PG TRB - ENGLISH


1.The epithet ‘a comic epic in prose’ is best applied to
a).Dickens’ Great Expectations
b).Hardy’s Jude the Obscure
c).Fielding’s Tom Jones
d).Eliot’s Middle March

Answer : c).Fielding’s Tom Jones

2.The term ‘theatre of cruelty’ was coined by
a).Robert Brustein
b).Antonin Artaud
c). Augusto Boal
d).Luigi Piradello

Answer : b).Antonin Artaud

3.Which post-war British poet was involved in a disastrous marriage with Sylvia Plath?
a).Otto Plath
b).Philip Larkin
c).Ted Hughes
d).Geoffrey Hill

Answer : c).Ted Hughes

4.Who among the following is a Canadian critic?
a).I.A. Richards
b).F.R. Leavis
c).Cleanth Brooks
d).Northrop Frye

Answer : d).Northrop Frye

5.Which of the following is not written by Wole Soyinka?
a).The Lion and the Jewel
b).Telephone Conversation
c).Novelist as a Teacher
d).The Dance of the Forests

Answer : c).Novelist as a Teacher

6.The phrase ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ occurs in
a).Biographia Literaria
b).Preface to Lyrical Ballads
c).An Essay on Dramatic Poesy
d).Poetics

Answer : a).Biographia Literaria

7.‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’, an unforgettable account meeting with literary heroes, is written by
a).William Wordsworth
b).Coleridge
c).William Hazlitt
d).Leigh Hunt

Answer : c).William Hazlitt

8.Which romantic poet coined the famous phrase ‘spot of time’?
a).John Keats
b).William Wordsworth
c).ST Coleridge
d).Shelley

Answer : b).William Wordsworth

9.Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was published in 1712 in
a).Three cantos
b).Four cantos
c).Five cantos
d).Two cantos

Answer : d).Two cantos

10.The Moby Dick Captain Ahab falls for his
a).Ignorance
b).Pride
c).Courage
d).Drunkenness

Answer : b).Pride

11.Who among the following was Geoffrey Chaucer’s contemporary?
a).Thomas Chatterton
b).Thomas Shadwell
c).John Gay
d).John Gower

Answer : d).John Gower

12.The earliest tract on feminism is
a).Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
b).Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s own
c).Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
d). Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Answer : c).Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

13.William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity is
a).A structuralist study of Narrative
b).A piece of psychoanalytic criticism
c).A study of the media
d).An analysis of poetic ambivalence

Answer : d).An analysis of poetic ambivalence

14.Periphrasis, which is a roundabout way of speech / writing is also known as
a).Synecdoche
b).Circumlocution
c).Allusion
d).Understatement

Answer : b).Circumlocution

15.The immediate source of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is
a).A French narrative
b).A Dutch narrative
c).A German narrative
d).None of the above

Answer : c).A German narrative

16.What century is variously called The Age of Enlightenment, The Age of Sensibility, The Age of Augustan Age and The Age of Prose and Reason?
a).Sixteenth Century
b).Seventeenth Century
c).Eighteenth Century
d).Nineteenth Century

Answer : c).Eighteenth Century

17.‘He is not fully recognized at home; he is not recognized 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).ST Coleridge

Answer : c).William Wordsworth

18.The title Things Fall Apart is drawn from a poem by
a).WB Yeats
b).Ted Hughes
c).WH Auden
d).Robert Lowell

Answer : a).WB Yeats

19.Who of the following is known for aphoristic prose style?
a).William Hazlitt
b).Francis Bacon
c).John Ruskin
d).Charles Lamb

Answer : b).Francis Bacon

20.The correct chronological order of the following poets is
a). Byron, Shelley, Keats, Walter Scott
b).Shelley, Walter Scott, Keats, Byron
c).Keats, Byron, Walter Scott, Shelley
d).Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats

Answer : d).Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats

21. The Plays of Edward Albee deal with
a).Problems of Middle Class
b).Hypocrisy of aristocracy
c).Mechanizations of politics
d).Simplicity of lower class

Answer : b).Hypocrisy of aristocracy

22.‘Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight’ is a line that occurs in
a).Dr Faustus
b).The Alchemist
c).Macbeth
d).The Spanish Tragedy

Answer : a).Dr Faustus

23.The ‘Reader – Response Theory’ implies that
a).There is no one correct meaning of the text
b).The readers of an age construct the meaning
c).Beliefs determine meaning
d).A style is the hallmark of the text

Answer : b).The readers of an age construct the meaning

24.‘Myth Criticism’ focuses on:
a).A study of myths and mythology
b).Archetypes of spiritual experience
c).Recurrence of archetypal patterns
d).The confluence of different traditions

Answer : c).Recurrence of archetypal patterns

25.The phrase ‘disassociation of sensibility’ was first used by
a).Philip Sydney
b).T.S. Eliot
c).John Dryden
d).Matthew Arnold

Answer : b).T.S. Eliot

26.In which poem does the following line appear? ‘our birth is but a sleep and a for getting’
a).Tintern Abbey
b).Immorality Ode
c).Ode Dejection
d).Ode to Autumn

Answer : b).Immorality Ode

27.On seeing whom does Miranda exclaim, ‘O, father, surely that is a spirit. Lord ! how it lools about?’
a).Caliban
b).Ferdinand
c).Alonso
d).Stephano

Answer : b).Ferdinand

28.John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was written while he was:
a).In prison
b).On a pilgrimage
c).On a social mission
d).In a church

Answer : a).In prison

29.A Philosophical attitude pervading much of modern literature is
a).Absurdism
b).Dadaism
c).Imagism
d).Surrealism

Answer : a).Absurdism

30.The rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet is
a).abab cdcd efef gg
b).abba cddc effe gg
c).abab cdcd efef gh
d).aabb ccdd eeff gg

Answer : a).abab cdcd efef gg

31.‘Il Migilor Fabro’ is the expression Eliot used in The Waste Land for:
a).W.B. Yeats
b).Samuel Beckett
c).WH Auden
d).Ezra Pound

Answer : d).Ezra Pound

32.Who of the following is not a university wit?
a).Webster
b).Robert Greene
c).Kyd
d).Marlowe

Answer : a).Webster

33.‘Bildungsroman’ translated literary means
a).Development novel
b).Psychological novel
c).Autobiographical novel
d).Campus novel

Answer : b).Psychological novel

34. ‘Fancy’ deals with:
a).Fixities and definities
b).Imagination and Reason
c).Judgement and Memory
d).Structure and Superstructure

Answer : a).Fixities and definities

35.Ravi and Nalini are the main characters in ____.
a).Coolie
b).Kantapura
c).The English Teacher
d).A Handful of Rice

Answer : d).A Handful of Rice

36. Anti-sentimental comedy is a criticism of
a).Loss of moral purpose
b).Excess of emotion
c).Excess of reason
d).Loss of human feelings

Answer : b).Excess of emotion

37.In which of the following novels does the little girl Brigitta appear?
a).Great Expectations
b).Emma
c).Power and the Glory
d).Middle March

Answer : c).Power and the Glory

38.‘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

Answer : a).The moment of discovery by the protagonist

39.Which of the following feminist critics used the expression ‘Gynocriticism’ for the first time?
a).Kate Millet
b).Simone de Beauvoir
c).Elaine Showalter
d).Mary Ellmann

Answer : c).Elaine Showalter

40.The words ‘Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?’ occur in
a).Ode to the West Wind
b).Ode to Autumn
c).Ode to Nightingale
d).Ode on a Grecian Urn

Answer : b).Ode to Autumn

41.In which novel, the story has been narrated by a Brahmin widow?
a).Coolie
b).Kanthapura
c).The English Teacher
d).A Handful of Rice

Answer : b).Kanthapura

42.Which famous novel opens with a young woman who is ‘handsome, clever and rich’?
a).Middlemarch
b).Wuthering Heights
c).Emma
d).Jude the Obscure

Answer : c).Emma

43.‘A Woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings’. From which section of Eliot’s The Waste Land are the above lines taken?
a).A Game of Chess
b).What the Thunder Said
c).Burial of the Dead
d).Fire Sermon

Answer : b).What the Thunder Said

44.To whom is Chaucer referring when he says ‘He knew the tavern well in every town’?
a).Pardoner
b).Monk
c).Squire
d).Friar

Answer : d).Friar

45.‘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).Coleridge
b).Sidney
c).Mathew Arnold
d).Wordsworth

Answer : c).Mathew Arnold

46.How did Forster pay his tribute to this spiritual endeavour of Whitman?
a).By using the title ‘Passage to India’ for his novel about India under British exploring the possibilities of meeting of heats between East and West
b).By taking a journey to India
c).Writing on East – West relationship
d).Considering spiritual unification between East and West

Answer : a).By using the title ‘Passage to India’ for his novel about India under British exploring the possibilities of meeting of heats between East and West

47.Robert’s poetry is best explained by
a).Synecdoche
b).Ballad
c).Mask
d).Monologues

Answer : a).Synecdoche

48.In which poem of Frost the following lines occur? ‘when I see birches bend to left and right across the lines of straighter darker trees I like think some boy’s been swinging them’?
a).Mending Wall
b).Birches
c).West Running Brook
d).Stooping by woods on a snowy Evening

Answer : b).Birches

49.E.E. Cummings died in the year
a).1962
b).1950
c).1972
d).1930

Answer : a).1962

50.For Hart Crane the Brooklyn bridge is a symbol of
a).Unity which joins city, river and sea
b).Connects the people of the city with the world outside
c).Apans the great river
d).Merican identity

Answer : a).Unity which joins city, river and sea

51.Faulkner’s vision of the south is
a).Incoherent
b).Satirical
c).Poetical
d).Very clear

Answer : a).Incoherent

52.‘There is a menace existing in this county today which threatens the vitals of our fair Republic – as foul a menace against the very life-blood of the American Eagle as was the foul conspiracy of Catiline against the eagles of ancient Rome.’ These lines occur in which play of this?
a).The Hairy Ape
b).The Death of a Salesman
c).A Street Car named Desire
d).Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer : a).The Hairy Ape

53.Who considered the life of Stanley and Stella as aimless as the ‘streetcar Named Desire’ shutting through the narrow streets?
a).Stella
b).Blanche
c).Mitch
d).Stanley

Answer : b).Blanche

54.What describes the events of ‘Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ best?
a).All- night drinking bout of a middle-aged professor and his wife
b).All-night dance and party
c).A big party at the home of a professor
d).A party at a young couple’s house in honour of the professor

Answer : a).All- night drinking bout of a middle-aged professor and his wife

55.What is the role of Ben in the drama ‘The Death of a Salesman’ ?
a).He is Willy’s brother
b).He is Willy’s brother and self-made successful man
c).Ben is important for sons to make them return to American life of challenge
d).Nothing

Answer : b).He is Willy’s brother and self-made successful man

56.In which poem Toru Dutt has tried to recapture the past and to immortalize the moments of time so recaptured?
a).Our Casuariana Tree
b).Baugmaree
c).The Lotus
d).Sita

Answer : a).Our Casuariana Tree

57.Sarojini Naidu’s work has a real beauty. Who said this?
a).Tagore
b).Vivekananda
c).Aurobindo
d).Gandhi

Answer : c).Aurobindo

58.‘To Force the pace and never to be still, Is not the way of those who study birds or Woman’ These lines have been taken from Ezekiel’s poem
a).Background Casually
b).Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher
c).Woman and Child
d).Philosophy

Answer : b).Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher

59.Name the first recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award for the best writing in English?
a).R.K. Narayan
b).Raja Rao
c).Mul Raj Anand
d).Kamala Markandaya

Answer : a).R.K. Narayan

60.Which novel has been called ‘a Character novel’ by Edwin Muir?
a).Coolie
b).Kantapura
c).The English Teacher
d).A Handful of Rice

Answer : a).Coolie

61.Which of the following descriptions of Things Fall Apart brings out the essence of the novel?
a).A clash of religious, Christian, and pagan
b).British hegemony, advancement of European culture over the innocent
c).A clash of ideologies, traditional versus modern
d).It brings many Nigerian issues together besides a clash between free will and predestination

Answer : d).It brings many Nigerian issues together besides a clash between free will and predestination

62.What is Aristotle’s definition of tragedy?
a).Tragedy deals with the fall of a good man
b).Tragic flaw is the cause of a good man’s fall
c).Catharsis is possible
d).Tragedy is a serious drama in a form of action which through pity and fear leads to catharsis of such emotions

Answer : d).Tragedy is a serious drama in a form of action which through pity and fear leads to catharsis of such emotions

63.According to Sidney, poetry can be divided into three broad divisions
a).Religious, historical and moral poetry
b).Religious, philosophical and right kind of poetry
c).Moral, dramatic and philosophical poetry
d).None of the above

Answer : b).Religious, philosophical and right kind of poetry

64.Who called Dryden the father of English criticism?
a).Joseph Addison
b).Dr. Johnson
c).Coleridge
d).Matthew Arnold

Answer : b).Dr. Johnson

65.Who said ‘imitation is the power of depicting and fancy of yoking and combining’?
a).Wordsworth
b).Keats
c).Coleridge
d).Shelley

Answer : a).Wordsworth

66.Who said ‘imagination I hold to be the living and primary agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the infinite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. – it dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet all events it struggles to idealize and to unity’?
a).Wordsworth
b).Coleridge
c).Keats
d).Shelley

Answer : b).Coleridge

67.Who said ‘Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream, he awoke and found it truth’?
a).Wordsworth
b).Coleridge
c).Keats
d).Shelley

Answer : c).Keats

68.Who said ‘Poetry is a criticism of life under curtains’?
a).TS Eliot
b).Coleridge
c).Keats
d).Arnold

Answer : d).Arnold

69.Which of the following statements may be true about Eliot’s criticism?
a).Unification of sensibility means a fusion of thought and feeling
b).Unification of sensibility is a characteristic of bad poetry
c).Eliot was a romanticist in literature, not classicist
d).Dissociation of sensibility is a characteristic of good poetry

Answer : a).Unification of sensibility means a fusion of thought and feeling

70.In the ‘Prologue to the Canterbury Tales’ which character is fond of hunting and riding?
a).Monk
b).Squire
c).Friar
d).Yeoman

Answer : a).Monk

71. The famous song, ‘Take O take those lips away’ occur in
a).Macbeth
b).The Tempest
c).Measure for Measure
d).As You Like it

Answer : c).Measure for Measure

72.The first edition of Bacon’s essays were published in
a).1509
b).1519
c).1590
d).1597

Answer : d).1597

73.‘Comus’ was published in 1637
a).By Milton
b).By Spenser
c).By Shakespeare
d).By George Herbert

Answer : a).By Milton

74.After regaining his blessings and children, Job lived for?
a).120 years
b).130 years
c).135 years
d).140 years

Answer : d).140 years

75.When Mirabell’s first plan to win Lady Wishfort’s consent for his marriage with Milamant failed, he was working on the second plan. It was
a).To elope with Millamant
b).To murder Lady WIshfort
c).To Steal the marriage portion of Millamant
d).That so compelling Lady Wishfort to agree to his proposal by involving her romantically with his man servant, Waitwell

Answer : d).That so compelling Lady Wishfort to agree to his proposal by involving her romantically with his man servant, Waitwell

76.The following lines from the novel give a beautiful description of one of the leading characters in Tom Jones ‘He cast himself on his bed, where he lay abandoning himself to despair, and drowned in tears; not in such tears as flow from contrition and wash away guilt from minds _______ these tears were such as the frightened thief sheds in his cart, and are indeed the effect of that concern which the most savage natures are seldom deficient in feeling for themselves’. Which character of Tom Jones has been referred to in the above lines?
a).Tom
b).Blifil
c).Allworthy
d).Squire Western

Answer : b).Blifil

77. ‘The Mistake of a Night’ is the subtitle of the play
a).Measure for Measure
b).Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
c).The School for Scandal
d).She stoops to conquer

Answer : d).She stoops to conquer

78.Who disguised himself as Mr. Stanley?
a).Rowley
b).Sir Oliver
c).Joseph
d).None of these

Answer : b).Sir Oliver

79.Who is the composer of Lucy poem?
a).Shelley
b).Wordsworth
c).Keats
d).Tennyson

Answer : b).Wordsworth

80.Keats died in 1821, and Shelley died in
a).1829
b).1821
c).1819
d).1822

Answer : d).1822

81.Which nation’s army invades Scotland at the end of the play Macbeth?
a).Norway
b).France
c).England
d). Finland

Answer : c).England

82.Who is the goddess of witchcraft in the play Macbeth?
a).Aphrodite
b).Hecate
c). Minerva
d). Mordred

Answer : b).Hecate

83.Which character is Sebastian’s brother?
a). Prospero
b).Antonio
c).Gonzalo
d).Alonso

Answer : d).Alonso

84.What do we see Miranda and Ferdinand doing in the play’s final scene?
a). Playing cards
b). Carrying wood
c).Playing chess
d).Playing tag

Answer : c).Playing chess

85.How does Pompey react to Menas’s suggestion that they kill the Roman triumvirs and thereby make Pompey the most powerful man alive?
a).He appreciates the thought but urges Menas to await a more fitting time to attack the triumvirs
b). He is dismayed by Menas’s disregard for human life
c). He tells Menas to do whatever needs to be done to secure him control of the world
d).He wishes Menas had done the deed without telling him

Answer : d).He wishes Menas had done the deed without telling him

86.Why does Ventidius refuse to push on into Parthia?
a).Without Antony’s leadership, he fears defeat
b).Like Caesar, his soldiers resent Antony’s loyalty to Egypt and cannot be counted on to fight further battles in Antony’s name
c). He has lost too many soldiers and does not want to lose more
d).He does not want to win Antony’s disfavor by outperforming him in battle

Answer : d).He does not want to win Antony’s disfavor by outperforming him in battle

87.What is Falstaff’s favorite literary device?
a).The mixed metaphor
b). The metonym
c).The pun
d). Prosopopoeia

Answer : c).The pun

88.What is Archibald, the leader of the Scottish rebels, also known as in Henry IV?
a).Braveheart
b). The Bruce
c). The Grey Bear
d).The Douglas

Answer : d).The Douglas

89.How does the Duke initially respond to Isabella’s accusations against Angelo?
a).Calls her insane
b). Asks thoughtful questions
c).Immediately believes her
d). Demands sex

Answer : a).Calls her insane

90.Who does the Duke place in charge of questioning when he leaves to change into his friar disguise?
a).Angelo
b).Escalus
c).Elbow
d). Isabella

Answer : b).Escalus

91. At what time do “sleepless lovers” awake in The Rape of the Lock?
Dawn
Noon
Tea-time
Midnight

Answer : Noon

92. Who is Shock?
Belinda’s horse
Belinda’s lapdog
The Baron’s horse
The poet’s muse

Answer : Belinda’s lapdog

93. By which river would she find rubies if they had all the time in the world in Toy His Coy Mistress?
Ganges
Amazon
Nile
Arno

Answer : Ganges

94. After listing the other parts of her body how many years would he spend on praising 'the rest' in Toy His Coy Mistress?
Sixty thousand.
Forty thousand.
Thirty thousand.
Fifty thousand

Answer : Thirty thousand.

95. 'I weep for ______-he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears’ Complete the sentence where the line appears in the first stanza.
Adonais
Keats
Shelly
Elia

Answer : Adonais

96. ‘You do not do, you do not do Any more, ______ shoe’ Complete the sentence, these lines from Sylvia Plath’s Daddy
Red
Green
Black
Tear

Answer : Black

97. Who is last introduced in the play ‘The Tempest’?
Trinculo and Stephano
Sebastian
Ferdinand
Miranda

Answer : Trinculo and Stephano

98. Who is Alonso's brother?
Sebastian
Ferdinand
Prospero
Gonzalo

Answer : Sebastian

99. Sidi is doing what at the beginning of the play The lion and the Jewel?
Looking at the magazine
Dancing
Practicing math
Carrying water

Answer : Carrying water

100. Who is a major twentieth century Australian poet, as well as short story writer, essayist and literary editor. He published thirteen collections of poetry, five verse plays, including the well-known ‘Ned Kelly’
Douglas Stewart
A.D Hope
Judith Wright
Alan Paten

Answer : Douglas Stewart

101. Seven Types of Ambiguity is a work of literary criticism by William Empson which was first published in _______
1930
1940
1933
1937

Answer : 1930

102. Who said this lines in Jude the Obscure ‘Why should you care so much for Christminster? ... Christminster cares nothing for you, poor dear!’
Sue Bridehead
Aunt Drusilla
Arabella Donn
Jude Fawley

Answer : Sue Bridehead

103. ‘Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and_______; hear, oh hear! ‘ complete the lines of P B Shelley
Preserver
tangled
Maenad
summer dreams

Answer : Preserver

104. Whose lines is this? ‘Water, Water, every where, nor any drop to drink'
Shelly
Coleridge
Tennyson
Robert Browning

Answer : Coleridge

105. In poetry, line lengths can extend from one foot monometer to eight feet octameter, including dimeter(2), trimester (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter(6), __________(7).
Heptameter
Trochoic meter
Spondaic meter
Iambic meter

Answer : Heptameter

106. The Romantic period begins in 1798, which saw the publication of Lyrical Ballads, and ends in 1832, a year which saw the death of _______.
S.T. Coleridge
John Keats
Sir Walter Scott
Lord Byron

Answer : Sir Walter Scott

107. Which of the following author is the first generation of Romantics ?
Lord Byron
Shelly
John Keats
ST Coleridge

Answer : ST Coleridge

108. ‘In _______ did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree’ chose right word to complete the lines from Kubla Khan.
Alph
Xanadu
China
Twice five miles

Answer : Xanadu

109. What instrument did the Abyssinian maid play?
lyre
tambor
dulcimer
flute

Answer : dulcimer

110. In poems such as ‘Fra Lippo Lippi’ and ‘Andrea Del Sarto’, Browning reflects his love for_______
Greece
Spain
Italy
None of the above

Answer : Italy