British Poetry – (Previous Year Questions NET | GATE)

This work was a satire in Ottava rima, attacking George III and Robert Southey.
Identify the poem :
(A) Dunciad
(B) The Vision of Judgment
(C) Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
(D) Alastor
Ans: (B)

Which of the following author-book pair is correctly matched ?
(A) Hard Times – George Eliot
(B) Heroes and Hero Worship – Walter Patar
(C) Sourab and Rustom – Matthew Arnold
(D) Ethics of the Dust- Macaulay
Ans: (C)

What did Thomas Perey collect in his Reliques ?
(A) Medieval Folklore and lyrics of the Midlands
(B) Old songs, ballads, and romances in English and Scots
(C) Highland lore, mostly oral wisdom of the Scots
(D) Romantic idylls. sonnets and odes
Ans: (B)

Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” is addressed to
(A) The American imperial mission in the Philippines.
(B) The Belgian colonial expansion in the Congo.
(C) The British Imperial presence in Nigeria.
(D) The British colonial entry into Afghanistan.
Ans: (A)

In which of the following poems does Tennyson describe and condemn the spirit of aestheticism whose sole religion is the worship of beauty and of knowledge for their own sake and which ignores human responsibility and obligations of one’s fellowmen?
(A) “The Princess”
(B) “The Lady of Shalott”
(C) “The Palace of Art”
(D) “Tithonus”
Ans: (C)

“Tottel’s Miscellany” contained :
(A) 30 sonnets
(B) 54 sonnets
(C) 50 sonnets
(D) 60 sonnets
Ans: (B)

Who among the following Victorian poets is the most sensitive to the conflict between the old and the new ?
(A) Tennyson
(B) Rossetti
(C) Browning
(D) Swinburne
Ans: (A)

‘Rugby Chapel’ is a poem by Matthew Arnold in the memory of his :
(A) mother
(B) brother
(C) father
(D) sister
Ans: (C)

The lines ”Not that he wished is greatness to create / For politicians neither love nor hate,” occur in :
(A) The Rape of the Lock
(B) Abslam and Achitophel
(C) Mac Flecknoe
(D) Essay on man
Ans: (B)

Which of the following author-book pair is correctly matched ?
(A) Walter Pater – Unto This Last
(B) Browning – The Ring and the Book
(C) M. Arnold – Idylls of the King
(D) Thackray – Bleak House
Ans: (B)

An Idyll is usually a poem about a :
(A) picturesque city life
(B) panoramic view of nature
(C) picture of industrial society
(D) picturesque country life
Ans: (D)

“The shrill, demented choirs of waiting shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires.” These lines are from Wilfred Owen’s :
(A) “Strange Meeting”
(B) “Futility”
(C) “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
(D) “Duke et Decorum Est”
Ans: (C)

Seamus Heaney’s famous poem “Digging” forms a part of his celebrated collection called
(A) North
(B) Death of a Naturalist
(C) Field Work
(D) Door into the Dark
Ans: (B)

“You do not dwell in me nor I in you however much I pander to your name” These lines from Geoffrey Hill’s “Lachrimae” address
(A) Christ
(B) The Devil
(C) The poet’s beloved
(D) The poet’s enemy
Ans: (A)

Joseph Addison called him “The Miracle of the present age” and Alexander Pope wrote the epitaph for the monument erected in his memory. Who is he ?
(A) John Locke
(B) Isaac Newton
(C) Ashley Cooper
(D) Christopher Wren
Ans: (B)

Match the titles of the books with their authors :
i. Psychology and Art Today
ii. Revolution in Writing
iii. The Coming Struggle for Power
iv. Arrow in the Blue

1. John Strachey
2. W.H. Auden
3. C. Day Lewis
4. Arthur Koestler

Codes :
i ii iii iv
(A) 3 1 2 4
(B) 4 2 3 1
(C) 2 3 1 4
(D) 1 2 4 3
Ans: (C)

Match the titles of the following poems by Tennyson with their opening lines according to the code given below :
(Titles of poems)
i. “Tithonus”
ii. “The Lotos- Eaters”
iii. ‘Ulysses’
iv. ‘The Lady of Shalott’
(Opening Lines)
1. “‘Courage’ he said, and pointed towards the land. The mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
2. “The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground.”
3. “On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye.”
4. “It little profists that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race.”
Codes :
i ii iii iv
(A) 2 1 4 3
(B) 3 2 1 4
(C) 4 3 2 1
(D) 2 4 3 1
Ans: (A)

Why are Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets called “From Sonnets from the Portuguese” ?
(A) She wrote the whole in Portugal
(B) The sonnets were translated from Portuguese.
(C) She presented it under the guise of a translation from the Portuguese language.
(D) The sonnets were narrated by a Portuguese.
Ans: (C)

“She had _______ lilies in her hand And the stars in her hair were ______.” (Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel”)
(A) 7 and 3
(B) 3 and 7
(C) 6 and 4
(D) 4 and 6
Ans: (B)

Identify the poet in whose verse rural Ulster figures prominently
(A) Tony Harrison
(B) Ted Hughes
(C) Seamus Heaney
(D) Louis MacNeice
Ans: (C)

Fill in the blanks with a suitable word from the list below :
In his fiction, Ian McEwan more than often suggests the _________ of love
(A) Fragility
(B) Madness
(C) Completeness
(D) Security
Ans: (A)

Dylan Thomas’s famous poem “Fern Hill,” is named after .
(A) a countryside in Austria to which he paid occasional visits.
(B) a childhood haunt of the poet’s family in Devonshire.
(C) the Welsh farmhouse where the poet spent summer holidays as a boy
(D) the Welsh Anglican church to which the young poet used to be taken by his mother.
Ans: (C)

Which of the following is described by Robert Browning as A Child’s Story?
(A) Bells and Pomegranates
(B) Pauline
(C) Fifine at the Fair
(D) The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Ans: (D)

Which of the following statements on Hudibras are true ?
(a) It is a novel written by Matthew Prior.
(h) It is a satirical poem published in 3 parts.
(c) Hudibras was written by Samuel Butler.
(d) Hudibras discusses complex issues of justice, politics and religion.
(A) (c) and (d) are true
(B) (a) and (d) are true
(C) (b) and (c) are true
(D) (a) and (b) are true
Ans: (C)

There is a large number of religious poems in Old English Poetry. One of the finest is the Dream of the Rood. The words Rood in the title means :
(A) the Cross
(B) the Christian
(C) the Infidel
(D) the Cardinal
Ans: (A)

William Dunbar’s Lament for the makers is about :
(A) kings
(B) priests
(C) poets
(D) peasants
Ans: (C)

So when the last and dreadful hour, This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And music shall untune the sky. These are the closing lines of a famous poem. Identify the poem.
(A) Il penseroso
(B) Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
(C) The Good -Morrow
(D) Song : The Year’s at the Spring.
Ans: (B)

This eighteenth-century English poem imitates spenser in stanza form and in allegorical narrative: passers -by are lured by an enchanter with promises of ease, luxury, and aesthetic delight, then consigned to a dungeon where they languish in apathy and impotence until the Knight of Arts and Industry dissolves the spell. Identify the poem.
(A) The Vanity of Human Wishes
(B) The Seasons
(C) The Castle of Indolence
(D) The Task
Ans: (C)

Identify the title of A.D. Hope’s first published book of poems.
(A) Native Companions
(B) The Wandering Islands
(C) A Midsummer Eve’s Dream
(D) The Cave and the Spring
Ans: (B)

This poet was accidently killed in Burma by a pistol shot in 1944. His posthumously published collection of poems Ha ! Ha ! Among the Trumpets is divided into three sections.
The first section describes a tense, waiting England and the second the voyage to the East. In the third section he uncomfortably comes to terms with the alien contours, the harsh light and the dry wastes of India as evident in poems like “The Maratta Ghats”, “Indian Day” and “Observation Post : Forward Area”. Who is the poet?
(A) Keith Douglas
(B) Sidney Keyes
(C) David Gascoyne
(D) Alun Lewis
Ans: (D)

Which writer of the Romantic period makes the following comment : “The poet is far from dealing only with these subtle and analogical truths. Truth of every kind belongs to him, provided it can bud into any kind of beauty, or is capable of being illustrated and impressed by poetic faculty”?
(A) Wordsworth in Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
(B) William Hazlitt in “On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth”
(C) Leigh Hunt in What is Poetry?
(D) Keats in one of his letters to his brother
Ans: (C)

Match the lines with the titles of the poems :
Lines
I. The boa-constrictor’s coil/ Is a fossil
II. My manners are tearing off heads /The allotment of death
III. More coiled steel than living
IV. Time in the sea eats its tail
Titles of the poems
A. “Thrushes”
B. “The Jaguar”
C. “Relic”
D. “Hawk Roosting”
Codes :
I II III IV
(a) A D A C
(b) B D A C
(c) C D B A
(d) D B C A
Ans: (B)

John Dryden’s two philosophico-religious poems are
I. Absalom and Achitophel
II. A Layman’s Faith
III. Annus Mirabilis
IV. The Hind and the Panther
The right combination according to the code is
(A) I and II
(B) III and I
(C) II and III
(D) II and IV
Ans: (D) 

Who among the following prose writers of the Romantic period authored “On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts”?

(A) Charles Lamb

(B) Walter Savage Lander

(C) Thomas De Quincey

(D) Anne Radcliffe

Ans: (C)

Give Below are two statements one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R)

Assertion (A): Many modern British writers infused their works with an entrance sense of uncertainty, disillusionment and despair.

Reasons (R): The Waste Land ends in a flurry of random allusions.

In the light of the above two statements, choose the correct option:

a) Both (A) and (R) are true and is the correct explanation of (A)

b) Both (A) and (R) true and is not the correct explanation of (A)

c) (A) is true, but is (R) false

d) (A) is false, but is (R) true

Ans: (b)

This Byron work revolves around a wife whose husband is presumed lost at sea and she takes a lover in his absence. Everybody behaves agreeably on the husband’s return. Byron’s technical skills in verse is in display here as the work counterpoints the colloquial and the formal. Identify the work :
(A) Manfred
(B) Don Juan
(C) Beppo
(D) The Bride of Abydos
Ans: (C)

Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, a rare blend of allegory and fairytale world presents the story of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie. Which of the following is NOT true about the enchanted world that the poem unravels ?
(A) Laura buys fruits from the goblins in exchange of her “golden lock” of hair and a “tear more rare than pearl”
(B) Jeanie, a girl who ate the goblins’ fruits, “pined away” and “sought them by night and day”
(C) Laura, who goes to the market again, does not see the goblins but hears only “their shrill cry piercing the air”
(D) Laura’s hair “grew thin and grey” and she wanes like the full moon to “swift decay”
Ans: (C)

Which of the following landscapes of England figures prominently in the poetry of Ted Hughes ?
(A) Cornish cliffs
(B) Dorset moors
(C) Yorkshire moors
(D) Chesil Beach
Ans: (C)

What work begins thus : “It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all England, and so reigned, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long time” ?
(A) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(B) Le Morte D’arthur
(C) Confessio Amantis
(D) Piers Plowman
Ans: (B)

Which Victorian poet is the author of the following lines ?
“God himself is the best Poet,
And the Real is His song.”
(A) Lord Tennyson
(B) Robert Browning
(C) Matthew Arnold
(D) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Ans: (D)

William Blake has a rare elan to provide telling images in arresting phrases. Match the phrases with the poems they belong to :
(a) “mind forg’d manacles”
(b) “eternal winter”
(c) “fearful symmetry”
(d) “crimson joy”
(i) “The Tyger”
(ii) “The Sick Rose”
(iii) “London”
(iv) “Holy Thursday”
Code :
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(A) (ii) (iv) (i) (iii)
(B) (iii) (i) (iv) (ii)
(C) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
(D) (iv) (i) (ii) (iii)
Ans: (C)

In the debate between the two birds in the Middle English poem The Owl and the Nightingale
who acts as the arbiter?
(A) Master Henry of Shrewsbury
(B) Master William of Hereford
(C) Master Freeman of Stamford
(D) Master Nicholas of Guildford
Ans: (D)

Which of the following is an elegy on John Donne’s wife, who died in 1617 ?
(A) “Death, be not proud”
(B) “Thou hast made me”
(C) “Holy Sonnet 17”
(D) “At the round earth’s imagined corners”
Ans: (C)

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese is
I. a sequence of forty four Petrarchan sonnets.
II. a rewriting of Popean didactic verse.
III. a depiction of a contemporary setting and small events of ordinary life.
IV. a scathing criticism of the British colonial enterprise.
The right combination according to the code is
(A) I and II
(B) I and III
(C) II and IV
(D) I and IV
Ans: (B)

Who among the following contemporaries of John Donne wrote the following lines on his death : “Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fit/The universal monarch of wit”?
(A) George Herbert
(B) Henry King
(C) Thomas Carew
(D) Henry Crashaw
Ans: (C)

“Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness…”
In these lines from “Ulysses”, what does Ulysses suggest about Telemachus?
(A) He shows heroic qualities.
(B) He is patient and selfless.
(C) He is very much like his father.
(D) He may be too tender-hearted to be king.
Ans: (B)

Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander can be classified as a/an
(A) complaint
(B) stichomythia
(C) epyllion
(D) pasturelle
Ans: (C)

Elizabeth Bishop’s poems are best remembered for their
(A) conversational intimacy
(B) intellectual tenor
(C) astringent satire
(D) urban topography
Ans: (A)

In “My Last Duchess” which of the following is not one of the Duchess’s isdemeanours, according to the Duke?
(A) She was flattered by compliments from Fra Pandolf.
(B) She enjoyed the sunset as much as she enjoyed her husband’s favour.
(C) She wouldn’t listen to her husband when he tried to correct her behaviour.
(D) She was equally grateful for all acts of kindness, regardless of their source.
Ans: (C)

Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” in his first volume of poetry, Death of a Naturalist, illustrates all the following EXCEPT
(A) his preoccupation with his roots
(B) his obsession with Irish legend and folklore
(C) his respect for the natural world of the farming community and the labour of his ancestors
(D) his displaced vocation of digging with a pen
Ans: (B)

 In Langlands’ Piers the Plowman, Piers appears finally as :
(A) Charity
(B) The Holy Trinity
(C) Jesus
(D) The Good Samaritan
Ans: (C)

‘Hymn To Adversity’ is a poem by :
(A) Thomas Gray
(B) Edward Gibbon
(C) Alexander Pope
(D) William Blake
Ans: (A)

Which of the following is not a Browning’s work ?
(A) Dramatic Lyrics Men and Women
(B) Dramatic Personae
(C) Men and Women
(D) The Palace of Art
Ans: (D)

“Fail I alone in words and deeds ?/Why, all men strive and who succeeds ?” These lines are from
(A) “Rabbi Ben Ezra”
(B) “Fra Lippo Lippi”
(C) “Caliban upon Setebos”
(D) “The Last Ride Together”
Ans: (D)

 The Temple is a collection of poems by
(A) Thomas Carew
(B) Robert Herrick
(C) George Herbert
(D) Richard Crashaw
Ans: (C)

’I am the enemy you killed, my friend/I knew you in this dark…’ The above lines are taken from…
(A) “The Soldier”
(B) “Dulce et Decorum Est”
(C) “To His Dead Body”
(D) “Strange Meeting”
Ans: (D)

“Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide”. The above lines appear in…
(A) Mac Flecknoe
(B) Absalom and Achitophel
(C) Essay on man
(D) Alexander’s Feast
Ans: (B)

Verses on the Death of Dr Swift was written by…
(A) Jonathan Swift
(B) Alexander Pope
(C) Samuel Johnson
(D) James Boswell
Ans: (A)

Which of the following is NOT the opening of the well-known Romantic poem?
(A) My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense
(B) Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
(C) Margaret, are you grieving/Over Golden grove unleaving?
(D) The world is too much with us
Ans: (C)

Although Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney writes in English, in voice and subject matter, his poems are
(A) Welsh
(B) Scottish
(C) Irish
(D) Polish
Ans: (C)

Langland’s Piers Plowman is a satire on
(A) aristocracy
(B) chivalry
(C) peasantry
(D) clergy
Ans: (D)

Who of the following is the author of Juno and the Paycock ?
(A) Lady Gregory
(B) W.B. Yeats
(C) Oscar Wilde
(D) Sean O’Casey
Ans: (D)

“Recessional : A Victorian Ode”, Kipling’s well-known poem,
I. laments the end of an Era
II. marks a new commitment to scientific knowledge
III. expresses the sincerity of his religious devotion
IV. was occasioned by Queen Victoria’s 1897 Jubilee Celebration

The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) I, II and III are correct.
(B) III and IV are correct.
(C) I and IV are correct.
(D) I, III and IV are correct.
Ans: (B)

Byron’s English Bards and Scottish Reviewers is about
I. the survey of English poetry
II. evangelism in English poetry
III. contemporary literary scene
IV. the early English travelers

The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) III and IV are correct.
(B) II, III and IV are correct.
(C) I and II are correct.
(D) I and III are correct.
Ans: (D)

The famous line “……. where ignorant armies clash by night” is taken from a poem by
(A) Wilfred Owen
(B) W.H. Auden
(C) Siegfried Sassoon
(D) Matthew Arnold
Ans: (D)

The verse form of Byron’s Childe Harold was influenced by
(A) Milton
(B) Spenser
(C) Shakespeare
(D) Pope
Ans: (B)

Tennyson’s Ulysses is
(I) a poem expressing the need for going forward and braving the struggles of life
(II) a dramatic monologue
(III) a morbid poem
(IV) a poem making extensive use of satire

The right combination for the above statement, according to the code, is
(A) I & IV
(B) II and III
(C) III and IV
(D) I and II
Ans: (D)

Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery is written by
(A) William Wordsworth
(B) Robert Southey
(C) John Clare
(D) Thomas Gray
Ans: (C)

“All great literature is, at bottom, a criticism of life” – this statement is attributed to
(A) Thomas Carlyle
(B) Matthew Arnold
(C) J.S. Mill
(D) John Ruskin
Ans: (B)

Identify the author of the following lines :
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
(A) Shakespeare
(B) George Herbert
(C) John Donne
(D) Henry Vaughan
Ans: (C)

The plan of Arthurian stories has influenced the composition of Tennyson’s
(A) In Memoriam
(B) Idylls
(C) Maud
(D) Locksley Hall
Ans: (B)

 “The City of Dreadful Night”, a long poem depicting the late Victorian sense of gloom and despondency, is written by
(A) Matthew Arnold
(B) Robert Browning
(C) James Thomson
(D) John Davidson
Ans: (C)

Which of the following Tennyson poems is a dramatic monologue ?
(A) In Memoriam
(B) “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
(C) “Crossing the Bar”
(D) “Tithonus”
Ans: (D)

“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” is written by
(A) Alexander Pope
(B) Samuel Johnson
(C) John Gay
(D) Jonathan Swift
Ans: (D)

MacFlecknoe is an attack on Dryden’s literary rival,
(A) Richard Flecknoe
(B) Thomas Shadwell
(C) John Wilmot
(D) Matthew Prior
Ans: (B)

Eighteenth century writers used satire frequently for
(A) attacking human vices and follies.
(B) inciting the reading public.
(C) glorifying the culture of the upper classes.
(D) pleasing their women readers.
Ans: (A)

Byron’s “The Vision of Judgement” is a satire directed against
(A) Charles Lamb
(B) John Keats
(C) Henry Hallam
(D) Robert Southey
Ans: (D)

Andrew Marvell’s “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” was written in
(A) 1647
(B) 1649
(C) 1650
(D) 1648
Ans: (C) 

 “To Daffodils” is a poem, written by
(A) Robert Herrick
(B) William Wordsworth
(C) John Keats
(D) P.B. Shelley
Ans: (A)

“England, my England” is a poem by
(A) W.E. Henley
(B) A.E. Housman
(C) R.L. Stevenson
(D) Rudyard Kipling
Ans: (A)

During the Raj, the British viewed their rule in terms of a thankless duty to uplift the downtrodden and inculcate order into Oriental minds. The mission to civilize the “ silent, sullen peoples” of the east was a burden imposed upon them by destiny.
The last observation is a fairly obvious allusion to
(A) J.R. Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal
(B) Flora Annie Steel’s “The Garden of Fidelity
(C) Maud Diver’s the Englishwoman in India
(D) Rudyard Kipling’s “the White Man’s Burden”
Ans: (D)

In an ode, William Collins lamented the passing of a contemporary poet. The ode began with the line: “In yonder grave a Druid lies.” Name the poet whose passing Collins Laments.
(A) James Thomson
(B) William Cowper
(C) Alexander Pope
(D) Thomas Gray
Ans: (A)

______was the first Sonnet Sequence in English.
(A) Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti
(B) Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella
(C) Samuel Daniel’s Delia
(D) Michael Drayton’s Idea’s Mirror
Ans: (B)

The works of Gerard Manley Hopkins were published posthumously by
(A) Edwin Muir
(B) Edward Thomas
(C) Robert Bridges
(D) Coventry Patmore
Ans: (C)

John Dryden’s Absalom and Achotophel a
(A) religious tract
(B) political allegory
(C) comic verse epic
(D) comedy
Ans: (B)

Name the poet who chooses his successor and the successor-poet whom Dryden satirises in his famous poem.
(A) James Shirley and Chris Shirley
(B) Henry Treece and Charles Triesten
(C) Richard Flecknoe and Thomas Shadwell
(D) Thomas Percy and Samuel Pepys
Ans: (C)

Thomas Love Peacock classified poetry into 4 periods. They are:
(A) carbon, gold, silver and brass
(B) brass, silver, gold and diamond
(C) iron, gold, silver and brass
(D) gold, platinum, silver and diamond
Ans: (C)

In poems like “The Altar” and “Easter Wings” ________ exploits _______.
(A) John Donne, alliteration
(B) Robert Herrick, trimetre
(C) G.M. Hopkins, sprung rhythm
(D) George Herbert, typographic space
Ans: (D)

No, no thou hast not felt the lapse of hours!
For what wears out the life of mortal men?
‘Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls
And numb the elastic powers …
Who does the poet address here?
(A) The Scholar Gipsy
(B) Telemachus
(C) The Nightingale
(D) The Poet’s Sister, Dorothy
Ans: (A)

G.M. Hopkins’s “Windhover” is dedicated:
(A) To Christ, our Lord
(B) To Christ our lord
(C) To no one
(D) To Christ, the Lord
Answer: (A and B)

Match List – I with List – II according to the code given below:
List – I (Authors)
i. Ted Hughes
ii. Seamus Heaney
iii. W.H. Auden
iv. D.H. Lawrence
List – II (Poems)
1. “The Otter”
2. “Snake”
3. “Ghost Crabs”
4. “Prevent the Dog from Barking with a Juicy Bone.”
Codes:
i ii iii iv
(A) 1 2 4 3
(B) 2 3 1 4
(C) 3 1 4 2
(D) 3 2 1 4
Ans: (C)

His cooks with long disuse their trade forgot;
Cool was his kitchen, though his brains were hot.
Who is this character whose stinginess passed into a proverb?
(A) Corah
(B) Shimei
(C) Zimri
(D) Achitophel
Ans: (B)

Which of the following poems by Tennyson does NOT speak of old age and death?
(A) “The Beggar Maid”
(B) “The Lotus-Eaters”
(C) “Ulysses”
(D) “Tithonus”
Ans: (A)

You will find the following lines in an English poem:
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the side
Of Humber would complain.
Which poem? Who is the poet?
(A) “Lonely Hearts.” Wendy Cope
(B) “Holy Thursday.” William Blake
(C) “Tiger Mask Ritual.” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
(D) “To His Coy Mistress.” Andrew Marvell
Ans: (D)

In Sydney’s sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, the final sonnet (#108)
(A) Brings no resolution
(B) Ends in joy
(C) Brings a definite resolution
(D) Promises another sonnet sequence
Ans: (A)

Who among the following is a working-class poet ?
(A) John Betjeman
(B) Tony Harrison
(C) Thom Gunn
(D) Robert Graves
Ans: (B)

Identify Petrarch’s sonnet sequence from among the following :
(A) Rine Sparse
(B) Astrophel and Stella
(C) Amoretti
(D) Delia
Ans: (A)

The following are two lists of lines from poems and their titles. Match them:
(Lines from poems)
I. “The squat pen rests as snug as a gun.”
II. “A serious house on serious earth it is.”
III. “Time held me green and dying.”
IV. “I hold creation in my foot.”
(Titles of poems)
1. “Church Going”
2. “Hawk- Roosting”
3. “Digging”
4. “Fern Hill”
Which is the correct combination according to the above code?
I II III IV
(A) 4 1 2 3
(B) 2 3 4 1
(C) 1 2 3 4
(D) 3 1 4 2
Ans: (D)

“Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime … But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” Andrew Marvell in these lines emphasizes the theme of
(A) Love
(B) Love and transience
(C) Love and political passion
(D) Love and flattery
Ans: (B)

Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey jointly brought out Tottel’s Miscellany during the Renaissance.
Identify the name of the Earl of Surrey from the following:
(A) Thomas Lodge
(B) Thomas Nashe
(C) Thomas Sackville
(D) Henry Howard
Ans: (D)

Who is the twentieth century poet, a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature who rejected the label “British” though he has always written in English rather than his regional language?
(A) Douglas Dunn
(B) Seamus Heaney
(C) Geoffrey Hill
(D) Philip Larkin
Ans: (B)

The Hind and the Panther Transvers’d to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse is a satire on
(A) Alexander Pope
(B) Jonathan Swift
(C) John Dryden
(D) Samuel Butler
Ans: (C)

Who among the following wrote a poem comparing a lover’s heart to a hand grenade?
(A) John Donne
(B) Abraham Cowley
(C) Wilfred Owen
(D) Robert Graves
Ans: (B)

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” is from ________.
(A) “Morte d’Arthur”
(B) “Idylls of the King”
(C) “Paracelsus”
(D) “Asolando”
Ans: (B)

Which of the following facts is NOT true of Spenser ?
(A) He is a kind of English Homer, telling stories of heroic confrontations.
(B) He fashioned an original verse form : The Spenserian Stanza.
(C) He opposed England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church.
(D) He is a Christian poet.
Ans: (C)

“And if no peece of chronicle we prove,
We’ll build in ………….. pretty roomes.”
(A) lyrics
(B) epics
(C) sonnets
(D) stanzas
Ans: (C)

 “Where ignorance is Bliss Tis folly to be wise.” Who wrote the following lines?
(A) Pope
(B) Gray
(C) Collins
(D) Southey
Ans: (B)

Which of the following is true?
(A) ‘Aurora Leigh’ is a poem in nine books
(B) ‘Aurora Leigh’ is a collection of sonnets from the Portuguese
(C) ‘Aurora Leigh’ is a nursery rhyme book
(D) ‘Aurora Leigh’ is “the Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry”
Ans: (A)

“The old order changeth yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many way.”
In which of the following poems do these lines appear?
(A) ‘Locksley Hall’
(B) ‘Two Voices
(C) ‘Morte d’Arthur’
(D) ‘Ulysses’
Ans: (C)

Which of these is NOT a pastoral elegy?
(A) Lycidas
(B) In Memoriam
(C) Thyrsis
(D) Adonais
Ans: (B)

Match the columns:
(Author)
(a) Sebastian Faulks
(b) Peter Ackroyd
(c) Tan McEwan
(d) David Lodge
(Text)
(i) Amsterdam
(ii) Changing Places
(iii) Hawksmoor
(iv) Birdsong
Codes:
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(A) (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
(B) (ii) (iii) (i) (iv)
(C) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(D) (iii) (iv) (ii) (i)
Ans: (C)

Who among the war Poets gained notoriety in 1917, when disenchanted with the way the war was being conducted he drafted his letter of “wilful defiance of the military authority” which captured attention in the House of Commons, and was forcibly admitted to the war hospital at Craiglockhart, primarily to avoid his being court-martialled?
(A) Rupert Brooke
(B) Siegfried Sassoon
(C) Wilfred Owen
(D) Isaac Rosenberg
Ans: (B)

…………… may be defined as any departure from the rules of pronunciation or diction, for the sake of rhyme or metre, or an unjustifiable departure from fact.
(A) Poetic license
(B) Poetic justice
(C) Poetic deviance
(D) Poetic diction
Ans: (A)

In which of the following does Robert Southey detail the Indian superstitions as an idolatry to be suppressed by a civilizing protestant form of colonialism?
(A) “Thalaba”
(B) “The Curse of Kehama”
(C) “Pitying the wolves”
(D) Country Horrors!
Ans: (B)

Which of the following is NOT true of the Byronic hero?
(A) moody
(B) passionate
(C) repentant
(D) remorse-torn
Ans: (C)

Who among the following poets compared human tears to “love’s wine” ?
(A) Ben Jonson
(B) John Donne
(C) Andrew Marvell
(D) John Suckling
Ans: (B)

In which of the following stories does Rudyard Kipling present a newspaper editor who recounts his dealings with a couple of “loafers” ?
(A) “His Chance in Life”
(B) “Thrown Away”
(C) “Lispeth”
(D) “The Man Who Would Be King”
Ans: (D)

Samuel Johnson wrote London in imitation of ……………
(A) Horace
(B) Ovid
(C) Juvenal
(D) Moschus
Ans: (C)

Which of these is the best paraphrase of the line, “the paths of glory lead but to the grave”?
(A) Those who seek glory often die in its pursuit.
(B) Everyone dies, even the famous and glorious.
(C) The pursuit of glory is futile.
(D) The pursuit of glory is dangerous.
Ans: (B)

A.S. Byatt’s Possession attempts the imitation of the work of two Victorian poets, loosely
based on
I. Alfred Tennyson
II. Robert Browning
III. Christina Rossetti
IV. William Morris
The right combination according to the code is
(A) I and II
(B) II and IV
(C) II and III
(D) III and IV
Ans: (C)

Who among the following was praised and patronized as a “Ploughman Poet”?
(A) John Clare
(B) George Crabbe
(C) Robert Burns
(D) Walter Scott
Ans: (C)

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is a
(A) religious allegory
(B) fairy tale
(C) long poem
(D) Utopian novel
Ans: (C)

Which of the following phrases is not found in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy written in a
Country Churchyard”?
(A) “Far from the madding crowd”
(B) “A youth to Fortune and Fame unknown”
(C) “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen”
(D) “All nature is but art, unknown to thee”
Ans: (D)

Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra” is a defence of
(A) youth against old age
(B) old age against youth
(C) power against knowledge
(D) knowledge against power
Ans: (B)

Who among the following translated Homer?
(A) Thomas Gray
(B) Samuel Johnson
(C) Oliver Goldsmith
(D) Alexander Pope
Ans: (D)

Thomas Carew’s Poems appeared in print in 1640 and contain a variety of amorous
addresses to and reflections on, a fictional mistress known as
(A) Celia
(B) Julia
(C) Anne
(D) Melanie
Ans: (A)

Who is the author of the poem “The Defence of Lucknow” dealing with the siege of Lucknow, one of the terrible incidents of the Indian Mutiny ?
(A) Rudyard Kipling
(B) Edward Lear
(C) Alfred Lord Tennyson
(D) Robert Browning
Ans: (C)

The Medall, a poem written by John Dryden in 1681, is sub-titled
(A) A Satire against Sedition
(B) A Satire against Tyranny
(C) A Satire against Greed
(D) A Satire against Apostasy
Ans: (A)

James Thomson’s long poem, The Seasons, revised and expanded all his life, began in the first instance as a poem entitled
(A) Spring
(B) Summer
(C) Winter
(D) Autumn
Ans: (C)

Which Byron poem begins in the following manner : “I want a hero : an uncommon want, when every year and month sends forth a new one” ?
(A) Beppo
(B) Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
(C) Don Juan
(D) The Vision of Judgement
Ans: (C)

In which poem does Matthew Arnold express the dilemma of : “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born” ?
(A) “Self – Dependence”
(B) “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse”
(C) “To a Republican Friend”
(D) “Dover Beach”
Ans: (B)

The Emblem is a poetic genre containing a symbolic picture with a text and a verse exposition popular in the early 17th century. Who popularised this kind of poetry through the work Emblems [1635] ?
(A) Robert Southwell
(B) Francis Quarles
(C) John Davies
(D) Joseph Sylvester
Ans: (B)

Which Byron work begins thus : “I want a hero : an uncommon want, when every year and month sends forth a new one ………” ?
(A) Beppo
(B) Cain
(C) Manfred
(D) Don Juan
Ans: (D)

Who published the first collected edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poems in 1918 ?
(A) Robert Bridges
(B) Coventry Patmore
(C) John Betjeman
(D) Stephen Spender
Ans: (A)

The metrical form of Gower’s Confessio Amantis is :
(A) iambic pentameter
(B) anapestic trimeter
(C) octosyllabic couplets
(D) trochaic tetrameter
Ans: (3)

Which of the following poems by Seamus Heaney is dedicated to the Irish poet Paul Muldoon ?
(A) “The Loaning”
(B) “The Sandpit”
(C) “A Migration”
(D) “Widgeon”
Ans: (D)

Which of the following historical events does Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” describe ?
(A) The Battle of Hastings
(B) The Wars of the Roses
(C) The Battle of Waterloo
(D) The Crimean War
Ans: (D)

In Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto”, with which of the following painters does Andrea NOT compare himself with ?
(A) Michelangelo
(B) Leonardo da Vinci
(C) Rembrandt
(D) Raphael
Ans: (C)

Which of the following rivers are mentioned in Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” ?
(A) Thames and Rhine
(B) Thames and Ganges
(C) Ganges and Humber
(D) Thames and Humber
Ans: (C)

Who among the following is the author of Steps to the Temple ?
(A) John Donne
(B) Richard Crashaw
(C) George Herbert
(D) Henry Vaughan
Ans: (B)

Which narrative poem by Lord Tennyson presents the story of a fisherman turned Merchant sailor who, after a shipwreck, is marooned on a desert island ?
(A) ”Crossing the Bar”
(B) ”Tithonus”
(C) ”Enoch Arden”
(D) ”Maud”
Ans: (C)

In “Memorial Verses” Matthew Arnold pays tribute to three great poets. Who are they ?
(A) Goethe, Shakespeare, Wordsworth
(B) Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton
(C) Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth
(D) Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron
Ans: (D)

One of the following statements about the eponymous saint of Dryden’s “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” is incorrect. Identify that Statement.
(A) St. Cecilia’s was a Roman Lady, an early Christian martyr.
(B) St. Cecilia’s was an Armenian devotee of the Christian Faith.
(C) St. Cecilia’s festival is celebrated on 22 November in England.
(D) St. Cecilia’s was a patroness of music who was fabled to have invented the organ.
Ans: (B)

Which of the statements on Michael Robert’s Faber Book of Modern Verse (1936) is not true ?
(A) His anthology canonized modern poetry and poets for quite some decades.
(B) The Collection begins with the poems of Robert Bridges.
(C) Roberts omitted the Georgian poets in his anthology.
(D) Yeats, Eliot and Pound find a place in the Faber Book of 1936.
Ans: (B)

In which city did John Ruskin see a paradigm for Victorian Britain ?
(A) Vienna
(B) Venice
(C) Rome
(D) Paris
Ans: (B)

In John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, Amans, the lover makes his confession to the priest named
(A) Verito
(B) Genius
(C) Amor
(D) Phoebe
Ans: (B)

Based on the life of a thirteenth-century troubadour, from among the following identify the work, that marked a catastrophic failure in Robert Browning’s poetic career, earning him a reputation for impenetrable difficulty?
(A) Paracelsus
(B) Sordello
(C) The Ring and The Book
(D) Pauline
Ans: (B)

What unique distinction does Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” have in the English literary canon ?
(A) It is the only distinguished poem in English addressed to the Lords of Penshurst.
(B) It celebrates Philip Sidney’s elevation to knighthood, Sidney being the youngest scion of the family.
(C) It is one of the first English poems celebrating a specfic place, a forerunner to Cooper’s Hill and Windsor Forest.
(D) It is the first poem in an elegiac series that late Elizabethan poets began on the demise of the Lord of Penshurst.
Ans: (C)

What is the delicate balancing act of Andrew Marvell’s “Horation Ode” ?
(A) Praising Roman virtues while endorsing Christian beliefs.
(B) Celebrating the Restoration while regretting the frivolity of the new regime.
(C) Praising feminine virtues while mocking the fixation on chastity.
(D) Celebrating Cromwell’s victories while inviting sympathy for the executed King.
Ans: (D)

What comes “after great pain” in the famous Emily Dickinson poem ?
(A) The letting go
(B) A concrete simplicity
(C) Substantial light
(D) A formal feeling
Ans: (D)

The following epitaph was written by Rudyard Kipling during the war of 1914-18.
HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE
This man is his own country prayed we know not to what Powers.
We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.
“Powers” here refers to _______, “then” to______, and “ours” to______.
(A) The Hindus, the French, the British
(B) The divine, Powers, our country
(C) The military, the Hindu sepoys, Powers
(D) Authorities, his compatriots, our country
Ans: (B)

The title of Dylan Thomas’s Deaths and Entrances was taken from
(A) William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
(B) John Donne’s “Death’s Duell”
(C) Rudyard Kipling’s “A Death-Bed”
(D) T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral
Ans: (B)

What attitude towards death would you find in such poems as Tennyson’s “crossing the bar,” Whitman’s “Death Carol,” and Kipling’s “L’Envoi”?

(A) Resignation
(B) Despair
(C) Hope
(D) Protest
Ans: (C)

Who among the following exemplified the role of the “peasant poet”?
(a) John Clare
(b) John Keats
(c) William Cobbett
(d) Robert Burns

The right combination according to the code is:
(A) (a) and (b)
(B) (c) and (d)
(C) (b) and (c)
(D) (a) and (4)
Ans: (D)

Which one of the following arrangements of poets is in the correct chronological order?
(A) William Langland, William Dunbar, Layamon
(B) William Langland, Layamon, William Dunbar
(C) Layamon, William Langland William Dunbar
(D) William Dunbar, Layamon, William Langland
Ans: (C)

Which term among the following will be applicable to a situation in which a character initiates a scheme which depends for its success on the ignorance of the poem against whom it is directed?

(A) Conflict

(B) Intrigue

(C) Ally

(D) Foil

Ans: (B)

Which one of the following titles of Robert Browning’s works means to disport in the open air, to amuse oneself at random?

(A) Jocoseria

(B) Andrea del Sarto

(C) Abt Voglet

(D) Asolando

Ans: (D)

Who among the following wrote Mazeppa, a long narrative poem about a seventeenth-century military leader of Ukraine?
(A) William Cowper
(B) Lord Byron
(C) P.B. Shelley
(D) S.T. Coleridge
Ans: (B)

William Cowper wrote in The Task (IV. 681-82) about those who “Build factories with blood, conducting trade/At the sword’s point …” These lines allude to :
(A) Turkish militant traders across Europe
(B) Nordic conquerors across East Asia
(C) West Indian slave-plantation owners and the East India Company ‘nabobs’
(D) Exploiters of child labour in the London suburbs
Ans: (C)

Which two poems in the following list are examples of dramatic monologue?
A. Alfred Tennyson, “Ulysses”
B. Philip Larkin, “Church Going”
C. Carol Ann Duffy, “Medusa”
D. Katherine Philips, “A Married State”

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
a) A and D only
b) B and C only
c) C and D only
d) A and C only
Ans: (d)

Which two of the following poems are by Robert Browning?
A. “Locksley Hall”
B. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
C. “The Lady of Shalott”
D. “Two in the Campagna”

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
a) A and D only
b) B and C only
c) A and C only
d) B and D only
Ans: (d)

Who is the author of “A Fragment” (1819), one of the earliest vampire stories in English?
a) P.B. Shelley
b) Lord Byron
c) Bram Stoker
d) Mary Shelley
Ans: (b)

In which of the Bog poems does Seamus Heaney speak about the “perishable treasure” of a body ‘Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible?
a) “Bog Queen”
b) “Grauballe Man”
c) “Punishment
d) “Strange Fruit”
Ans: (d)

Which two rivers are mentioned by Andrew Marvell at the beginning of ‘To His Coy Mistress’?
A. The Ganges
B. Thames
C. Humber
D. The Jhelum

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
a) A and D only
b) A and B only
c) A and C only
d) B and C only
Ans: (c)