Most repeated English Literature MCQs taken from the past papers for the preparation literature exams.
English Literature MCQs
The period of maturation, intellectual growth, and social graces during the Renaissance is called the:
A. aristocracy
B. Enlightenment
C. Reformation
D. New Age
E. None of these
“Idylls of the King” is illustration of Tennyson’s deep interest in:
A. Medieval legends
B. The role of the king
C. Hero worship
D. The contemporary condition
Who believed that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of emotions?
A. Blake
B. Byron
C. Wordsworth
D. Keats
The technique of dramatic monologue is used by Victorian poet
A.T ennys on
B. Arnold
C. Browning
D. Elizabeth
The pioneer or torch bearer of modern poetry
A. Y eats
B. A.E .Hous eman
c . T.S. Eliot
D. Ezra Pound
___ literary sub-periods does NOT fall under the Neoclassical Period?
A. The Restoration
B. The Augustan Age
C. Jacobean Age
D. The Age of Sensibility
Periods of English literature which came last?
A. The Commonwealth Period
B. The Elizabethan Age
C. The Jacobean Age
D. The Middle English Period
Which of the following work was published first?
A. Lord Byron’s “Don Juan”
B. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”
C. Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”
D. Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”
E. None of these
___ was not a Renaissance writer
A. William Shakespeare
B. Sir Philip Sidney
C. Christopher Marlowe
D. Sir Thomas Malory
The subjugation of Women (1869) is an important text of:
A. George Eliot
B. Byron
C. John Mill
D. Hardy
Which of the following poems by Tennyson is a monodrama?
A. Ulysses
B. Break, Break, Break
C. Maud
D. Crossing the Bar
The line “she dwells with Beauty – Beauty that must be” occurs in Keats’
A. Lamia
B. Ode to a Grecian Urn
C. Ode on Melancholy
D. Endymion
Negative Capability to Keats, means
A. The ability to sympathize with other
B. Say bad thing, about others
C. To empathize
“Art for arts sake” found its true adherent in:
A. Wordsworth
B. Byron
C. Browning
D. Wilde
It as the best of times, it was the worst of time, it was the worst – the opening of Dickens’
A. Hard Times
B. David Copperfield
C. Oliver Twist
D. A Tales of Two Cities
The character of Little Neil is a creation of:
A. Hardy
B. Eliot
C. Oscar Wilde
D. Dickens
Which poet did NOT write during the 16th century?
A. John Skelton
B. Thomas Carew
C. Sir Thomas Wyatt
D. William Shakespeare
__ writers would be an appropriate subject for a class on “The Literature of the British Empire”?
A. Rudyard Kipling
B. Edward Fitzgerald
C. Charlotte Bronte
D. Any of these
E. None of these
This work was NOT originally published in the 20th Century.
A. Henry James’s “The Ambassadors”
B. Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”
C. E.M. Forster’s “A Room With A View”
D. Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”
In which city was Milton?
A. Norwich
B. London
C. York
D. Canterbury
What was the date of birth of John Milton?
A. 9 December 1608
B. 19 August 1604
C. 6 June 1606
D. 22 April 1600
Which of the followings school did Milton attend?
A. Merchant Taylors’
B. Christ’s Hospital
C. St Paul’s
D. Westminster
The phrase ‘Pathetic fallacy’ is coined by _____?
A. Milton
B. Coleridge
C. Carlyle
D. John Ruskin
Keats’s Endymion is dedicated to _____?
A. Leigh Hunt
B. Milton
C. Shakespeare
D. Thomas Chatterton
Identify the character who is a supporter of Women’s Rights in Sons and Lovers ?
A. Mrs. Morel
B. Annie
C. Miriam
D. Clara Dawes
Longinus establishes that the most beautiful of meters is ______?
A. Dactylic Hexameter
B. Iambic Pentameter
C. Torchaic Octameter
D. None
According to Longinus, there are ________ principle sources of sublime.
A. Three
B. Five
C. Six
D. None
Longinus asserts that nothing contributes more to loftiness of tone in writing than ______?
A. Grandeur Thought
B. Genuine Emotion
C. Impassioned Utterance
D. Splendour Style
The Canterbury Tales is written by _______?
A. John Gower
B. Julian of Norwich
C. Geoffrey Chaucer
D. William Langland
According to Longinus, the queen of figures is ______?
A. Simile
B. Hyperbole
C. Apostrophe
D. Metaphor
E. None
Which of the following is Alexander Pope’s personal Satire?
A. The Rape of the Lock
B. The Dunciad
C. On his Mistress
D. The Essay on Ma
Who after the publication of a poem, awoke and found himself famous?
A. Shelley
B. Browning
C. Wordsworth
D. Keats
The image of the femme fatale dominates the poetry of:
A. Wordsworth
B. Keats
C. Byron
D. Tennyson
Little Time is a character in Hardy’s
A. The return of the native
B. Jude the Obscure
C. Mayor of Casterbridge
Which is the famous elegy written by Shelley?
A. In Memoriam
B. Lycidas
C. Adonis
D. Thyrsis
The moral choice is everything in the works of:
A. Dickens
B. George Eliot
C. Hardy
D. None of these
Who is considered as the first English poet?
A. chaucer
B. caedmon
C. william langland
D. robert burns
Who is the author of Ecclesiastical History of the English People ?
A. bede
B. chaucer
C. johnson
D. bacon
Name of the Anglo Saxon epic
A. the wanderer
B. dream of the rood
C. Beowulf
D. brut
Which was the first novel of Thomas Hardy published in 1871?
A. The Return of the Native
B. Desperate Remedies
C. A Pair of Blue
D. None of these
Name the English poet of 18th century whose works included Rape of the Lock, Dunciad and Essay on Man?
A. Nelson Mandela
B. Winston Churchill
C. Alexander Pope
D. None of these
Thomas Chatterton was _____ years old when he dies.
A. 19
B. 18
C. 17
D. 16
Which of the following are Thomas Hardy books ?
A. The Poor Man and the Lady
B. The Return of Native
C. The Woodlanders
D. All of the above
The Hundred Years of War between ____
A. England and France
B. england and germany
C. france and germany
D. ireland and england
In which year the peasant Revolt happened?
A. 1381
B. 1300
C. 1350
D. 1400
Who is the author of ‘Piers Plowman’?
A. caedmon
B. bede
C. William Langland
D. layamon
The earliest surviving English poem
A. king horn
B. piers plowman
C. brut
D. Beowulf
Who is the author of The Canterbury Tales?
A. william langland
B. Geoffrey Chaucer
C. robert burn
D. spenser
Who wrote ‘The Colossus’ in 1960?
A. Chinua Achebe
B. Toni Morrison
C. Ahmed Sulman Rushdie
D. Sylvia Plath
The author of The Bluest Eyes (1970) is ______?
A. Chinua Achebe
B. Toni Morrison
C. Ahmed Sulman Rushdie
D. Sylvia Plath
Shame (1983) is written by ____?
A. Chinua Achebe
B. Toni Morrison
C. Ahmed Salman Rushdie
D. None of these
In Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, how many legends are there?
A. 7
B. 8
C. 9
D. None of these
Period in English Literature from 1901 to 1910 is called ______?
A. The Pre-Raphaelites
B. The Post Modern
C. The Edwardian Period
D. The Georgian Period
The meaning a word within a language?
A. Sense
B. Common Sense
C. Essence
D. Sense
When did ‘The General Prologue’ of Canterbury Tales compose?
A. 1387.
B. 1300
C. 1400
D. 1378
The first English Printer, who set up printing press in 1476
A. gower
B. caxton
C. william bailey
D. malory
In which year the first printing press was set up in England?
A. 1400
B. 1569
C. 1476
D. 1430
A short traditional and popular story in verse of unknown authorship is called ____
A. lyric
B. Ballad
C. elegy
D. sonnet
Who wrote Treatise on the Astrolabe?
A. john wycliffe
B. spenser
C. william langland
D. Chaucer
Confessio Amentis is the work of ____
A. Gower
B. chaucer
C. william langland
D. robert burn
The Magna Carta was signed in ______
A. 1210
B. 1214
C. 1200
D. 1239
Who did start The Hundred Years War with France?
A. edward 1
B. edward 11
C. Edward iii
D. edward iv
Which among these was written by Chaucer under Italian influence?
A. The legend of good women
B. roman de la rose
C. the book of duchess
D. the canterbury tales
Father of modern linguistics is _____?
A. Noam Chomsky
B. Ferdenand De Sassure
C. None of these
D. Both A and B
The theory of Biolinguistics is given by _____?
A. Noam Chomsky
B. Ferdenand De Sassure
C. Steven Pinker
D. Enoch Powell
Transformational-generative grammar is a broad theory used to model, encode, and deduce a native speaker’s linguistic capabilities, was developed by__?
A. Noam Chomsky
B. Ferdenand De Sassure
C. Leon Battista Alberti
D. Enoch Powell
Chomsky developed Transformational-Generative Grammar in________?
A. 1950
B. 1951
C. 1952
D. 1953
Which incident is considered as the beginning of the Renaissance in England?
A. reign of queen elizabeth
B. death of chaucer
C. End of war of roses
D. birth of shakespeare
In which year did the War of Roses end?
A. 1500
B. 1485
C. 1600
D. 1450
In which year did the Battle of Bosworth Field end?
A. 1499
B. 1510
C. 1575
D. 1485
Which period is considered as the height of English Renaissance?
A. 1500 – 1550
B. 1450 – 1500
C. 1550 – 1600
D. 1600 – 1650
___ is a term denotes historical perspective for studying language ?
A. Synchrony
B. Diachrony
C. Both a and b
D. None of these
Reflections on Language is a book written by Noam Choamsky in _____?
A. 1975
B. 1976
C. 1977
D. 1988
The Syntactic Structures is a book written by Noam Choamsky in ______?
A. 1957
B 1958
C. 1959
D. 1960
The study of relationships between two or more languages and the investigation whether the common languages have a common ancestor is called _______?
A. Psycho linguistics
B. Sociolinguistics
C. Comparative linguistics
D. None of these
Morphology is the branch of linguistics which deals with
A. The study of the structure of sounds and symbols.
B. The study of the structure of letters.
C. The study of the structure of words
Gunter Grass got Nobel Prize in________?
A. 1998
B. 1999
D. 1997
D. 2000
Earnest Hemingway got Nobel Prize for ___?
A. Old Man and the Sea
B. A Farewell to Arms
C. Man and Superman
D. Life of Pea (Ryan Martel)
Which is called the Golden Period of English Literature?
A. Elizabethan Age
B. Victorian Age
C. Restoration Period
D. Augustan Age
Who is of the following both a poet and a novelist?
A. George Eliot
B. Thomas Hardy
C. Karl Mark
D. R. L. Stevenson
Which were the dominant art forms of English Renaissance?
A. Literature and Music
B. painting and sculpture
C. cinema and drama
D. singing and dancing
Who wrote Astrophel and Stella?
A. william shakespeare
B. edmund spenser
C. christopher marlowe
D. Philip Sidney
Who wrote The Defence of Poesy?
A. edmund spenser
B. Philip Sidney
C. geoffrey chaucer
D. william shakespeare
Which of the following is a 19th century woman novelist?
A. Emily Dickinson
B. Ezra Pound
C. Virginia Woolf
D. George Eliot
Who is the famous woman novelist in Victorian Age _____?
A. E.B. Browning
B. George Eliot
C. T.S Eliot
D. Austen
Which of the following is considered the first great work in world literature___?
A. Divine Comedy
B. Epic of Gilgamesh
C. Brother Karamazov
D. Anna Karenina
Who is the Author of the Book “As u Like it”?
A. Coleridge
B. Karl Marx
C. Thomas Hardy
D. William Shakespear
Who uttered these words “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all” ?
A. Willams Shakespeare
B. Gold Smith
C. John Keats
D. Adlof Hatler
In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “A Cabin Tale,” which character is a trickster figure?
A. Weasel.
B. Bear.
C. The farmer.
D. The young boy.
Who wrote The Faerie Queene?
A. philip sidney
B. ben jonson
C. thomas kyd
D. Edmund Spenser
Who wrote Tamburlaine the Great?
A. william shakespeare
B. Christopher Marlowe
C. thomas kyd
D. ben jonson
The importance of Lucy Terry’s “Bars Fight” is ____?
A. The poem is the first-known writing of an African American
B. The poem is better than the poems of the more famous Phillis Wheatley
C. Both
D. The poetry focuses on slave life
The character of Delia in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” was influenced by _____?
A. Her relationship with a patron
B. Her mother
C. Her best friend
D. Her job as a waitress
The trickster figure is usually ___?
A. Amoral (neither good nor evil)
B. Christian
C. Evil
D. None of these
In Chapter XV of William Wells Brown’s Clotel, Clotel is described as a quadroon. What does this mean ?
A. She is one-quarter Black
B. She is one-eighth Black
C. She is White
D. She cannot be a slave
Who wrote Hero and Leander?
A. Christopher Marlowe
B. ben jonson
C. john webster
D. thomas kyd
Who wrote The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus?
A. thomas kyd
B. ben jonson
C. Christopher Marlowe
D. william shakespeare
Who wrote Dido, Queen of Carthage?
A. william langland
B. john bunyan
C. geoffrey chaucer
D. Christopher Marlowe
Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Blue Dementia” is an example of what kind of poetry ?
A. Protest poetry
B. Romantic poetry
C. Lyric poetry
D. Jazz poetry
Harriet Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl to show ______?
A. That female slaves were escaping more frequently than men.
B. How slavery was worse for men.
C. How females were affected by slavery.
D. That female slaves were more valuable than male slaves.
In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “When Malindy Sings,” what kind of music is Malindy singing ?
A. Cakewalk tunes.
B. Gospel.
C. Jazz.
D. Blues.
In Chapter XV of William Wells Brown’s Clotel, why was Clotel made to cut her long hair ?
A. The mistress of the house was afraid her husband would be attracted to Clotel
B. To keep the lice away
C. So that the other slaves would get along with her
D. So she could sell it
The term “Civil Disobedience” was coined by which author ?
A. William Gates
B. Henry David Thoreau
C. Booker T. Washington
D. Alain Locke
The subject of Soujourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” is _______?
A. Women’s rights
B. Negro rights
C. The right to keep one’s children
D. A and B
E. The rights of farm hands
Who popularized the Comedy of Humours?
A. oscar wilde
B. Ben Jonson
C. geoffrey chaucer
D. william shakespeare
Who wrote the book Utopia?
A. william shakespeare
B. edmund spenser
C. philip sidney
D. Thomas More
Who wrote the essay of Studies?
A. philip sidney
B. thomas more
C. Francis Bacon
D. edmund spenser
The King James Version of the Bible was published in _.
A. 1611
B. 1610
C. 1609
D. 1604
How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?
A. 150
B. 154
C. 145
D. 129
According to Larry Neal, the primary goal of the Black Arts Movement is ______?
A. To speak to the spiritual and cultural needs of African Americans
B. To raise awareness of violence in African American
C. To support the Back to Africa Movement
D. To raise money for Sickle Cell Anemia research
Native Son was written by ________?
A. Jean Toomer
B. Richard Wright
C. Ralph Ellison
D. James Baldwin
One of the functions of protest poetry was to ________?
A. Urge African Americans to fight their oppressors
B. Encourage societies strive for equality for all
C. Extol the virtues of living in the free North
D. Argue that slavery was not so bad for everyone
The fact that Claude McKay visited Russia in 1922 exemplifies the following theme of Modernis _?
A. Collectivism versus the authority of the individual
B. The wearing away of traditional class structures
C. The impact of WWI and the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
D. The disassociated, anomic self
The theme of Phillis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is _______?
A. Slaves are capable of becoming good Christians
B. Slaves should rebel against the Christian religion
C. Slaves are the children of Cain
D. Christians should free their slaves
Why is the couple in Arna Bontemps’s “A Summer Tragedy” getting dressed up ?
A. To go to a party
B. To go pay old man Stevenson
C. To end their lives
D. To go to church
Sonia Sanchez’s “right on: white America” is protesting ________?
A. The extermination of Native Americans
B. That there is a Black America and a White America
C. Black on black violence
D. The fact that America still has a frontier mentality
Who wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ?
A. Lucy Terry
B. William Wells Brown
C. Harriet Wilson
D. Harriet Jacobs
Race relations in the North are attacked in ______?
A. Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
B. Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig
C. William Wells Brown’s Clotel
D. Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Who introduced the character of the “tragic mulatto” ?
A. William Wells Brown
B. Lydia Maria Child
C. Harriet Jacobs
D. Harriet Beecher Stowe
Find the odd one out
A. William Shakespeare
B. christopher marlowe
C. robert greene
D. thomas nashe
Who wrote the play Every Man in His Humour?
A. thomas nashe
B. robert greene
C. william shakespeare
D. Ben Jonson
Who wrote the play Bartholomew Fair?
A. john webster
B. thomas kyd
C. Ben Jonson
D. william shakespeare
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King advocates ___?
A. Breaking the law.
B. Using violence when necessary.
C. Waiting for times to get better.
D. Disobeying unjust laws.
In Charles Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grape Vine,” why does Uncle Julius tell the Northern visitors the story of the spell put on the grapes ?
A. To describe the horrors of life on the Post-bellum plantation.
B. To explain his religious views.
C. To amuse the narrator’s sickly wife.
D. So they won’t interrupt his income from the neglected grape harvest.
Uncle Julius is a character developed by ___?
A. Harriet Beecher Stowe
B. Joel Chandler Harris
C. Richard Wright
D. Charles Chesnutt
The importance of Freedom’s Journal was _?
A. It was the first African American novel.
B. It was the first African American newspaper.
C. It was published by Frederick Douglass.
D. It argued for a separate African American community in America.
All of the following are characteristics of the African American tradition of the toast except ___?
A. Toasting is oral
B. Toasting is a male event
C. Toasting glorifies women
D. Toasting provides cultural identification
Who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an indictment of slavery ?
A. Harriet Beecher Stowe
B. Richard Wright
C. Frederick Douglass
D. Phillis Wheatley
Who wrote one of the most famous African American poems that begins with “what happens to a dream deferred” ?
A. Alice Walker
B. Etheridge Knight
C. Martin Luther King, Jr.
D. Langston Hughes
The most important tenet of the Black Arts Movements is ____?
A. African American art should exclude women.
B. African American images should inspire African Americans.
C. African American art should subvert the art of Europeans and White Americans.
D. African American literature should replicate educated White language.
The genre Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” is ___?
A. Mystery.
B. Science Fiction.
C. Horror.
D. Tragedy.
In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, living underground is symbolic of _____?
A. The narrator’s attempt to stay hidden.
B. The narrator’s desire to be safe.
C. The narrator’s invisibility to society.
D. The narrator’s attempt to stay out of prison.
In what way is Jane Toomer’s Cane an example of Modernism ?
A. Its fractured, collage effect.
B. Its insistence on plot.
C. Its focus on landscape.
D. Its focus on modern city life.
In Nella Larsen’s novel Passing, why is Clare afraid to have another child ?
A. She almost died in childbirth with her first child.
B. She doesn’t want to lose her figure.
C. Her husband has threatened to leave her.
D. She is afraid it may have dark skin.
In Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild,” The Tlick keep the humans happy by _____?
A. Supplying them with narcotic eggs.
B. Letting them choose their own mates.
C. Freeing the males after they are hosts.
D. Paying them very well.
In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “kitchenette building,” what is most important to the building’s inhabitants ?
A. Having a bathroom with warm water.
B. Following one’s dreams.
C. Getting food on the table.
D. Finding a mate.
The narrator of Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues” is describing ______?
A. Negro spirituals being sung in the cotton fields.
B. The call and response of an African American church congregation.
C. African American toasting on a city street corner.
D. Blues being played in a Harlem bar.
What unforgivable action does Mag Smith take in Chapter One of Our Nig ?
A. She tries to pass as White.
B. She washes clothes for White women.
C. She lets a man help her out.
D. She marries a Black man.
In Chapter Three of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, Washington’s primary goal is to __?
A. Get an education.
B. Get a job.
C. To be clean.
D. To be a teacher
The supportive network of female slaves led to ___?
A. Resistance to the overseers.
B. Learning to be midwives.
C. Resistance against dehumanization.
D. Lower suicide rates.
Who is the author of the novel Passing ?
A. William Wells Brown
B. Nella Larsen.
C. Charles Chesnutt
D. James Weldon Johnson
Which of the following statements about slavery is true ?
A. Most slave children lived in two family homes.
B. Slave owners did not allow their slaves to live as married couples.
C. Slaves were given limited civil rights.
D. Most slaves were not Christian.
What is Epistolary Novel ?
A. a novel of short length
B. a novel personal feelings
C. a Novella
D. A novel of correspondence among the characters
A person who writes about his own life writes ____?
A. a diary
B. a biography
C. an autobiography
D. a chronicle
Which one of the following poets was appointed Poet Laureate in the year 1813 ?
A. Tennyson
B. Byron
C. Southey
D. Wordsworth
Which one is the world’s longest running play __?
A. The Mousetrap
B. Romeo and Juliet
C. Othello
D. Macbeth
What do you mean by Diction ?
A. choice of words for writing
B. choice of characters
C. choice of rhythms
D. choice of simile and metaphor
The age tended to favour the taste and search for truth in art __?
A. Classical
B. Romantic
C. Victorian
D. Elizabethan
‘The Revolt of Islam’ was written by ______?
A. Wordsworth
B. Coleridge
C. Shelley
D. None of these
‘The quality of Mercy is not strained’ the line is taken from __?
A. Merchant of Venice
B. Two gentleman of Verona
C. Midsummer’s Night Dream
D. Anthony and Cleopatra
Hyperion is a/an poem ___?
A. Elegy
B. Epic
C. Lyric
D. None of these
Which poem of Tennyson was particularly like by Queen Victoria ?
A. The Idylls of the kings
B. Charge of the Light Brigade
C. In Memoriam
D. None of these
The earliest play written by Shakespeare according to Oxford Shakespeare 1588 is ____?
A. The Taming of the Shrew
B. As you Like it
C. Two Gentlemen of Verona
D. Titus Andronicus
What the term Renaissance refers ?
A. revival or rebirth
B. representation
C. presentation
D. rebel
Who is called the Bird of Avon ?
A. John Dryden
B. William Shakespeare
C. John Milton
D. None of these
George Bernard Shaw is ___?
A. a playwright
B. a film-maker
C. a historian
D. a modern painter
Who is the writer of The Restoration Period ?
A. Aphra Ben
B. Robert Herrick
C. Jeremy Taylor
D. Thomas Hobbes
Exiles’ is a _____?
A. Short Story
B. Novel
C. Play
D. Poem
The statue of ‘Ozymandias’ is ____?
A. on a mountain
B. beside a river
C. in a desert
D. in a valley
These English literature MCQs online test sets compiled from past papers of CSS, PPSC, UPSC, FPSC and English literature subject exams.
Read More: General Knowledge MCQs