Jonathan Swift – Previous Year UGC-NET | GATE Questions

In 1722 the Crown awarded a certain English merchant a patent to manufacture copper coins for Ireland. Jonathan Swift intervened by way of composing a series of letters in response, better known as The Drapier’s Letters. Who was the merchant ?
(A) Isaac Bickerstaff
(B) William Bickerstaff
(C) William Wood
(D) William Sacheverell
Ans: (C)

By what name is Gulliver known in Brobdingnag ?
(A) Grildrig
(B) Glumdalclitch
(C) Splacknuck
(D) Mannikin
Ans: (A)

In Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels Gulliver refers to William Dampier, the famous writer of two voyages, as :
(A) master
(B) brother
(C) cousin
(D) uncle
Ans: (C)

Gulliver receives the following response when he boasts about his countrymen:
“….the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the earth.” Whose response?
(A) The King of Lilliput’s
(B) The King of Brobdingnag’s
(C) The Governor of Glubbdubrib’s
(D) The first of the Houyhnhnm’s he meets.
Ans: (B)

After his return from the land of Houyhnhnms, Gulliver refused to let his wife and children
__________ .
(A) show disrespect to English horses.
(B) ride horse-drawn carriages.
(C)touch his bread, or drink out of his cup.
(D) communicate with him in English tongue.
Ans: (C)

Which of the following books by Jonathan Swift is a religious allegory ?
(A) The Battle of the Books
(B) A Modest Proposal
(C) Gulliver’s Travels
(D) A Tale of a Tub
Ans: (D)

Why do the Houyhnhnms have so few words in their language?
(A) Their wants and passions are fewer than human wants and passions, and they need fewer words.
(B) They consider language to be morally corrupt and prefer to remain silent.
(C) They find speech difficult because they are horses.
(D) They prefer action to words.
Ans: (A)

At the conclusion of Swift’s Modest Proposal, the narrator declares that he has “not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country.” What evidence does the narrator give that his advice is free from other motives?
I. The narrator is Irish and a sworn bachelor, unlikely to father children.
II. He has no children who will be affected by the scheme, and thus cannot make money from it.
III. His wife is past childbearing, and thus the narrator cannot benefit by “breeding” her.
IV. The narrator is English, and therefore this scheme will not affect him personally.
The right combination according to the code is
(A) I and II
(B) II and III
(C) IV and III
(D) I and III
Ans: (B)

At the conclusion of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver argues that his motivation for telling the tale is
(A) to entertain his readers
(B) to inform and instruct mankind
(C) to assist the British nation in enlarging her colonies
(D) to produce a travelogue of genius and learning
Ans: (B)

From which source did Swift get the idea of writing “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” ?
(A) In a conversation with John Gay
(B) After a reading of a maxim by la Rochefoucauld
(C) While taking a walk near Dublin’s St. James’s graveyard
(D) After reading Richard Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
Ans: (B)

Tale of a Tub is about :
(A) Warring political factions
(B) Struggling lower-class people
(C) Controversial philosophical documents
(D) Contending religious parties
Ans: (D)

Swift’s Modest proposal is written in the form of a :
(A) Project in political economy Social Satire
(B) Political allegory
(C) Social Satire
(D) Old-Testament history
Ans: (C)

In which of his voyages, Gulliver discovered mountain-like beings ?
(A) The land of the Lilliputians
(B) The land of the Brobdingnagians
(C) The land of the Laputans
(D) The land of the Houyhnhnms
Ans: (B)

Read the following statement and the reason given for it. Choose the right response.
Assertion (A) : Gulliver’s Travels earned Jonathan Swift the bad name of being a misanthrope.
Reason (R) : Swift in the novel was neutral to the image of man.

(A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R)is the correct explanation.
(B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation.
(C) (A) is true, but (R) is false.
(D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.
Ans: (B)

 Identify the work below that does not belong to the literature of the eighteenth century:
(A) Advancement of Learning
(B) Gulliver’s Travels
(C) The Spectator
(D) An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
Ans: (A)

 The period of Queen Victoria’s reign is
(A) 1830–1900
(B) 1837–1901
(C) 1830–1901
(D) 1837–1900
Ans: (B)

The predominant tone and thrust of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” are
(A) comic
(B) solemn
(C) hortatory
(D) irony
Ans: (D)

The last of Gulliver’s Travels is to
(A) The Land of the Houyhnhnms
(B) The Land of Homosapiens
(C) The Land of the Hurricanes
(D) The Newfound Land
Ans: (A)

In the late seventeenth century a “Battle of Books” erupted between which two groups?
(A) Cavaliers and Roundheads
(B) Abolitionists and Enthusiasts for slaves
(C) Champions of Ancient and Modern Learning
(D) The Welsh and the Scots
Ans: (C)

In Gulliver’s Travels Struldbruggs are …………..
(A) people replete with abstract learning.
(B) people exempt from natural death.
(C) people persecuted by pets and servants.
(D) people lured by a new ideal.
Ans: (B)

In Gullivers Travels which of the following ideas is not a product of the Academy of Lagado?
(A) A random sentence-generating machine.
(B) A proposal to end speech altogether, by carrying around sacks of the things that words signify.
(C) A project for truncating words and shortening sentences by leaving out verbs.
(D) A digestible dictionary, written on a wafer.
Ans: (D)

Jonathan Swift arrived in London in 1710 and confronted a rapidly changing world in the new Tory ministry. His reactions to this world are vividly recorded in his journal to Stella, a series of letters addressed to
(a) Hester Vanhomrigh
(b) Esther Johnson
(c) Rebecca Dingley
(d) Lady Mary Montagu
The right combination according to the code is:
(A) (b) and (c)
(B) (b) and (d)
(C) (c) and (d)
(D) (a) and (b)
Ans: (A)

Match List I and List II
List I
Essayist
A. George Orwell
B. Michel de Montaigne
C. Charles Lamb
D. Jonathan Swift

List II
Essay
I. “On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century”
II. ‘Why I Write”
III. “A Modest Proposal”
IV. “On the Cannibals”

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
a) A – Ill, B – IV, C – III, D – I
b) A – II, B – IV, C – I, D – Ill
c) A – IV, B – III, C – II, D – I
d) A – II, B – III, C I, D – IV
Ans : (b)