Home » 500+ Literary Criticism MCQs – Part 3: Sidney, Ben Jonson & Dryden

500+ Literary Criticism MCQs – Part 3: Sidney, Ben Jonson & Dryden

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This part covers Sidney’s Apology for Poetry and Gosson’s attack, Ben Jonson, Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, and Rymer and Collier. The questions are drawn from previous UGC NET, SET and PhD entrance papers. Tap an option to check your answer and see the explanation.

Sir Philip Sidney & Stephen GossonBen Jonson & the JacobeansJohn DrydenThomas Rymer & Jeremy Collier

Sir Philip Sidney & Stephen Gosson

1. Philip Sidney wrote An Apology for Poetry in immediate response to:

  1. Plato’s Republic
  2. Aristotle’s Poetics
  3. Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse
  4. Jeremy Collier’s Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
Sidney wrote his Defence of Poesy (c. 1580) as a direct response to Stephen Gosson’s Puritan attack on poetry in The School of Abuse (1579).

2. What term does Philip Sidney use for plays that mingle kings and clowns, and which unity do they violate?

  1. Mongrel tragicomedy; unity of action
  2. Mixed tragedies; unity of action
  3. Multi-plot drama; unity of time
  4. Mingled yarn; unity of place
Sidney calls such plays ‘mongrel tragicomedy’ in his Defence of Poesy, arguing they violate the unity of action by mixing genres.

3. Philip Sidney defended poetry against descriptions of it as “the mother of lies.” His main argument is:

  1. The poet is no conjuror and represents a world
  2. The poet cannot lie because he is not claiming to tell us the truth
  3. The poet cannot speak the truth because he is not representing the real world
  4. The poet is a philosopher for whom truth is a lie in an imaginary world
Sidney’s key defence is that the poet ‘nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth’ — since poetry doesn’t claim to tell literal truth, it cannot lie.

4. In Sidney’s Defence of Poesy, what is the “best and most accomplished kind of poetry”?

  1. Heroical, or epic poetry
  2. Lyric poetry
  3. Pastoral poetry
  4. Elegiac poetry
Sidney ranks heroical or epic poetry as the highest form because it inspires readers to virtuous action through examples of greatness.

5. In Defence of Poesy, what arguments does Sidney make for considering the Biblical Psalms poetry?

I. They are written in meter
II. They originated in Church choirs
III. They were written by a single author
IV. David uses imagery and personification to portray faith

The correct combination is:

  1. II and III
  2. I and III
  3. I and IV
  4. II and IV
Sidney argues the Psalms are poetry because they use meter (I) and employ poetic devices like imagery and personification (IV).

6. As Sidney argues in A Defence of Poesy, which discipline is more useful and praiseworthy — history or poetry?

  1. History “being captivated to truth” is more useful than poetry.
  2. Poetry where man can see “virtue exalted and vice punished” is more useful than history.
  3. History is more useful for poetry is “an encouragement to unbridled wickedness”.
  4. History and poetry are synonymous, and so both are useful.
Sidney argues poetry surpasses history because poetry shows virtue rewarded and vice punished, offering ideal moral examples history cannot guarantee.

7. In the Defence of Poetry, what did Sidney attribute to poetry?

  1. A magical power whereby poetry plays tricks on the reader.
  2. A divine power whereby poetry transmits a message from God to the reader.
  3. A moral power whereby poetry encourages the reader to evaluate virtuous models.
  4. A realistic power that cannot be made to seem like mere illusion and trickery.
Sidney argues poetry has a moral power — it moves readers to virtue by presenting ideal examples that inspire ethical action.

8. In the Defense of Poesy, Sidney says: “Now as in geometry the oblique must be known as well as right…” Which form of poesy offers a foil that helps us perceive the beauty of virtue?

  1. Pastorals
  2. Parody
  3. Comedy
  4. Tragedy
Sidney argues comedy serves as a foil — by showing the ridiculous and foolish, it helps audiences recognise virtue by contrast.

9. In his Defence of Poesy, which works does Sidney commend as good examples of English Poesy?

I. The Mirror of Magistrates
II. The Shepherd’s Calendar
III. Lament for the Makers
IV. Ballad of Scottish King

The correct combination is:

  1. I and III
  2. I and IV
  3. I and II
  4. II and III
Sidney praises The Mirror for Magistrates and Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar as worthy examples amid what he sees as a generally poor English poetic landscape.

10. What does Philip Sidney call poet-haters in his Defence of Poesie?

  1. Misogynists
  2. Misanthropes
  3. Misnomers
  4. Mysomousoi
Sidney coins the Greek term ‘mysomousoi’ (haters of the Muses) for those who attack poetry — a witty classical coinage.

11. What, in sum, is Sidney’s point in: “Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done… Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden”?

  1. Works of art are superior to the natural world they represent
  2. Works of art can often compete with the natural world
  3. Neither the poets nor the natural world equal nature’s rich tapestry
  4. The natural world is far superior to the works of art
Sidney’s central argument is that the poet improves upon nature — creating a ‘golden’ ideal world superior to nature’s imperfect ‘brazen’ reality.

12. Poetry according to Sir Philip Sidney is of three kinds. They are:

  1. Religious, dramatic, romantic
  2. Classical, romantic, neo-classical
  3. Philosophical, imaginative, narrative
  4. Religious, philosophical, imaginative
Sidney divides poetry into three kinds: religious (divine hymns), philosophical (moral/natural philosophy), and imaginative (the ‘right’ poets who create fictional worlds).

13. Defence of Poesie belongs to the genre of:

  1. Drama
  2. Poetry
  3. Criticism
  4. Fiction

14. Some Elizabethan Puritan critics denounced poets as ‘fathers of lies’ and ‘caterpillars of a commonwealth’. Who used these offensive terms?

  1. William Tyndale
  2. Roger Ascham
  3. Stephen Gosson
  4. Henry Howard

15. In whose opinion ‘Sidney wrote not a pedant’s encyclopaedia but a gentleman’s essay’?

  1. Saintsbury
  2. Atkins
  3. Scott James
  4. Dr Johnson

16. What was the chief source of Sidney’s theory?

  1. Plato
  2. Horace
  3. Aristotle
  4. Longinus

17. Sidney has rejected English drama because of:

  1. Pure laughter
  2. Extreme seriousness
  3. Worthlessness
  4. Tragi-comedy
Sidney attacked the English plays of his day for “mingling kings and clowns” in what he called “mongrel tragi-comedy”, and for ignoring the unities.

18. Who is the author of the notorious book entitled The School of Abuse?

  1. Stephen Gosson
  2. John Skelton
  3. Stephen Hawes
  4. Roger Ascham

19. “It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gown maketh an advocate.” Whose view is this?

  1. Sidney
  2. Marlowe
  3. Spenser
  4. Shakespeare

20. What does Sidney say about the observance of the three Dramatic Unities in Drama?

  1. It is not necessary to observe them
  2. He favours the observation
  3. They must be observed
  4. None of these
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.

21. What is the other title given to An Apologie for Poetrie by another publisher?

  1. Poetics
  2. Essay on Criticism
  3. The Defence of Poesie
  4. None of these
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.

22. The following passage is taken from:

The Greeks called him ‘a poet’… It cometh of this word Poiein, which is ‘to make’: wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him ‘a maker’.
  1. Dr Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare
  2. Longinus’ On the Sublime
  3. Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry
  4. Aristotle’s Poetics
Sidney traces the word poet to the Greek poiein, “to make,” to show that the poet is a creator. Unlike nature’s brazen world, the poet delivers a golden one.

23. Who is accused of calling poetry “the mother of lies,” a charge Sidney answers in his Apology?

  1. Aristotle
  2. Stephen Gosson
  3. Alexander Pope
  4. Plato
The Puritan Stephen Gosson attacked poets in The School of Abuse (1579). Sidney answers the charge that poetry is “the mother of lies” by saying the poet “nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth.”

Ben Jonson & the Jacobeans

24. Ben Jonson disliked:

I. Fantastic comedy
II. Wide-ranging chronicle-history and stupendous tragedy
III. The comedies of Terence and Plautus
IV. The ability of satire to expose human vices and follies

The correct combination according to the code is:

  1. I and III are correct
  2. III and IV are correct
  3. I and IV are correct
  4. I and II are correct
Jonson favoured classical comedy and satire (III & IV), but disliked the romantic excess of fantastic comedy and sprawling chronicle plays (I & II).

25. Out of the four humours of the body, the Jacobeans thought of themselves as especially prone to:

  1. Choler
  2. Blood
  3. Phlegm
  4. Melancholy
The Jacobean era was characterised by a fascination with melancholy — seen in works like Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and Webster’s dark tragedies.

26. What does Ben Jonson mean by a ‘Humorous’ character?

  1. A character who is always cheerful and gay
  2. A character who is by nature melancholy
  3. A character whose temper is determined by one of the four liquids in the human body
  4. An eccentric person

John Dryden

27. One of the most important themes debated in Dryden’s An Essay on Dramatic Poesy is:

  1. European and non-European perceptions of reality
  2. English and non-English perceptions of reality
  3. The relative merits of French and English theatre
  4. The relative merits of French and English poetry
The four speakers in the Essay mainly debate the relative merits of French neoclassical theatre versus English dramatic tradition.

28. In John Dryden’s Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Neander defends the English invention of:

  1. Romantic comedy
  2. Action tragedy
  3. Tragi-comedy
  4. Morality plays
Neander (who represents Dryden himself) champions tragi-comedy as a uniquely English contribution to dramatic form.

29. In 1668, Dryden wrote Of Dramatic Poesie: An Essay which uses _____ separate characters to dramatise conflicting viewpoints.

  1. Three
  2. Two
  3. Four
  4. Six
Dryden’s Essay uses four characters — Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander — to represent different critical positions.

30. In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, to whom does Dryden refer with the phrase “he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature”?

  1. Ben Jonson
  2. Ovid
  3. William Shakespeare
  4. Geoffrey Chaucer
Dryden uses this phrase to praise Shakespeare’s natural genius — he could read nature directly without needing bookish learning.

31. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), who opens the discussion on behalf of the ancients?

  1. Lisideius
  2. Crites
  3. Eugenius
  4. Neander
Crites speaks first in favour of the ancients, arguing their dramatic rules are superior to modern practice.

32. In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, whom does Dryden refer to as “the most learned and judicious Writer which any Theatre ever had”?

  1. John Webster
  2. Christopher Marlowe
  3. Ben Jonson
  4. William Shakespeare
Dryden praises Ben Jonson as the most learned dramatist, contrasting Jonson’s classical scholarship with Shakespeare’s natural genius.

33. 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?

  1. Lisideus
  2. Crites
  3. Neander
  4. Eugenius

34. The Essay in which Dryden has compared Horace, Juvenal and Persius is:

  1. Essay on Influence
  2. Essay on Criticism
  3. Essay on Ancients
  4. Essay on Satire

35. Neander in Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesie speaks for:

  1. Classical drama
  2. Modern drama
  3. French Neo-classical drama
  4. British drama

36. In whose opinion is Dryden ‘the first Englishman to attempt any extended descriptive criticism’?

  1. Saintsbury
  2. Dr Johnson
  3. Watson
  4. Pope

37. What great achievement is reflected in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy?

  1. Freedom from classical rules
  2. Preference to imagination
  3. Observing romanticism
  4. Teaching the people

38. The central theme of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy is:

  1. Justification of English Drama
  2. Rejection of the French Drama
  3. Rejecting Aristotle
  4. Praising Chaucer

39. Dryden wrote An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. What is the form of this work?

  1. A poetical work
  2. An interlocution (dialogue)
  3. A drama
  4. A formal essay
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.

40. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, which of the four interlocutors expresses Dryden’s own views?

  1. Lisideius
  2. Eugenius
  3. Crites
  4. Neander
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.

41. Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is a work of which type of criticism?

  1. Interpretative Criticism
  2. Legislative Criticism
  3. Comparative Criticism
  4. Textual 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.

42. Who called Dryden “the Father of English Criticism”?

  1. Dr. Johnson
  2. Coleridge
  3. Matthew Arnold
  4. Joseph Addison
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.

43. A Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy was written by:

  1. Philip Sidney
  2. John Milton
  3. John Dryden
  4. Samuel Butler
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.

44. “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?

  1. Philip Sidney
  2. John Dryden
  3. Joseph Addison
  4. Dr. Johnson
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.

45. In which work has Dryden made the masterly appreciation of Chaucer?

  1. The Spanish Friar
  2. Preface of the Fables
  3. The Essay on Satire
  4. Essay on Dramatic Poesy
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.

46. Which is the perfect modern English play according to Dryden?

  1. The Silent Woman
  2. Duchess of Malfi
  3. Macbeth
  4. Volpone
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.

47. According to Lisideius in Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, the French use rhyme in place of:

  1. Prose
  2. Song
  3. Dialogue
  4. Blank verse
Lisideius praises French drama, which is composed in rhymed verse where English dramatists mostly use blank verse. Neander (Dryden’s voice) later takes up the question of rhyme in serious plays.

48. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, a play is defined as “a just and lively image of ______.”

  1. Human nature
  2. Life
  3. Natural scenes
  4. Action of man
Lisideius defines a play as “a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject.” Its end is the delight and instruction of mankind.

49. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, French drama is preferred by:

  1. Neander
  2. Crites
  3. Lisideius
  4. Eugenius
Lisideius champions the French for their regularity and strict observance of the unities. Crites defends the Ancients, Eugenius the Moderns, and Neander English drama.

50. About whom does Dryden remark, “I admire him, but I love Shakespeare”?

  1. Ben Jonson
  2. Homer
  3. Chaucer
  4. John Fletcher
In the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Neander compares Jonson, the correct and learned “Virgil” of English drama, with Shakespeare, its “Homer.” He admires Jonson’s art but loves Shakespeare’s natural genius.

51. In Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, who is meant in the remark “if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind”?

  1. Seneca
  2. Chaucer
  3. Horace
  4. Aristotle
Neander argues that Aristotle’s rules were drawn from Greek plays only. Had Aristotle seen English drama, he might have changed his mind about those rules.

52. Which English dramatic form is most objected to by Lisideius?

  1. Tragi-comedy
  2. Comedy of humours
  3. Revenge tragedy
  4. Farce
Lisideius condemns English tragi-comedy for mixing mirth and sorrow in one play. In his view this breaks unity of action and spoils both effects.

53. According to Lisideius, the greatest weakness of English drama is its violation of:

  1. Real character
  2. Poetic diction
  3. Historical truth
  4. The three unities
Lisideius praises the French for observing the unities of time, place and action. He faults the English for crowding their plays with many plots and long time spans.

Thomas Rymer & Jeremy Collier

54. Jeremy Collier’s Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) attacked:

  1. The practice of mixing tragic and comic themes in Shakespeare’s plays
  2. The bawdiness of ‘low’ characters in Shakespeare’s plays
  3. The coarseness and ugliness of Restoration Theatre
  4. Irreligious themes in plays of the seventeenth century
Collier attacked the moral coarseness and indecency he saw in Restoration drama, not Shakespeare or earlier theatre.

55. In his attack on the theatre, Jeremy Collier specially arraigned:

  1. Congreve and Vanbrugh
  2. Farquhar and Vanbrugh
  3. Wycherley and Farquhar
  4. Congreve and Etherege
Collier singled out William Congreve and John Vanbrugh as the chief offenders among Restoration dramatists.

56. The term ‘poetic justice’ was coined by:

  1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  2. Thomas Rymer
  3. Samuel Johnson
  4. William Wordsworth
Thomas Rymer coined ‘poetic justice’ in The Tragedies of the Last Age (1678) to argue that virtue should be rewarded and vice punished in drama.

57. Who among the following was Dryden’s contemporary?

  1. Sir Philip Sidney
  2. Thomas Rymer
  3. Alexander Pope
  4. Ben Jonson
Thomas Rymer (1643–1713), who coined “poetic justice,” wrote criticism in the Restoration alongside Dryden. Sidney died in 1586, Jonson in 1637, and Pope’s career began after Dryden’s death in 1700.
← Part 2Horace & LonginusPart 4 →Pope, Addison & Dr Johnson
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