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📚 Literary Criticism MCQs — Q301 to Q400
1. What does Sidney say about the observance of the three Dramatic Unities in Drama?
💡 In An Apologie for Poetrie, Sidney favours but does not strictly demand the three Unities (time, place, action), criticising English dramatists who ignore them while acknowledging some flexibility.
2. Dryden wrote An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. What is the form of this work?
💡 An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) is written in the form of a dialogue/interlocution among four speakers floating on the Thames — not a conventional essay despite the title.
3. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, which of the four interlocutors expresses Dryden’s own views?
💡 Neander (meaning “New Man” in Greek) is Dryden’s mouthpiece; he defends English drama and the use of rhyme in plays, reflecting Dryden’s own critical positions.
4. Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is a work of which type of criticism?
💡 Dryden’s Essay is primarily Comparative Criticism — it systematically compares Ancient Greek, French, and English drama to evaluate their relative merits, making comparison its chief critical method.
5. Who called Dryden “the Father of English Criticism”?
💡 Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets famously declared Dryden “the father of English criticism” for establishing criticism as a literary discipline in England.
6. Poetic Diction was taken to be the standard language for poetry in which age?
💡 Poetic diction — an elevated, ornate language distinct from everyday speech — was the literary standard of the Neo-classical Age; Wordsworth famously rejected it in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
7. “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 thought.” Whose view is this?
💡 This is Joseph Addison’s view, expressed in The Spectator. Dr. Johnson, by contrast, actually defended Shakespeare’s tragi-comedies, arguing that mixing tragic and comic elements reflects real life.
8. Which of the following critics preferred Shakespeare’s Comedies to his Tragedies?
💡 Dr. Johnson, in his Preface to Shakespeare, stated that comedy came more naturally to Shakespeare — he seemed to write tragedy with effort but comedy with ease and instinct.
9. Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, believed to be the preamble to Romantic Criticism, was published in which year?
💡 The important Preface was added to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800; the first edition (1798) had only a short Advertisement, not the full manifesto Preface.
10. Who is the author of Biographia Literaria?
💡 Biographia Literaria (1817) by S. T. Coleridge is his autobiographical and philosophical work containing his most important critical ideas, including the distinction between Imagination and Fancy.
11. In the Life of which poet did Dr. Johnson apply the term “Metaphysical School of Poetry”?
💡 Dr. Johnson coined the term “Metaphysical Poets” in his Life of Cowley (1779), using it to describe a group of 17th-century poets including Cowley, Donne, and others who combined intellect with emotion in unusual conceits.
12. “I write in meter because I am about to use a language different from that of prose.” Who says this?
💡 This statement is Coleridge’s from Biographia Literaria, where he distinguishes the language of poetry from prose and reflects on why metrical composition demands a different kind of language and attention.
13. Which of the following critics has most elaborately discussed the concept of Imagination?
💡 Coleridge’s theory of Imagination — dividing it into Primary, Secondary, and Fancy in Biographia Literaria — is the most detailed and influential Romantic discussion of imaginative faculty in English criticism.
14. Who says that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”?
💡 This is the famous closing line of Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry (1821), asserting that poets shape the moral and imaginative foundations of society even without official recognition or power.
15. Who divided literature into two broad divisions — the “literature of power” and “literature of knowledge”?
💡 Thomas De Quincey proposed this distinction: “literature of knowledge” informs the understanding, while “literature of power” moves, agitates, and exercises the deeper capacities of the mind.
16. Who is the author of The Sacred Wood?
💡 The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920) by T. S. Eliot contains his key critical essays including “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “Hamlet and His Problems.”
17. Who called Shakespeare’s Hamlet “an artistic failure”?
💡 T. S. Eliot in “Hamlet and His Problems” (1919) called Hamlet “an artistic failure” because Shakespeare could not find an adequate “objective correlative” for Hamlet’s emotion — the emotion seemed to exceed what the play’s situation could justify.
18. Matthew Arnold is the author of which of the following works?
💡 Essays in Criticism (1865, 1888) is Matthew Arnold’s major critical work. “What is a Classic?” is by T. S. Eliot; Appreciations is by Walter Pater; The English Comic Writers is by Hazlitt.
19. Who was the author of Lives of the Poets?
💡 Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81) covers 52 poets and remains a landmark of biographical and evaluative criticism, containing famous assessments of Milton, Dryden, and Pope.
20. “Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.” Who says this?
💡 This definition of poetry is Dr. Samuel Johnson’s, from his Rambler essays, reflecting the Neo-classical emphasis on reason, truth, and instruction alongside pleasure — quite different from Wordsworth’s Romantic definition.
21. ………………… defines poetry as “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
💡 Wordsworth’s famous definition from the 1800 Preface to Lyrical Ballads: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
22. Who says poetry can be defined as “the expression of the imagination”?
💡 Shelley opens A Defence of Poetry (1821) by defining poetry as “the expression of the imagination,” linking it to the creative and moral faculty that distinguishes human beings.
23. Who is generally called “the first modern critic” of the Western world?
💡 Matthew Arnold is widely regarded as the first modern critic of the Western world for his systematic, secular approach to evaluating literature and culture, pioneering criticism as a profession and a social force.
24. “The true and right meaning of the words classic and classical is the class of very best poetry.” Who says this?
💡 Matthew Arnold articulated this standard in “The Study of Poetry” (1880), where he also proposed the “touchstone” method — measuring poetry against lines from the very best poets as a benchmark of quality.
25. ………………… in Sanskrit means embellishment, whereas the root alam denotes perfection.
💡 Alamkara (literary figure/ornament) is the foundation of the Alamkara school of Sanskrit poetics, which regards figures of speech as the soul of poetry; alam means “sufficient/perfect” and kara means “maker.”
26. ………………… is generally regarded as the cornerstone of Indian Aesthetics.
💡 Rasa (aesthetic flavour/sentiment), first systematised by Bharata in the Natyashastra, is the central concept of Indian aesthetics — the emotional essence that art communicates and the spectator savours.
27. According to whom is Rasa evoked when the Vibhavas, Anubhavas, and Vyabhicaribhavas are combined?
💡 This is Bharata’s Rasa Sutra from the Natyashastra: “Vibhava + Anubhava + Vyabhicaribhava = Rasa.” Abhinavagupta later commented on and expanded Bharata’s theory, but the original formulation belongs to Bharata.
28. “Negative Capability” is a term first used by which English Romantic poet?
💡 Keats coined “Negative Capability” in a letter (December 1817), describing the capacity to remain “in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” — the ideal quality of a poet.
29. In criticism, ………………… is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator.
💡 Catharsis — the purging or clarification of the emotions of pity and fear — is Aristotle’s key explanation of tragedy’s psychological and moral effect on the audience in the Poetics.
30. ………………… is the literal meaning of the word we use in general communication like sharing factual information.
💡 This is from I. A. Richards’ framework (in Practical Criticism): language communicates four things — Sense (literal/factual content), Feeling (emotional attitude), Tone (attitude to the reader), and Intention (the speaker’s purpose).
31. In which essay did T. S. Eliot put forward the idea of “dissociation of sensibility”?
💡 “Dissociation of sensibility” appears in Eliot’s essay “The Metaphysical Poets” (1921), where he argues that after the 17th century, poets lost the ability to feel their thought — thought and feeling became separated.
32. ………………… is an important concept developed by Formalists.
💡 Literariness (literaturnost) — the quality that makes a verbal message a work of art — was the central concern of Russian Formalists like Shklovsky and Jakobson, who sought to define what makes literature literary.
33. What is mimesis?
💡 Mimesis (Greek: μίμησις) means imitation or representation — Aristotle’s central concept in the Poetics, stating that all art (poetry, drama, music) is a form of mimesis of human action and life.
34. What is the main function of literary theory?
💡 Literary theory’s primary function is to systematically examine the relationships between author, text, and reader — providing frameworks and methods for how we interpret, evaluate, and understand literature.
35. Which best describes the difference between literary criticism and literary theory?
💡 The standard distinction: literary theory provides the interpretive frameworks and methods (the “how”), while literary criticism is the practical application of those methods to specific texts.
36. Plato used the word mimesis in relation to literature with the meaning of?
💡 For Plato, mimesis meant representation — but a false, thrice-removed copy of reality (the ideal Form → physical object → artistic representation). He used it negatively to critique poets for deceiving through representation.
37. The most important element of a tragedy, in Aristotle’s view, is:
💡 Aristotle called Plot the “soul of tragedy” (Poetics), ranking it above character because tragedy is primarily an imitation of action — character is secondary and exists to serve the plot’s movement.
38. Who made a difference between “Poetry” and “Poem”?
💡 Coleridge in Biographia Literaria carefully distinguished between “a poem” (a specific composition with metrical form) and “poetry” (a broader mode of imaginative expression that need not be written in verse).
39. Who was the most illustrious disciple of Socrates?
💡 Plato was Socrates’ most famous pupil; he immortalised Socrates’ teachings through his dialogues, including The Republic, which contains the famous critique of poetry and the theory of Forms.
40. How many elements of tragedy does Aristotle lay out in the Poetics?
💡 Aristotle identifies 6 elements of tragedy: Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, and Song (Melody) — ranked in that order of importance, with Plot being the most important and Spectacle the least.
41. The six elements of tragedy are: plot, character, diction, thought, and song. What is the sixth element?
💡 The sixth and final element is Spectacle (opsis) — the visual staging and theatrical effect. Aristotle ranked it last because it depends on the stagecraft rather than the art of the poet, and can be achieved without reading the text.
42. An Appendix on Poetic Diction was added to the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads in which year?
💡 The third edition (1802) of Lyrical Ballads added an important Appendix on Poetic Diction, where Wordsworth further developed his argument against the artificial language used by 18th-century poets.
43. Coleridge’s chief contribution to literary criticism is:
💡 Biographia Literaria (1817) is Coleridge’s masterpiece of criticism, containing his theory of Imagination and Fancy, his critique of Wordsworth’s poetic theory, and his philosophical basis for literary judgment.
44. Dr. Johnson showed his distrust towards:
💡 Johnson was suspicious of purely aesthetic or subjective criteria like “taste” and “beauty,” preferring moral utility, reason, and the test of time as objective standards for literary evaluation.
45. Johnson defended Shakespeare’s use of:
💡 In his Preface to Shakespeare, Johnson defended Shakespeare’s mixing of tragedy and comedy, arguing it was more true to life — real events do not come neatly sorted into tragic or comic categories.
46. Lives of the Poets gives us biographical and critical studies of how many poets?
💡 Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets covers 52 poets, from Cowley to Gray, written between 1779–1781 as prefaces to a multi-volume collection of English poetry.
47. The Essay Supplementary was added to which edition of the Preface?
💡 Wordsworth’s “Essay, Supplementary to the Preface” was added to the 1815 edition of his collected poems, where he also wrote a new preface discussing the classification of his poetry and the nature of poetic imagination.
48. Eliot believed that only a person who believed in the doctrine of ……………… could understand his writings.
💡 Eliot, a devout Anglo-Catholic, stated that belief in Original Sin was essential to understanding his work — his poetry is steeped in Christian theology, the fallen state of humanity, and the need for redemption.
49. Which essay/article by T. S. Eliot is considered the “unofficial manifesto” of his criticism?
💡 “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) is Eliot’s most influential critical manifesto, outlining his theory of impersonality in poetry, the importance of tradition, and the idea of a “simultaneous order” of literature.
50. In the essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot compares the mind of a poet to:
💡 Eliot uses the analogy of platinum as a catalyst in the presence of oxygen and sulphur dioxide — the poet’s mind combines emotions and feelings into new compounds without itself being affected, embodying the theory of poetic impersonality.
51. Eliot was the editor of which journal?
💡 T. S. Eliot founded and edited The Criterion (1922–1939), one of the most influential literary journals of the 20th century; Scrutiny was F. R. Leavis’s journal, not Eliot’s.
52. Richards appreciated Eliot’s The Waste Land for its:
💡 I. A. Richards praised The Waste Land for its “coherence without belief” — he argued Eliot achieved poetic unity through emotional ordering rather than any fixed religious or philosophical doctrine, making it relevant to modern secular readers.
53. The essay “Wanted: An Ontological Critic” was written by:
💡 “Wanted: An Ontological Critic” is by John Crowe Ransom, collected in The New Criticism (1941) — the book that gave the New Criticism movement its name. Ransom argued critics should focus on the “texture” and unique ontological being of a poem.
54. The essay “Hamlet and His Problems” is famous for its concept of:
💡 “Hamlet and His Problems” (1919) is where Eliot introduced the term Objective Correlative — arguing that to express emotion in art, the writer must find “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events” that will evoke exactly that emotion.
55. The founder of the journal Kenyon Review was:
💡 John Crowe Ransom founded the Kenyon Review in 1939 at Kenyon College, Ohio, which became the leading journal of New Criticism and published major critics and poets throughout the mid-20th century.
56. The magazine founded by John Crowe Ransom was:
💡 Ransom founded the Kenyon Review (1939). The Fugitive (1922–25) was a Nashville-based poetry magazine he co-edited along with Allen Tate — but Ransom’s own journal, which he is primarily associated with as founder-editor, is the Kenyon Review.
57. In classical Greek, catharsis meant:
💡 The Greek word katharsis (κάθαρσις) literally means purification or cleansing — in medical usage it referred to a purging of the body; Aristotle borrowed it to describe tragedy’s emotional effect on the audience.
58. Choose the correct comments on Aristotle’s Poetics:
1. Tragedy is addressed to an inferior public
2. Epic is superior to tragedy
3. Tragedy is superior to epic
4. Epic is addressed to a cultivated audience
1. Tragedy is addressed to an inferior public
2. Epic is superior to tragedy
3. Tragedy is superior to epic
4. Epic is addressed to a cultivated audience
💡 Aristotle argues that tragedy is superior to epic (statement 3), and that epic, with its breadth and length, suits a cultivated reading audience (statement 4), while tragedy (being more concentrated and performed) can address a wider, less cultivated public (statement 1).
59. Choose the correct statements about Longinus’ On the Sublime:
1. Longinus believes that in the Odyssey, Homer couldn’t preserve the sustained energy of the Iliad.
2. Throughout the treatise Longinus harshly criticises the prose style of Plato.
3. Longinus regards extreme conciseness as the hallmark of sublimity.
4. According to Longinus, Sappho has exceptional skill in combining striking emotions into a single whole.
1. Longinus believes that in the Odyssey, Homer couldn’t preserve the sustained energy of the Iliad.
2. Throughout the treatise Longinus harshly criticises the prose style of Plato.
3. Longinus regards extreme conciseness as the hallmark of sublimity.
4. According to Longinus, Sappho has exceptional skill in combining striking emotions into a single whole.
💡 Statements 1 and 4 are from Longinus. Longinus actually praises Plato’s style (statement 2 is wrong). He regards both sublimity and compression positively, but does not restrict sublimity exclusively to conciseness — making 1, 3, and 4 the best available option.
60. For S. T. Coleridge, ………………… is “the arbitrary bringing together of things that lie remote and forming them into a unity.”
💡 Coleridge defined Fancy as a mechanical faculty that merely aggregates and associates fixed, “dead” materials — contrasting it with the living, organic, creative power of the Imagination.
61. Who is generally regarded as the “Father of the Alamkara school of Sanskrit poetics”?
💡 Bhamaha (c. 7th century CE), author of Kavyalamkara, is considered the founder of the Alamkara school, which holds that figures of speech (alamkaras) are the defining quality of poetry.
62. Name the author of Essay on Criticism.
💡 Alexander Pope wrote An Essay on Criticism (1711) in heroic couplets when he was just 23 — it lays down Neo-classical rules for good taste and criticism, famously including “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
63. The two great Romantic poets behind the creation of Lyrical Ballads are:
💡 Lyrical Ballads (1798) was jointly published by Wordsworth and Coleridge — Coleridge contributing supernatural poems like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Wordsworth contributing poems of everyday rural life.
64. To Aristotle, “catharsis” means:
💡 Aristotle’s catharsis in the Poetics refers to the purgation (or clarification) of the emotions of pity and fear — tragedy arouses these emotions and then releases/purifies them, leaving the audience with a sense of equilibrium.
65. Hamartia, anagnorisis, and peripeteia are the three key elements in:
💡 These three are Aristotle’s key plot elements: Hamartia (the tragic flaw/error), Anagnorisis (the moment of recognition/discovery), and Peripeteia (the reversal of fortune) — all central to a well-constructed tragic plot.
66. Who proposed the “Touchstone” method for literary evaluation?
💡 Matthew Arnold proposed the Touchstone method in “The Study of Poetry” (1880): hold short passages from the “best” poets (Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton) as touchstones and test other poetry against them to judge its quality.
67. By the term “dissociation of sensibility,” Eliot meant:
💡 Eliot argued that before the 17th century, poets like Donne could “feel their thought” — thought and feeling were unified. After the Civil War, this unity broke down: intellect and emotion became dissociated, a “split” that damaged English poetry.
68. A Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy was written by:
💡 Dryden wrote A Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) as a reply to his brother-in-law Sir Robert Howard, who had attacked the views Dryden expressed in the original Essay.
69. I. A. Richards pioneered the technique called:
💡 I. A. Richards pioneered Practical Criticism at Cambridge — presenting students with unattributed poems and analysing their responses, leading to his influential book Practical Criticism (1929) and the close reading method.
70. “The design of the collaborators was to include in it two different kinds of poetry; in the one ‘the incidents and agents were to be in part at least, Supernatural,’ in the other, ‘subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life’.” Who made this comment and about which book?
💡 This is Coleridge’s account of the division of labour in Lyrical Ballads, written in Biographia Literaria — Coleridge took the supernatural (e.g., “Ancient Mariner”) while Wordsworth took ordinary life, giving each credibility of a “willing suspension of disbelief.”
71. Which Romantic prose writer has been called “the critic’s critic”?
💡 William Hazlitt is called “the critic’s critic” for his incisive, impressionistic style and wide range — his Lectures on the English Poets and The Spirit of the Age are celebrated for their bold, independent judgments.
72. According to Aristotle, which are the objects that tragedy imitates?
💡 Aristotle states that tragedy imitates men in action — the primary objects of imitation are the intellectual and moral dimensions of human agents: what they do (plot/action), what kind of people they are (character), and what they think (thought).
73. “Delight is the chief, if not the only end of Poesy; instruction can be admitted but in the second place; for poesy only instructs as it delights.” According to whom is this the function of poetry?
💡 This is Dryden’s view from his critical prefaces, where he prioritised delight over instruction. Sidney, by contrast, had argued poetry must both “delight and teach” equally — for Dryden, teaching only counts insofar as it is pleasurable.
74. Who defined poetry as “the criticism of life”?
💡 Matthew Arnold defined poetry as “a criticism of life” in “The Study of Poetry” (1880), meaning that great poetry evaluates and reflects on human experience with a moral seriousness and “high seriousness” of purpose.
75. Eliot’s “Objective Correlative” explains how:
💡 Eliot’s Objective Correlative is “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events” that functions as a formula for a particular emotion — when presented in art, it automatically evokes that emotion in the reader without the author stating it directly.
76. “When man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” — give the other term for this quality.
💡 This is Keats’ definition of Negative Capability from his letter to his brothers (December 1817) — the poet’s capacity to hold uncertainties and mysteries without forcing rational resolution, which Keats saw in Shakespeare’s genius.
77. What is the subtitle of Wordsworth’s The Prelude?
💡 The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind (published posthumously in 1850) is Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem tracing how nature and formative experiences shaped his development as a poet.
78. Harold Bloom put forth the theory ………………… based on the Oedipus Complex.
💡 Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1973) argues that poets are haunted by their strong predecessors — like an Oedipal struggle, they must “misread” or swerve away from their poetic fathers to establish their own identity.
79. ………………… might be described as a moral or philosophical critic who argues that works must have “high seriousness.”
💡 Matthew Arnold demanded “high seriousness” — a quality of moral weight and grandeur — as a criterion for great literature, and used it to measure poets like Chaucer and Burns against Homer, Dante, and Milton.
80. Who introduced the term “Objective Correlative” in formalist criticism?
💡 T. S. Eliot introduced “Objective Correlative” in his 1919 essay “Hamlet and His Problems,” arguing that Hamlet fails because Shakespeare could not find an adequate objective correlative for Hamlet’s overwhelming sense of disgust.
81. ………………… is Virginia Woolf’s contribution to feminist criticism.
💡 A Room of One’s Own (1929) is Woolf’s landmark feminist essay arguing that women need financial independence and private space to create literature — it introduced Judith Shakespeare as a symbol of thwarted female genius.
82. In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, whom does John Dryden refer to as “the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had”?
💡 Dryden applied this praise to Ben Jonson, not John Webster — Neander (Dryden’s mouthpiece) honours Jonson for his learning and classical craftsmanship, while praising Shakespeare for natural genius.
83. “Tradition and Individual Talent” is a critical essay by:
💡 “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) by T. S. Eliot, published in The Egoist and later collected in The Sacred Wood, argues that individual poets must surrender their personality to “tradition” — the living presence of the literary past.
84. In whose opinion was Longinus’ “classicism touched with romance”?
💡 Lascelles Abercrombie described Longinus’ approach as “classicism touched with romance,” acknowledging that while Longinus followed classical principles, his emphasis on passion, transport, and emotional ecstasy anticipates Romantic sensibilities.
85. What is the other title given to An Apologie for Poetrie by another publisher?
💡 Sidney’s work was published posthumously in 1595 by two different publishers simultaneously — one titled it An Apologie for Poetrie (Olney) and the other The Defence of Poesie (Ponsonby), which is why it has two titles.
86. Whom has Longinus advised to imitate in poetry?
💡 Longinus urges aspiring writers to emulate the great classical masters — Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides — by asking how these masters would have expressed the same thought, and allowing their greatness to inspire the writer’s own sublimity.
87. The two types of the sublime are:
💡 Longinus distinguishes between true sublimity (arising from greatness of soul, strong emotion, and noble expression) and false sublimity (bombast and mere grandiosity) — the two broad types can be broadly termed excellence and grandeur versus their false imitations.
88. In which work has Dryden made the masterly appreciation of Chaucer?
💡 Dryden’s Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern (1700) contains his celebrated essay comparing Chaucer and Ovid — praising Chaucer as “the father of English poetry” and declaring “here is God’s plenty” about the Canterbury Tales.
89. Which is the perfect modern English play according to Dryden?
💡 In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Neander (Dryden’s voice) analyses Ben Jonson’s The Silent Woman (Epicoene) at length as the most perfect play according to the rules — praising its unified plot, comic action, and classical construction.
