalism

Option C: Decadence

Option D: Both A and C

Correct Answer: Both A and C ✔

Option A: Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”

Option B: James Joyce’s “Dubliners”

Option C: Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

Option D: Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Twilight of the Idols”

Correct Answer: Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” ✔

Option A: Naturalism is a search for scientific certainty.

Option B: Naturalism depicts humans as reasonable and objective.

Option C: Naturalism depicts the more “animalistic” tendencies of humans.

Option D: Naturalism considers the author or artist to be like a scientist.

Correct Answer: Naturalism depicts humans as reasonable and objective. ✔

Option A: Linda Hutcheon

Option B: Jean Baudrillard

Option C: Thomas Hobbes

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: Ibo

Option B: Russian

Option C: Irish

Option D: Indian

Correct Answer: Ibo ✔

Option A: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”

Option B: “Lolita, look at this tangle of thorns.”

Option C: “Lolita, all at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other.”

Option D: “Lolita, a cluster of stars palely glowed above us.”

Correct Answer: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.” ✔

Option A: Amy Lowell

Option B: Gertrude Stein

Option C: Virginia Woolf

Option D: Alice Walker

Correct Answer: Virginia Woolf ✔

Option A: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”

Option B: “The feeling of strangeness that overcomes the actor before the camera, as Pirandello describes it, is basically of the same kind as the estrangement felt before one’s own image in the mirror.”

Option C: “All art work, even mass produced art, clearly links to an original referent that has a stable and knowable meaning.”

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔

Option A: James Joyce

Option B: Vladimir Nabokov

Option C: T.S. Eliot

Option D: Joseph Conrad

Correct Answer: Vladimir Nabokov ✔

Option A: Symbolism began as a French literary movement in the late 19th century.

Option B: Paul Gauguin is an example of symbolism in painting.

Option C: Symbolism adheres to an objective view of reality and a rational and realistic depiction of the natural world.

Option D: Both A and B

Correct Answer: Both A and B ✔