A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 63

A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK

 (ALL THE ANSWERS ARE COLOURED. I HAVE TRIED TO GIVE LOGIC BEHIND ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS. WITHOUT SYLLOGISTIC FORMAT YOU NEED AN ELFIN TOWER TALL HEAD.)

1. The title The Sound and the Fury is taken from:

(A) Hamlet (B) Macbeth

(C) The Tempest (D) King Lear Read More about A to Z (Objective Questions)

** MACBETH :She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. Act V, Sc V**

2. Pecola is a character in:

(A) The Bluest Eye (B) Oliver Twist

(C) Don Quixote (D) Beloved

3. Which of the following was associated with the “Bloomsbury Group”.

(A) T. S. Eliot (B) W. B. Yeats

(C) T. E. Hulme (D) Virginia Woolf

** Bloomsbury Group:  a number of English intellectuals prominent in the first quarter of the 20th century, all of whom were individually known for their contributions to the arts or to social science.  The name of the group is derived from a residential district near the British Museum in central London where most of the members lived. They included the writers Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard Sidney Woolf; the art critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell; the economist John Maynard Keynes; the biographer Lytton Strachey; the literary and drama critic Desmond MacCarthy; the novelist and essayist E. M. Forster; and the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.**

4. Which of the following characters appear in Waiting for Godot :

(A) Jerry (B) Lucky (C) Jimmy Porter (D) Ham

5. About whom did T. S. Eliot write “A thought to him was an experience” :

(A) Herbert (B) Marvell (C) Donne (D) Crashaw

6. The last book of Gulliver’s Travels is :

(A) “Voyage to Houyhnhnms” (B) “Voyage to Laputa”

(C) “Voyage to Brobdingnag” (D) “Voyage to Lilliput” Read More about UGC NET

  **In Part I, “Voyage to Lilliput” :Lemuel Gulliver describes how he began undertaking voyages as ship’s surgeon, and ended up during one voyage shipwrecked in Lilliput, a land where the people are twelve times smaller than in England.

In Part II, “Voyage to Brobdingnag” : Gulliver lands where every living being is twelve times larger than in England.

Part III, “Voyage to Laputa”:   Gulliver visits the islands of Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdribb, and Japan. Here, Laputa, the Flying Island, is an allegory of the court and government of George I. 

In Part IV, “Voyage to Houyhnhnms”: Gulliver journeys to the land of the Houyhnhnms, rational horses, and the Yahoos, appallingly irrational humans.  **

7. Who edited The Tatler :

(A) Steele and John Locke (B) Addison and Dryden

(C) Addison and Blackmore (D) Addison and Steele Read More about UGC NET

8. John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” is about :

(A) nature of human behaviour (B) nature of the human mind

(C) nature of human society (D) nature of human ideology

** John Locke explains his theory of empiricism, a philosophical doctrine holding that all knowledge is based on experience, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).   According to him, Human mind to be a blank slate at birth that gathered all its information from its surroundings—starting with simple ideas and combining these simple ideas into more complex ones.  Locke believes that education should begin in early childhood and should proceed gradually as the child learns increasingly complex ideas. **

9. Restoration Comedy marks the restoration of :

(A) Women’s rights (B) democracy

(C) Monarchy (D) human rights Read More about UGC NET

10. Which of Alexander Pope’s poems begins with the line “Shut, shut the door, good John, fatigued I said” :

(A) “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” (B) “Dunciad”

(C) “Epistles” (D) “Rape of the Lock”

11. The statement “One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own” appears in :

(A) Ice-Candy Man (B) The Guide

(C) Nagamandala (D) Kanthapura Read More about UGC NET

12. Which of the following author-book pair is correctly matched :

(A) Arundhati Roy - The Autumn of the Patriarch

(B) Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera

(C) Umber to Eco - The Tin Drum Read More about UGC NET

(D) Jhumpa Lahiri - Beloved

13.  Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto tells the story of

(A) A defiant and heartless tyrant who kills his own son mercilessly.

(B) An usurper and a tyrant who kills his own daughter by mistake.

(C) A castle that collapses and crushes the young and sickly prince to death.

(D) A tyrant who retires to a monastery at the end and lives happily ever after with his queen.

**The novel also falls in the genre known as the Gothic romance novel. English novelist Horace Walpole sets his story in a gloomy castle with secret underground passageways, haunted rooms, and apparitions.**

14. Which of the following is not an Australian author?

(A) Margaret Laurence (B) David Malauf

(C) Mudooroo Narogin (D) Peter Carey Read More about UGC NET

** Margaret Laurence is a Canadian- Nigerian writer.  Her books, mostly women's   self-realization in a male-dominated world, are as such novels as This Side Jordan , The Stone Angel , A Jest of God , The Fire Dwellers ,Heart of a Stranger . **

15.  Which one of Brecht’s works was intended to lampoon the conventional sentimental musical but the public lapped up the work’s sentiment and missed the humour?

(A) Man is Man

(B) Three Penny Opera

(C) The Mother

(D) Life of Galileo

** German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and German composer Kurt Weill collaborated on Die Dreigroschenoper (1928), known in English as The Threepenny Opera. The work was the first major success for both men. **

16 . Ostensibly a musical treatise, The Anatomy of Melancholy is a reflection on human learning and endeavour published under the pseudonym

(A) Vox Populi

(B) Epicurus Senior Read More about UGC NET

(C) Democritus Junior

(D) Jesting Pilate

** Robert Burton (1577-1640)’s masterpiece, The Anatomy of Melancholy, was published under the pseudonym Democritus Junior in 1621; he enlarged it several times. This ambitious book was characterized by wide learning and a quaint and penetrating style, ranks among the most important prose works in English literature. The work analyzes the medical, historical, and social causes and cures of melancholy, covering a vast scope of scholarship in numerous fields, such as classical studies, theology, philosophy, science, and politics. Burton's work influenced other writers in England, including John Milton in the 17th century and Charles Lamb in the 19th century.  **

17. “Fearful Symmetry” appears in the poem :

(A) “Introduction” (B) “Chimney Sweeper”

(C) “The Tyger” (D) “London” Read More about UGC NET

18. The quotation “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reasons” is a definition of :(A) Negative capability (B) Secondary imagination

(C) Criticism of life (D) Dissociation of sensibility

**Letter to George and Thomas Keats**

19. Which of the following prose-writers do not belong to the Romantic Period?

(A) Peacock (B) De Quincey (C) Hazlitt (D) Gibbon

** Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the greatest English historian of his time and author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788). Despite the availability of new factual data and a recognition of Gibbon's Western bias, which placed moral judgments on the material decadence of Roman times, Decline and Fall is still read and enjoyed. **

20.  Match the following :

    List – I (Browning’s poems)                    List – II (Type of Character)

    I. Abt Vogler                                        1. A Medieval Knight

    II. Andrea del Sarto                         2. A Musician

    III. Childe Ronald to the Dark Tower Came  3. A Poet

    IV. Cleon                                              4. An Artist

  The right combination according to the code is :

       I II III IV

(A) 4 2 3  1

(B) 2 4 1  3

(C) 3 1 2  4

(D) 1 3 4 2

21. Which of the following thinker-concept pairs is correctly matched?

(A) Frye ........... Mysticism

(B) Derrida ............. Deconstruction

(C) I. A. Richards ........... Archetypal Criticism

(D) Eagleton ............... Psychological Criticism Read More about UGC NET

** With the publication of Writing and Difference, French philosopher Jacques Derrida pioneers the method of literary criticism known as deconstruction. Under deconstruction, texts are subjected to new methods of analysis that reveal hidden layers of meaning. The analysis examines the intent of the author, as well as how the concepts, language, and images of the text have been previously used.  **

22. All forms of feminism posit that:

Code :

I. The relationship between the sexes is one of inequality and oppression.

II. There should be an end to all wars.

III. Women need financial independence.

IV. All men are prone to violence.

The correct combination according to the code is :

(A) I and II are correct.

(B) III and IV are correct.

(C) I and III are correct.

(D) II and IV are correct.

** Feminism is a collective term for systems of belief and theories that pay special attention to women’s rights and women’s position in culture and society. The term tends to be used for the women’s rights movement, which began in the late 18th century and continues to campaign for complete political, social, and economic equality between women and men.  ** Read More about UGC NET

23. Choose the correct sequence of the following schools of criticism:

(A) Structuralism, Deconstruction, Reader-Response, New Historicism

(B) New Historicism, Reader-Response, Deconstruction, Structuralism

(C) Deconstruction, New Historicism, Structuralism, Reader-Response

(D) Reader-Response, Deconstruction, New Historicism, Structuralism

** Now remember all these theories are interrelated:

Formalism: A text-based critical method known as formalism was developed by Victor Shklovsky, Vladimir Propp, and other Russian critics early in the 20th century.  

Structuralism: Structuralism attempted to investigate the “structure” of a culture as a whole by “decoding,” or interpreting, its interactive systems of signs. These systems included literary texts and genres as well as other cultural formations, such as advertising, fashion, and taboos on certain forms of behavior.

Deconstruction: Deconstruction shows the multiple layers of meaning at work in language.

Reader-Response: 1960s onwards

 New Critics: The text-centered methods of the formalist critics who focused on the overall structure and verbal texture of literary works.  Many New Critics looked at metaphor, imagery, and other qualities of literary language apart from both a work’s historical setting and any detailed biographical information that might be available about the author.

New Historicism: Many New Critics were more historically or philosophically inclined. ** 

24. “Hamartia” means:

(A) Reversal of fortunes (B) purgation of emotions

(C) Depravity (D) error of judgement

25. Ostensibly a musical treatise, The Anatomy of Melancholy is a reflection on human learning and endeavour published under the pseudonym

(A) Vox Populi

(B) Epicurus Senior

(C) Democritus Junior

(D) Jesting Pilate

** Robert Burton (1577-1640)’s masterpiece, The Anatomy of Melancholy, was published under the pseudonym Democritus Junior in 1621; he enlarged it several times. This ambitious book was characterized by wide learning and a quaint and penetrating style, ranks among the most important prose works in English literature. The work analyzes the medical, historical, and social causes and cures of melancholy, covering a vast scope of scholarship in numerous fields, such as classical studies, theology, philosophy, science, and politics. Burton's work influenced other writers in England, including John Milton in the 17th century and Charles Lamb in the 19th century.  ** Read More about UGC NET

 26. Which is the correct sequence?

(A) D. G. Rossetti, George Eliot, Bronte Sisters, Thackeray

(B) George Eliot, D. G. Rossetti, Bronte Sisters, Thackeray

(C) Thackeray, Bronte Sisters, George Eliot, D. G. Rossetti

(D) Bronte Sisters, George Eliot, Thackeray, D. G. Rossetti

* *If this type of questions appears, you should remember the sequence of their writing and popularity, not their birth. Here all the writers belong to Victorian period, but their literary birth and recognitions were different.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63)- English novelist and humorist, one of the foremost exponents of the 19th-century realistic novel. <Vanity Fair early in 1847, quickly establishing a reputation as one of the major literary figures of his time.>

Bronte Sisters- Brontë, name of three English novelists, also sisters, whose works, transcending Victorian conventions, have become beloved classics. The sisters Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), Emily (Jane) Brontë (1818-1848), and Anne Brontë (1820-1849) < Bronte Sisters were somewhat popular in early half of 1850s>

George Eliot (1819-1880)- pseudonym of Mary Ann or Marian Evans, English novelist< George Eliot’s major literary outputs are in 1860s>

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)- English poet and painter who was a leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . < Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was in vague in later half of 1860s and 1870s >**

 Compiled and Explained by Ardhendu De

Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert     

        2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature

        3. UGC NET OLD QUESTION PAPERS