A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 42

Short notes on History of English Literature

A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

1.     Carlyle became lifelong friend of Emerson. Emerson became famous throughout the country as “The Safe of Concord”. Emerson called his Journals as his “Savings Bank”. Emerson was greatly influenced by Indian especially Hindi thought. What appeared most to Emerson was the concept of the fundamental Atman – Brahman unity.

2.      “The American Scholar” is an address delivered at Harvard College in 1937. It has been called the nation’s intellectual Declaration of independence. It was reprinted in London in 1844 under the title “Man Thinking: An Oration”.

3.     Leaves of grass gives equal status to woman with man. It is usually spoken of as Whiteman’s poetic autobiography. Vivekananda called Whitman “The Sanyasin of America”. Emerson had seen the Leaves of Grass as a combination of Bhagwad Gita and The New York Herald.

4.     Out of the 1775 poems that were composed by Emily Dickinson over half at least partly and about a third centrally feature the theme of death. Emily Dickinson called her self the “Queen of Calvary”.

5.     According to Robert Frost “A poem begins in delight passess though imagination and ends in wisdon”. Robert Frost gave the advice – “Die early and avoid fate / or if predestined to die late / make up your mind to die in state.” Much of Frost’s reputation rests on his lyrics such as “Stopping by Woods”. “Acquainted with the Night”, ‘Reluctance and the road not taken’. Frost has certainly earned a place of distinction at home and abroad as a major American poet. Two Tramps is Mud-Time is a representative poem of Frost. “Frost often writes of inanimate objects as if they were alive and capable of human actions, thoughts and emotions.”

6.     “The Road Not Taken” is the poem of a man whom one might call a spiritual drifter.

7.     In several of Arthur Miller’s plays central family situation is based upon father two son’s relationship. Arthur Miller’s first Broadway play was “The Man who had all the luck”.

8.     Arthur Miller undoubtedly acquired the status of a living legend in the USA.

9.     There is no denying the fact that O’Nell is the father of American drama. The stature of O’Nell casts a long shadow on the American Theatre. The emperor Jones is O’Nell’s first exercise in expressionistic symbolism.

10. The greatest influence that can be said to have shaped the trinity of Thoreau’s mind, heart and soul came from India. Thoreau was greatly influenced by Gita, Manu Smriti, and Upanishads.there is some point in believing that Gita inspired Thoreau to go to Walden Pond. The epitaph on the grave of Thoreau written by Emerson reads “wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home”.

11. Gertude Stein, Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford encouraged Hemingway in his literary career.

12. A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and The Sea are the three famous novels by Hemingway.The Valley of Ashes constitutes a significance part of the landscape of the novel “the Great Gatsby”.

13. Jay Gatsby is the hero of the novel The Great Gatsby.The character of Tom Buchanan has been drawn quite in opposition to the character of Jay Gatsby.

14. The word 'nature' in the 18th century literature stands for: External nature A book that faithfully renders a young man's confused images of love and rejection is: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

15. Milton’s masterpiece, the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), dramatizes the Biblical account of humanity’s banishment from Paradise. Milton also wrote a sequel to Paradise Lost, called Paradise Regained (1671), in which Jesus triumphantly resists Satan and regains the Paradise lost by Adam and Eve.

16. The first and greatest of the metaphysical poets of the early 17th century, Englishman John Donne wrote with an unsentimental, subtly intellectual style. Metaphysical poets addressed complex topics, avoided regular meter, and infused their works with unconventional imagery.

17. The Roaring Girle (1610) is a comedy by English playwrights Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker.

18. In Hamlet’s Soliloquy, Act III William Shakespeare’s Hamlet reveals that his self-doubt and inability to avenge his father’s death have led him to the brink of suicide.  

19. Twentieth-century writer and philosopher Albert Camus examined what he considered the tragic inability of human beings to understand and transcend their intolerable conditions. In his work Camus presented an absurd and seemingly unreasonable world in which some people futilely struggle to find meaning and rationality while others simply refuse to care.

20.  Le Roman de la Rose is a French medieval poem written by Guillaume de Lorris, and later expanded by Jean de Meun.

21. The stories of the semilegendary King Arthur of England and his knights of the Round Table are some of the most famous tales in literature.

22. Seventeenth-century writer Molière, one of France’s foremost comedic playwrights, gave depth to traditional comic roles by striving to maintain serious emotions in his work.

23. Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is written in the form of a: Political allegory and

Social Satire. 

 24.  The Indian English novelist who, for the first time, addressed the question of language and indigenous experience was: Mulk Raj Anand.              

25.  A philosophical attitude pervading much of modern literature is: Absurdism  

26.  In Langland's  The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, better known as Piers Plowman, is written in forms very like the Old English alliterative, four-stress lines. 

A to Z 

Ardhendu De

Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert 

       2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature