| These MCQs have been taken from past CSS papers for English Literature |
English Literature Paper - I (1999)
(1) The subjugation of Women (1869) is an important text of:
(a) George Eliot
(b) Byron
(c) John Mill
(d) Hardy
(2) Which of the following poems by Tennyson is a monodrama?
(a) Ulysses
(b) Break, Break, Break
(c) Maud
(d) Crossing the Bar
(3) 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
(c) Ode on Melancholy
(4) Negative Capability to Keats, means
(a) The ability to sympathize with other
(b) Say bad thing, about others
(c) To empathize
(5) “Art for arts sake” found its true adherent in:
(a) Wordsworth
(b) Byron
(c) Browning
(d) Wilde
(6) 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
(7) The character of Little Neil is a creation of:
(a) Hardy
(b) Eliot
(c) Oscar Wilde
(d) Dickens
(8) “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
(9) Who believed that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of emotions?
(a) Blake
(b) Byron
(c) Wordsworth
(d) Keats
(10) Who after the publication of a poem, awoke and found himself famous?
(a) Shelley
(b) Browning
(c) Wordsworth
(d) Keats
(11) The image of the femme fatale dominates the poetry of:
(a) Wordsworth
(b) Keats
(c) Byron
(d) Tennyson
(12) Little Time is a character in Hardy’s
(a) The return of the native
(b) Jude the Obscure
(c) Mayor of Casterbridge
(13) Which is the famous elegy written by Shelley?
(a) In Memoriam
(b) Lycidas
(c) Adonis
(d) Thyrsis
(14) The moral choice is everything in the works of:
(a) Dickens
(b) George Eliot
(c) Hardy
(15) Which of the following is illustrative of Ruskin’s interest in social economy?
(a) The Seven Lamps
(b) Unto this Last
(c) The Stones of Venice
(16) Which one of the following poets named the Romantic poet as the “pond poets”?
(a) Southey
(b) Shelley
(c) Keats
(d) Byron
(17) The Charge of the Light Brigade” (Tennyson) commemorates:
(a) The Boer War
(b) The battle of Trafalgar
(c) The Crimean War
(18) The Elgin Marbles inspired Keats to write:
(a) Endymion
(b) Lamia
(c) The Grecian Urn
(d) Melancholy
(19) Would you tell Sordelo (Browning) as a:
(a) Dramatic Monologue
(b) Dramatic Lyrics
(c) Tragic Drama
(20) Which one of the following poets was appointed Poet Laureate in the year 1813?
(a) Tennyson
(b) Byron
(c) Southey
(d) Wordsworth
English Literature Paper - II (1999)
(1) Shakespeare’s Hamlet is
(a) A tragedy
(b) Comedy
(2) Earnest Hamingway has written
(a) Old Man and the Sea
(b) Mr. Chips
(c) Pride and Prejudice
(3) Who wrote Gulliver’s Travels?
(a) Charles Dickens
(b) Chaucer
(c) Jonathan Swift
(4) Which of the following is not a dramatist?
(a) Ben Johnson
(b) Byron
(c) Eliot
(5) Which of the following is not a play by Shakespeare?
(a) Hamlet
(b) Macbeth
(c) Dr. Faustus
(6) E. M. Foster is a
(a) Novelist
(b) Poet
(c) Playwright
(7) “The Pickwick Papers” is a novel by:
(a) Jane Austen
(b) Charles Dickens
(c) Thackery
(8) Who wrote “Jane Eyre”?
(a) Charlotte Bronte
(b) Emile Bronte
(c) Anne Bronte
(9) After whom is the Elizabethan Age named?
(a) Elizabeth-I
(b) Elizabeth-II
(c) Elizabeth Browning
(10) What is the name of Wordsworth’s long poem?
(a) The Canterbury Tales
(b) Don Juan
(c) The Prelude
(11) A poem mourning someone’s death is called:
(a) Fable
(b) Epic
(c) Elegy
(12) Which of the following is not a tragedy written by Shakespeare?
(a) Macbeth
(b) Othello
(c) Merchant of Venice
(13) Who wrote “The Second Coming”?
(a) E. Spencer
(b) Eliot
(c) W. B. Yeats
(14) What period in English Literature is called the “Augustans Age”?
(a) Early 16th Century
(b) 17th Century
(c) Early 18th Century
(15) Which play among the following plays is not blank verse?
(a) Hamlet
(b) The Jew of Malta
(c) Pygmalion
(16) Which one of the following writers is not woman?
(a) Emily Bronte
(b) Jane Austen
(c) Robert Browning
(17) Who is the villain in “Hamlet”?
(a) Horatio
(b) Iago
(c) Claudius
(18) Who kills Macbeth in the play “Macbeth”?
(a) Duncan
(b) Bonquo
(c) Macduff
(19) Which is the last of Shakespeare’s great tragedies?
(a) Macbeth
(b) King Lear
(c) Othello
(d) Hamlet
(20) Who is the heroine of Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”?
(a) Cordella
(b) Desdemona
(c) Portia
(d) Ophelia
English Literature Paper - I (2000)
(1) Romanticism (if it can be pinpointed) is usually assumed to date from:(a) Publication of "Intimations of Immortality"
(b) The beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign
(c) The Reform Bill of 1832
(d) Publication of "Lyrical Ballads" and its preface
(e) 1800 – 1801
(2) Which of the following would a Romantic Poet be most likely to use?
(a) A "feathered chorister"
(b) A "member of the plumy race"
(c) A "bird"
(d) A "tenant of the sky"
(e) An "airy fairy"
(3) Wordsworth’s Poetry always reflects:
(a) The creation of abstract concepts
(b) An endorsement of the scientific tradition
(c) The creation of an original philosophy
(d) An examination of extraneous matters
(e) His belief in a world to come.
(4) Byron’s Poetry is ambiguous and has a vividness of phrasing which sometimes reaches the point of abstraction:
(a) True
(b) False
(5) "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" is a satirical attack on contemporary writers who had annoyed Byron.
(a) True
(b) False
(6) In 1850, Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate.
(a) True
(b) False
(7) Mary Anne Evans is the same person as George Eliot.
(a) True
(b) False
(8) Keats’ widespread appeal is to the Reader’s interest in the supernatural.
(a) True
(b) False
(9) The literary figure who had the most pronounced effect on Keats was:
(a) Dante
(b) Shakespeare
(c) Wordsworth
(d) Shelley
(10) Shelly was a firm believer in all of the following except:
(a) Personal freedom
(b) The individual’s responsibility to society
(c) The power of love
(d) Human conduct based on conviction
(11) Shelley’s poetry used all of the following components for themes except:
(a) Worship of God
(b) Passion
(c) Narcissism
(d) Emotional self-indulgence
(12) The prose of the Romantic period had a tendency to:
(a) Objectify the issue in terms of a cause
(b) Advance a single system to the public
(c) Allow the writer to draw on his
(d) Be brooding and meditative. own personality
(13) Charles Lamb’s "Dream Children" is notable for its:
(a) Crushing tragedy
(b) Humor
(c) Whimsical Pathos
(d) Cynicism
(14) The Victorian age can be dated by which of the following events and years:
(a) Mills’s "on liberty’ (1859) to end of century (1900)
(b) Reform Bill (1832) to end of Boer War (1902)
(c) Birth of Tennyson (1809) to his death (1892)
(d) Tennyson’s Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) to death of Queen Victoria (1901)
(15) Which of the following works ‘had the greatest influence on the Victorian Age?
(a) Mill’s "On Liberty"
(b) Tennyson’s "In memoriam"
(c) Darwin’s "Origin of Species"
(d) Carlyle’s "Sartor Resartus"
(e) Ruskin’s "The stones of Venice"
(16) In which of the following Genres did Victorian Literature achieve its greatest success:
(a) Drama
(b) Epic Poetry
(c) Lyric Poetry
(d) The Essay
(e) The Novel
(17) Identify the sources of the quotations listed below:
1. "Hail to thee blithe spirit"
2. "Spirit of beauty that dost consecrate"
3. "Paint/Must never hope to reproduce the- faint Halfflush that dies along her throat".
4. " Where are the songs of Spring? Ay,- where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too
5. "Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu",
6. "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting
7. "A hand may first and then a lip be kist;
For my part, to such doings I’m a stranger"
8. "My hair is grey, but not with years, nor grew it white, In a single night"
Options
A "May Last Duchess"
B "To a sky Lark"
C "Ode to Autumn"
D "Don Juan"
E "The Prisoner of Chillon"
F "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
G "Intimations of Immortality’ (Ode)
H "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty"
Answer Key
1-B
2-H
3-A
4-C
5-F
6-G
7-D
8-E
English Literature Paper - II (2000)
(1) Who wrote "Shakespeare’s Later Comedies’?(a) A.C. Bradley
(b) Palmer D.J.
(c) Dr.Johnsofl
(3) Which. of the following is not a play by Shakespeare?
(a) Tempest
(b) Pygmalion
(c) King Lear
(4) Who is the author of ‘After Strange Gods’?
(a) Shaw
(b) Robert Frost
(c) Eliot
(5) Who is the Villain in ‘Hamlet’?
(a) Horatio
(b) Iago
(c) Claudius
(6) Who is the heroine of ‘Hamlet’?
(a) Cordelia
(b) Portia
(c) Ophelia
(7) After whom the Elizabethan Age is named:
(a) Elizabeth I
(b) Elizabeth II
(c) Elizabeth Browning
(8) Who wrote ‘Common Pursuit’?
(a) Leavis, F.R.
(b) Cecil, D.
(c) E.M.Foster
(9) ‘ Paradise Lost is an epic by:
(a). Spenser
(b) Chaucer
(c) Milton
(10) "After Apple Picking" is written by:
(a) Robert Browning
(b) Robert Frost
(11) Ernest Hemingway wrote:
(a) Mr. Chips
(b) Pride and Prejudice
(c) Old Man and the Sea
(12) "Intellectual Beauty" is written by:
(a) Bertrand Russell
(b) Huxley
(c) P.B.Shelley
(13) Who wrote "20th Century Views"?
(a) Abrahams, M. H.
(b) Palmer, D. J.
(c) Bertrand Russell
(14) ‘Desert Places’ is a:
(a) Poem
(b) Play
(c) Novel
(15) The University Wits were:
(a) Poets
(b) Playwrights
(c) Novelists
(16) William Shakespeare was Born in:
(a) 1564
(b) 1534
(c) 1616
(17) Francis Bacon died in:
(a) 1616
(b) 1626
(c) 1648
(18) The period between 1660 to 1750 is known as:
(a) The Age of Classicism
(b) The Restoration
(c) The age of Milton
(19) Who wrote "The Pilgrim’s Progress"?
(a) John Bunyan
(b) Daniel Defoe
(c) Dryden
(20) ‘‘The Conduct of the Allies’ is a famous work of:
(a) Jonathan Swift
(b) Samuel Johnson
(c) Oliver ‘Goldsmith
English Literature Paper - I (2001)
1) The abstract theory of utilitarianism is the theme of Dicken’s novel:a) Bleak House
b) A Tale of Two Cities
c) Hard Times
d) Great Expectations
e) None of these
2. The one remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth’s shadows fly;
The above two lines occur in:
a) Keats’ Hyperion
b) Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
c) Shelley’s Adonis
d) Keats’ Ode to Psyche
e) None of these
3. Name the character of a novel of Thomas Hardy, which is much like Oedipus, King Lear and Faust.
Answer. Tess.
4. She can not fade, though thou hast not the bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
The above two lines have been taken from:
a) Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale
b) A Thing of Beauty
c) La Belle Dame Sans Mercy
d) Ode on a Grecian Urn
5. ‘Withdrawal from an uncongenial world of escape either to death or more often, to an ideal dream world’, is the theme of Tennyson’s:
a) Ulysses
b) The Palace of Arts
c) The Lotos - Eaters
d) None of these
6. Philip Waken, Aunt Pallet and Tom Tulliver are the characters of G. Eliot’s novel:
a) Silas Manner
b) Adam Bede
c) Middle March
d) The Mill on the Floss
7. "In all things, in all natures, in the stars,
This active principle abides,"
Identify the poet and his peculiar belief that can be understood from the above lines.
Answer: William Wordsworth as he was of the opinion that in this universe ‘nature’ is the point of focus for everything.
8. “Thy, Damnation, Slunbreth, Not”
Name the writer, his book and the character who uttered/wrote these words.
Writer – Thomas Hardy
Book – Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Character – a young man who is traveling the countryside painting scripture on the sides of barns walks
9. In Memoriam by Tennyson is:
a) an elegy
b) a collection of elegies
c) a lyric
d) a dramatic lyric
e) None of these
10. The poem, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” was written by:
a) Shelley
b) Blake
c) Byron
d) Browning
e) None of these
11. ‘Unto This Last’ is a book written by:
a) Mill on economic reforms
b) Carlyle on moral reforms
c) Ruskin on moral reforms
d) None of these
12. Mathew Arnold said: “An ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain”, about:
a) Keats
b) Byron
c) Shelley
d) Blake
e) None of these
13. For whom it is said: “sensuousness is a paramount bias of his genius”:
a) Blake
b) Keats
c) Tennyson
d) Shelley
e) None of these
14. “Meeting at Night” by Browning is a:
a) Monologue
b) Dramatic Lyric
c) Dramatic Monologue
d) Dramatic Romance
e) None of these
15. A pioneer is psychological analysis in fiction is:
a) Charles Dickens
b) Thackeray
c) Charlotte Bronte
d) G. Eliot
e) None of these
16. “Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempest”. The above line occur in Byron’s:
a) Fame
b) Waterloo
c) Roll on, Thou deep and dark Blue Oceans
17. Dickens gives a tragic picture of the French Revolution in his novel:
a) Little Dorrit
b) Hard Times
c) Bleak House
d) A Tale of Two Cities
18. Love of political freedom, always the noblest of Byron’s passions, inspired him to write:
a) Manfred
b) The Island
c) The prisoner of Chillon
d) The Prophecy of Dante
19. An aesthetic delight in art and a streak of extreme sadistic cruelty can be observed in Browning’s Poem:
a) Paracelsus
b) My Last Duchess
c) Sordello
d) Pippa Passes
20. Edward Fitzgerald’s “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” inspired Browning to write:
a) The Last Ride Together
b) Rabbi Ben Ezra
c) Ester Day
d) Abt Vogler
English Literature Paper - II (2001)
1) Shakespeare uses soliloquy for:a) revelation of character
b) dramatic purposes
c) establishing the theme
d) None of these
2. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is a:
a) Thrilling story
b) Tragedy
c) Satire
d) None of these
3. Hemingway wrote:
a) The Sun also Rises
b) The Rivals
c) The Jew of Malta
d) None of these
4. The heroine of Pride and Prejudice is
a) Emma
b) Elizabeth
c) Lydia
d) None of these
5. ‘Hyperion’ by Keats may be classified as:
a) An Ode
b) Sonnet
c) An Epic
d) None of these
6. T. S. Eliot wrote:
a) The Pasture
b) The Waste Land
c) Birches
d) None of these
7. G.B. Shaw’s principles of criticism are similar to those of:
a) Karl Marx
b) S. Butler
c) None of these
8. “The Waste Land’ is:
a) An Allegory
b) A Sonnet
c) Blank verse
d) None of these
9. Yeats poetry possess the imaginative mysticism of:
a) Nationalism
b) Criticism
c) Romanticism
d) None of these
10. Who considers Hamlet to be an Artistic failure
a) Bradley
b) Eliot
c) Kermode
d) None of these
11. Which influence is shown in the work of Shaw?
a) French
b) German
c) None of these
12. Eliot shows a bent towards
a) Romanticism
b) Victorianism
c) None of these
13. Mrs. Dalloway is the masterpiece of:
a) M. Drabble
b) V. Woolf
c) None of these
14. The Central Figure among the Victorian Poets is:
a) Keats
b) Tennyson
c) Milton
d) None of these
15. Browning is known for his:
a) Dramatic Monologue
b) Parody
c) Blank verse
d) None of these
16. Which novel is written by D. H. Lawrence?
a) The Ice Age
b) Sons and Lovers
c) None of these
17. The ‘Arcadia’ by Sir Philip Sydney is a:
a) Pastoral
b) Romance
c) Comedy
d) None of these
18. ‘The Faerie Queene’ was written by:
a) Milton
b) Lyly
c) Spenser
d) None of these
19. ‘The Crowns of Wild Olive’ was written by:
a) Huxley
b) Ben Johnson
c) Ruskin
d) None of these
20. David Copper Field, Hard Times and Little Dorrit, all were written by:
a) Hardy
b) Dickens
c) Moore
d) None of these
English Literature Paper - I (2002)
1) ‘All good poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ who made this statement?a) Shelly
b) De Quincey
c) Wordsworth
d) None of these
2. “A long poem is a combination of short poems.” Who has held the above opinion?
a) Coleridge
b) Keats
c) Wordsworth
d) None of these
3. Rabbi Ben Ezra was written by?
a) Tennyson
b) Browning
c) Matthew Arnold
d) None of these
4. In 1857, Matthew Arnold as Professor of Poetry at Oxford delivered his inaugural lecture in:
a) English
b) Latin
c) Greek
d) None of these
5. The second generation of the romantic poets (Shelley, Byron and Keats) was dead by:
a) 1820
b) 1825
c) 1830
d) None of these
6. The Advertisement added to the Lyrical Ballads was published in:
a) 1800
b) 1802
c) 1798
d) None of these
7. Hero and Hero Worship was written by:
a) Ruskin
b) Carlyle
c) J. S. Mill
d) None of these
8. 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
9. Hardy’s Nature is:
a) Friendly
b) Indifferent
c) Vindictive
d) None of these
10. Does the personal name Lucy (in Wordsworth’s poetry) stands for
a) Anneta Vallon
b) Dorothy
c) Drawn from folk song heroines
d) None of these
11. ‘Who knows but the world many end to-night.’ In which of Browning’s poems the above line appears?
a) The Last Ride together
b) One Word More
c) The Last Duchess
d) None of these
12. The Prelude was written in”
a) 1810
b) 1840
c) 1805
d) None of these
13. The Crown of Wild Olive is written by:
a) Charles Lamb
b) Carlyle
c) Ruskin
d) None of these
14. Oscar Wilde believed in:
a) Aestheticism
b) Escapism
c) Pragmatism
d) None of these
15. ‘Bliss was it, in that Dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven.’ Who has written these lines?
a) Shelley
b) Browning
c) Wordsworth
d) None of these
16. When was the poem Tintern Abbey written?
a) 1793
b) 1795
c) 1798
d) None of these
17. The correct date of French Revolution:
a) 1793
b) 1802
c) 1789
d) None of these
18. Human situation in Hardy’s novels is controlled by:
a) Social Forces
b) Providence
c) Fate
d) None of these
19. "Prophets of Nature ………
……………. What we have loved
Other will love …………….”
In which poem by Wordsworth do these lines appear?
a) Excursion
b) One Summer Evening
c) Prelude
d) None of these
20. “But God’s eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone.” In which poem do these lines appear?
a) We Are Seven (Wordsworth)
b) Ballad of Reading Goal (Oscar Wilde)
c) Prisoner of Chillon (Byron)
d) None of these
