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500+ Literary Criticism – (200-300 Questions)

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Literary Criticism — Previous Year Questions (201–300)
1. Peripeteia, according to Aristotle, stands for:
  • (A)Error of judgment
  • (B)‘Reversal’ in hero’s fortunes
  • (C)Recognition
  • (D)Roundabout speech
2. “It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create………” — In the above statement ‘It’ refers to:
  • (A)Magic
  • (B)Fancy
  • (C)Primary imagination
  • (D)Secondary imagination
3. Which one of the following is the fourth source of sublime as defined by Longinus?
  • (A)Dignity of composition
  • (B)Capacity of strong emotions
  • (C)Grandeur of thought
  • (D)Nobility of diction
4. What was called as ‘Organon’ by Aristotle’s followers Peripatetics?
  • (A)Collection of Aristotle’s Works on Politics
  • (B)Collection of Aristotle’s Works on Poetics
  • (C)Collection of Aristotle’s Works on Logic
  • (D)Collection of Aristotle’s Works on Metaphysics
5. Which character takes the side of Modern English dramatists by criticizing the faults of the classical playwrights who did not themselves observe the Unity of Place in the Essay on Dramatic Poesy?
  • (A)Lisideus
  • (B)Crites
  • (C)Neander
  • (D)Eugenius
6. The concept of objective correlative appears in which of Eliot’s works?
  • (A)“Tradition and Individual Talent”
  • (B)“The Frontiers of Criticism”
  • (C)“Hamlet and his Problems”
  • (D)“The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism”
7. According to Coleridge, what is it that dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate and to unify?
  • (A)Fancy
  • (B)Secondary imagination
  • (C)Epiphany
  • (D)Sensibility
8. Odes and Epodes was written by:
  • (A)Longinus
  • (B)Horace
  • (C)Aristotle
  • (D)Plato
9. Who said, “The effect of elevated language upon audience is not persuasion but transport.”?
  • (A)Cacecilius
  • (B)Plotinus
  • (C)Horace
  • (D)Longinus
10. Shakespeare, according to Johnson offers:
  • (A)Particular manners peculiar to individuals
  • (B)Particular manners peculiar to time
  • (C)Particular manners peculiar to place
  • (D)Representation of general nature
11. Wordsworth writes, “Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of heart ___.”
  • (A)Are under great restraint
  • (B)Do not speak a plainer language
  • (C)Cannot be accurately contemplated
  • (D)Find a better soil
12. As propounded by Coleridge in Biographia Literaria, match the qualities of poetic genius:
Column A:
(i) Good Sense     (ii) Fancy     (iii) Motion     (iv) Imagination
Column B:
(a) Life     (b) Soul     (c) Drapery     (d) Body
  • (A)(i)–(d) Body, (ii)–(c) Drapery, (iii)–(a) Life, (iv)–(b) Soul
  • (B)(i)–(a) Life, (ii)–(b) Soul, (iii)–(c) Drapery, (iv)–(d) Body
  • (C)(i)–(b) Soul, (ii)–(a) Life, (iii)–(d) Body, (iv)–(c) Drapery
  • (D)(i)–(c) Drapery, (ii)–(d) Body, (iii)–(b) Soul, (iv)–(a) Life
13. In which of the following essays did Arnold put forward the ‘Touchstone Theory’?
  • (A)“The Function of Criticism at the Present Time”
  • (B)“Culture and Anarchy”
  • (C)“The Study of Poetry”
  • (D)“The Literary Influence of Academics”
14. “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.” These lines are from which essay of T. S. Eliot?
  • (A)“Tradition and the Individual Talent”
  • (B)“The Metaphysical Poets”
  • (C)“Hamlet and his Problems”
  • (D)“Frontiers of Criticism”
15. Alexander Pope in the Essay on Criticism deals with:
  • (A)The merits and limitations of the 18th century school of poetry
  • (B)The merits and limitations of the 18th century school of drama
  • (C)The merits and limitations of the 18th century school of criticism
  • (D)The merits and limitations of the 18th century school of prose
16. The Essay in which Dryden has compared Horace, Juvenal and Persius is:
  • (A)Essay on Influence
  • (B)Essay on Criticism
  • (C)Essay on Ancients
  • (D)Essay on Satire
17. Who of the following translated Homer’s Iliad?
  • (A)Alexander Pope
  • (B)William Congreve
  • (C)John Donne
  • (D)George Herbert
18. Who distinguished between the primary and secondary imagination?
  • (A)William Wordsworth
  • (B)S.T. Coleridge
  • (C)Robert Southey
  • (D)De Quincey
19. Who is the author of Biographia Literaria?
  • (A)Shelley
  • (B)Byron
  • (C)S.T. Coleridge
  • (D)Hazlitt
20. Arrange the following in the right chronological order: Lyrical Ballads, Biographia Literaria, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Adonais.
  • (A)Lyrical Ballads → Biographia Literaria → Preface to Lyrical Ballads → Adonais
  • (B)Lyrical Ballads (1798) → Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) → Biographia Literaria (1817) → Adonais (1821)
  • (C)Preface to Lyrical Ballads → Lyrical Ballads → Biographia Literaria → Adonais
  • (D)Biographia Literaria → Adonais → Lyrical Ballads → Preface to Lyrical Ballads
21. Who defined poetry as a “criticism of life”?
  • (A)Arnold
  • (B)Tennyson
  • (C)Browning
  • (D)Rossetti
22. Defence of Poesie belongs to the genre of:
  • (A)Drama
  • (B)Poetry
  • (C)Criticism
  • (D)Fiction
23. Biographia Literaria was published in:
  • (A)1817
  • (B)1805
  • (C)1815
  • (D)1800
24. The phrase ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ is associated with: [Note: The correct answer is S.T. Coleridge — who is NOT listed among the options. This question has an error in its option set.]
  • (A)Keats
  • (B)Lord Byron
  • (C)Shelley
  • (D)William Blake
25. Plato wanted to judge poetry from the tool of:
  • (A)Beauty
  • (B)Sublimity
  • (C)Truth
  • (D)None of these
26. The function of tragedy, according to Aristotle, is to offer:
  • (A)Understanding
  • (B)Transportation
  • (C)Enlightenment
  • (D)Tragic pleasure
27. “The poet is a man speaking to men.” Who wrote this?
  • (A)Coleridge
  • (B)Shelley
  • (C)Wordsworth
  • (D)Dr. Johnson
28. Peripeteia, according to Aristotle, stands for:
  • (A)Error of judgment
  • (B)‘Reversal’ in hero’s fortunes
  • (C)Recognition
  • (D)Roundabout speech
29. Neander in Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesie speaks for:
  • (A)Classical drama
  • (B)Modern drama
  • (C)French Neo-classical drama
  • (D)British drama
30. “It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create………” — In the above statement ‘It’ refers to:
  • (A)Magic
  • (B)Fancy
  • (C)Primary imagination
  • (D)Secondary imagination
31. The term ‘Tension’ is associated with:
  • (A)J.C. Ransom
  • (B)W. Empson
  • (C)C. Brooks
  • (D)A. Tate
32. Who made the following statement: “The great contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns and the beauties of the ancients”?
  • (A)Matthew Arnold
  • (B)Samuel Johnson
  • (C)T.S. Eliot
  • (D)Thomas Carlyle
33. Philip Sydney’s Defense of Poesy was written in response to:
  • (A)Plato’s Republic
  • (B)Horace’s Ars Poetica
  • (C)Aristotle’s Poetics
  • (D)Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse
34. Coleridge’s statement that imagination “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate” relates to:
  • (A)Secondary imagination
  • (B)Esemplastic imagination
  • (C)Fancy
  • (D)Primary imagination
35. Ars Poetica is the most important critical work of:
  • (A)Ovid
  • (B)Virgil
  • (C)Horace
  • (D)Longinus
36. How many principal sources of Sublimity are there according to Longinus?
  • (A)Three sources
  • (B)Four sources
  • (C)Five sources
  • (D)No definite number of sources
37. What is the meaning of the term ‘Peripeteia’ as used by Aristotle in his Theory of Tragedy?
  • (A)Change in the fortune of the hero from bad to good
  • (B)Change in the fortune of the hero from good to bad
  • (C)Constancy in the fortune of the hero
  • (D)Fluctuations occurring in the fortune of the hero
38. Some Elizabethan Puritan critics denounced poets as ‘fathers of lies’ and ‘caterpillars of a commonwealth’. Who used these offensive terms?
  • (A)William Tyndale
  • (B)Roger Ascham
  • (C)Stephen Gosson
  • (D)Henry Howard
39. What does Sidney say about the observance of the three Dramatic Unities in drama?
  • (A)They must be observed
  • (B)It is not necessary to observe them
  • (C)He favours the observance of the unity of action only
  • (D)Their observance depends upon the nature of the play
40. What does Ben Jonson mean by a ‘Humorous’ character?
  • (A)A character who is always cheerful and gay
  • (B)A character who is by nature melancholy
  • (C)A character whose temper is determined by one of the four liquids in the human body
  • (D)An eccentric person
41. Dryden wrote An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Is this:
  • (A)An Essay
  • (B)A Drama
  • (C)A Poetical Work
  • (D)An Interlocution
42. Who called Dryden the father of English criticism?
  • (A)Joseph Addison
  • (B)Dr. Johnson
  • (C)Coleridge
  • (D)Matthew Arnold
43. Poetry was generally written in ‘Poetic diction’ by:
  • (A)The Elizabethan poets
  • (B)The Neo-classical poets
  • (C)The Romantic poets
  • (D)The Victorian poets
44. “The tragi-comedy, which is the product of the English theatre, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered into a poet’s thoughts.” Whose view is this?
  • (A)John Dryden
  • (B)Alexander Pope
  • (C)Joseph Addison
  • (D)Dr. Johnson
45. “Be Homer’s works your study and delight. / Read them by day, and meditate by night.” — Who gives this advice to the poets?
  • (A)Sidney
  • (B)Dryden
  • (C)Pope
  • (D)Ben Jonson
46. Which of the following critics preferred Shakespeare’s Comedies to his Tragedies?
  • (A)Dryden
  • (B)Pope
  • (C)Dr. Johnson
  • (D)Addison
47. Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is believed to be the Preamble to Romantic Criticism. In which year was it first published?
  • (A)1798
  • (B)1800
  • (C)1801
  • (D)1802
48. “The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.” Whose view is this?
  • (A)Wordsworth’s
  • (B)Coleridge’s
  • (C)Dr. Johnson’s
  • (D)Matthew Arnold’s
49. Regarding the observance of the three Classical Unities in a play, Dr. Johnson’s view is that:
  • (A)Only the unity of Time should be observed
  • (B)Only the unity of Place should be observed
  • (C)Only the unity of Action should be observed
  • (D)All the three unities should be observed
50. “Poetry is emotions recollected in tranquillity.” Who has defined Poetry in these words?
  • (A)Shelley
  • (B)Wordsworth
  • (C)Coleridge
  • (D)Matthew Arnold
51. “There neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.” Who holds this view?
  • (A)Wordsworth
  • (B)Coleridge
  • (C)Hazlitt
  • (D)Lamb
52. “I write in metre because I am about to use a language different from that of prose.” Who says this?
  • (A)Wordsworth
  • (B)Coleridge
  • (C)Shelley
  • (D)Keats
53. Which of the following critics has most elaborately discussed the Concept of Imagination?
  • (A)Walter Pater
  • (B)John Ruskin
  • (C)S. T. Coleridge
  • (D)Freud
54. Who defines poetry “as a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty”?
  • (A)Coleridge
  • (B)Shelley
  • (C)Walter Pater
  • (D)Matthew Arnold
55. Who says that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”?
  • (A)Shelley
  • (B)Walter Pater
  • (C)Matthew Arnold
  • (D)T. S. Eliot
56. Who has divided Literature into two broad divisions — Literature of Power and Literature of Knowledge?
  • (A)T. S. Eliot
  • (B)F. R. Leavis
  • (C)De Quincey
  • (D)Matthew Arnold
57. Who gave the concept of ‘Art for Art’s sake’?
  • (A)Walter Pater
  • (B)F. R. Leavis
  • (C)T. S. Eliot
  • (D)John Keats
58. What is common amongst these three critical expressions — ‘Objective correlative’, ‘Dissociation of sensibilities’, ‘Unification of sensibilities’?
  • (A)All three come from T. S. Eliot
  • (B)All three come from I. A. Richards
  • (C)All three come from F. R. Leavis
  • (D)All three come from William Empson
59. Who gave the concept of ‘Art for life’s sake’?
  • (A)T. S. Eliot
  • (B)Wordsworth
  • (C)Matthew Arnold
  • (D)Tennyson
60. Who said, “For art’s sake alone I would not face the toil of writing a single sentence”?
  • (A)T. S. Eliot
  • (B)George Bernard Shaw
  • (C)John Galsworthy
  • (D)John Masefield
61. In whose opinion “Poetry is the most highly organised form of intellectual activity”?
  • (A)G. B. Shaw
  • (B)W. B. Yeats
  • (C)T. S. Eliot
  • (D)D. H. Lawrence
62. Is Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy a work of:
  • (A)Interpretative criticism
  • (B)Legislative criticism
  • (C)Comparative criticism
  • (D)Textual criticism
63. Who proposed the ‘Touchstone’ method for literary evaluation?
  • (A)Matthew Arnold
  • (B)T.S. Eliot
  • (C)I.A. Richards
  • (D)F.R. Leavis
64. By the term ‘dissociation of sensibility’ Eliot meant the separation of thought and feeling in post-17th-century poetry. The UNIFIED state (before dissociation) that he admired involved:
  • (A)The unification of thought and feeling
  • (B)The unification of thought and intellect
  • (C)The unification of intellect and reason
  • (D)The unification of emotions and feelings
65. A Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy was written by:
  • (A)Philip Sidney
  • (B)John Milton
  • (C)John Dryden
  • (D)Samuel Butler
66. To Aristotle ‘catharsis’ means:
  • (A)Fall from high estate in life
  • (B)Purgation of the emotions
  • (C)To correct manners
  • (D)To refine the conduct
67. The hamartia, the anagnorisis and the peripeteia are the three key elements in:
  • (A)A plot
  • (B)An ode
  • (C)A lyric
  • (D)An epic
68. The two great romantic poets behind the creation of Lyrical Ballads are:
  • (A)Wordsworth and Coleridge
  • (B)Keats and Wordsworth
  • (C)Collins and Gray
  • (D)Byron and Shelley
69. Who defines criticism as the play of mind on the aesthetic qualities of literature?
  • (A)Saintsbury
  • (B)Atkins
  • (C)Victor Hugo
  • (D)Edmund Gosse
70. Who commented that ‘Even today the Poetics continues to be studied and prescribed as textbooks in schools and colleges’?
  • (A)F. L. Lucas
  • (B)Dr Johnson
  • (C)Atkins
  • (D)Dryden
71. Longinus says that ‘Great literature springs from great and ___.’
  • (A)Lofty souls
  • (B)Immortal ideas
  • (C)High imagination
  • (D)Nobility of diction
72. ‘On the Sublime’ is a piece of:
  • (A)Dramatic
  • (B)Poetic
  • (C)Prose
  • (D)Conversational
73. Who called the poet a Vates (prophet/seer)?
  • (A)Greeks
  • (B)Romans
  • (C)Italians
  • (D)Squamards
74. In whose opinion ‘Sidney wrote not a pedant’s encyclopaedia but a gentleman’s essay’?
  • (A)Saintsbury
  • (B)Atkins
  • (C)Scott James
  • (D)Dr Johnson
75. What was the chief source of Sidney’s theory?
  • (A)Plato
  • (B)Horace
  • (C)Aristotle
  • (D)Longinus
76. In whose opinion has Longinus ‘turned and tempered them with what is Sanest in Classicism’?
  • (A)Atkins
  • (B)Gibbons
  • (C)Scott James
  • (D)Saintsbury
77. Complete Longinus’ declaration that, ‘sublimity is a certain loftiness and excellence in ___.’
  • (A)Poetry
  • (B)Style
  • (C)Language
  • (D)None of these
78. Who had banished poetry from his ideal commonwealth?
  • (A)Plato
  • (B)Horace
  • (C)Gosson
  • (D)Wilson
79. Sidney has rejected English drama because of:
  • (A)Pure laughter
  • (B)Extreme seriousness
  • (C)Worthlessness
  • (D)Tragi-comedy
80. Who praised Dryden as the father of English criticism?
  • (A)Atkins
  • (B)Scott James
  • (C)Dr Johnson
  • (D)T. S. Eliot
81. Which of the characters in Essay of Dramatic Poesy favours the greatness of the ancients?
  • (A)Neander
  • (B)Crites
  • (C)Lisideius
  • (D)Eugenius
82. Which is the perfect modern English play according to Dryden?
  • (A)The Silent Woman
  • (B)Duchess of Malfi
  • (C)Macbeth
  • (D)Volpone
83. In whose opinion is Dryden ‘the first Englishman to attempt any extended descriptive criticism’?
  • (A)Saintsbury
  • (B)Dr Johnson
  • (C)Watson
  • (D)Pope
84. What great achievement is reflected in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy?
  • (A)Freedom from classical rules
  • (B)Preference to imagination
  • (C)Observing romanticism
  • (D)Teaching the people
85. The central theme of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy is:
  • (A)Justification of English Drama
  • (B)Rejection of the French Drama
  • (C)Rejecting Aristotle
  • (D)Praising Chaucer
86. Which edition of Lyrical Ballads is considered to be a standard critical document?
  • (A)1800
  • (B)1802
  • (C)1815
  • (D)1820
87. The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads was first attached to:
  • (A)1800 edition
  • (B)1802 edition
  • (C)1815 edition
  • (D)1820 edition
88. Who says that ‘every great poet is a teacher’?
  • (A)Wordsworth
  • (B)Coleridge
  • (C)Keats
  • (D)Pope
89. Wordsworth says, ‘Poetry is born not in the mind but in the heart overflowing with ___.’
  • (A)Emotions
  • (B)Thoughts
  • (C)Feelings
  • (D)Ideas
90. Who has criticised most of Eliot’s theory of objective correlative?
  • (A)Washington Allston
  • (B)W.B. Yeats
  • (C)Eliseo Vivas
  • (D)None of the above
91. In classical Greek, catharsis meant:
  • (A)Purgation or cleansing
  • (B)Dirt and defilement
  • (C)Tragic turn
  • (D)Spite and revenge
92. 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
93. Match the statements on imagination with the poets/critics who made them:
List I (Statements):
I. “One power alone makes a poet – The Imagination, The Divine Vision”
II. “…what the imagination seizes on beauty must be the truth”
III. “The great instrument of moral good is the imagination”
IV. “Works of imagination should be written in a very plain language”
List II (Poets/Critics): 1. Shelley   2. Coleridge   3. Blake   4. Keats
  • (A)I–2, II–1, III–3, IV–4
  • (B)I–3 (Blake), II–4 (Keats), III–1 (Shelley), IV–2 (Coleridge)
  • (C)I–1, II–3, III–2, IV–1
  • (D)I–4, II–1, III–3, IV–2
94. What is denouement?
  • (A)The ending/resolution of a tragedy
  • (B)The climax in a tragedy
  • (C)The climax in a comedy
  • (D)The ending of a comedy
95. Who is the originator of the Theory of Imitation in literature?
  • (A)Plato
  • (B)Longinus
  • (C)Aristotle
  • (D)None
96. From where has the term Oedipus Complex originated?
  • (A)Antigone
  • (B)Oedipus the Rex
  • (C)Oedipus at Colonus
  • (D)None
97. In which of the following works does Plato discuss his Theory of Poetry?
  • (A)Ion
  • (B)Apology
  • (C)The Republic
  • (D)None
98. Who is the author of the notorious book entitled The School of Abuse?
  • (A)Stephen Gosson
  • (B)John Skelton
  • (C)Stephen Hawes
  • (D)Roger Ascham
99. Philip Sidney’s Apology for Poetry is a defence of poetry against the charges brought against it by:
  • (A)John Skelton
  • (B)Stephen Gosson
  • (C)Roger Ascham
  • (D)Henry Howard
100. “It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gown maketh an advocate.” Whose view is this?
  • (A)Sidney
  • (B)Marlowe
  • (C)Spenser
  • (D)Shakespeare

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