Home / English Literature / Practice Set 18

Practice Set 18

December 25, 2025
Questionnaire

1. Which novelist created the fictional town of Malgudi?

A. Mulk Raj Anand

B. R. K. Narayan

C. Raja Rao

D. Salman Rushdie

 

2. Who is the unreliable narrator in "Midnight’s Children?"

A. Shiva

B. Aadam Aziz

C. Saleem Sinai

D. Ahmed Sinai

 

3. In which year did William Faulkner receive the Nobel Prize in Literature?

A. 1946

B. 1949

C. 1954

D. 1962

 

4. Who described Faulkner as “the greatest artist the South has produced”?

A. Ernest Hemingway

B. Malcolm Cowley

C. Ralph Ellison

D. Robert Penn Warren

 

5. Which of the following works by William Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

A. The Sound and the Fury

B. As I Lay Dying

C. A Fable

D. Light in August

 

6. The phrase “heresy of paraphrase” was coined by

A. T. S. Eliot

B. I. A. Richards

C. Cleanth Brooks

D. Wimsatt

 

7. The “heresy of paraphrase” argues that

A. Poetry should be summarized

B. Meaning exists outside the text

C. Poetic meaning cannot be reduced to prose

D. Context determines meaning

 

8. Which of the following critics is NOT associated with New Criticism?

A. Cleanth Brooks

B. W. K. Wimsatt

C. I. A. Richards

D. Northrop Frye

 

9. The essay “The Language of Paradox” appears in

A. Practical Criticism

B. The Well Wrought Urn

C. Seven Types of Ambiguity

D. Anatomy of Criticism

 

10. Which of the following best illustrates paradox?

A. “The sun rises in the east.”

B. “Sweet sorrow.”

C. “The earth revolves.”

D. “Two plus two is four.”

 

11. Paradox in New Criticism is closely linked with

A. Mimesis

B. Irony

C. Catharsis

D. Sublime

 

12. According to Aristotle, tragedy is an imitation of

A. Character

B. Action

C. Emotion

D. Fate

 

13. Which of the following emotions are central to catharsis?

A. Love and hatred

B. Joy and sorrow

C. Pity and fear

D. Anger and revenge

 

14. Which philosopher considered poetry dangerous to society?

A. Aristotle

B. Horace

C. Plato

D. Longinus

 

15. Which Greek critic introduced hamartia as a tragic concept?

A. Plato

B. Aristotle

C. Sophocles

D. Horace

 

16. The setting of Oedipus Rex is

A. Athens

B. Corinth

C. Delphi

D. Thebes

 

17. Ben Jonson’s famous tribute to Shakespeare appears in

A. Second Folio

B. Third Folio

C. First Folio

D. Fourth Folio

 

18. Which portrait of Shakespeare appears in the First Folio?

A. Chandos Portrait

B. Droeshout Engraving

C. Cobbe Portrait

D. Sanders Portrait

 

19. The character Heathcliff appears in

A. Jane Eyre

B. Wuthering Heights

C. Great Expectations

D. Middlemarch

 

20. "Doctor Faustus" is based on

A. Greek myth

B. Biblical story

C. German legend

D. Roman history

 

21. William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is narrated through

A. Linear omniscient narration

B. Stream of consciousness

C. Epistolary form

D. Dramatic monologue

 

22. The character Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon appear in

A. Endgame

B. Waiting for Godot

C. Happy Days

D. Krapp’s Last Tape

 

23. "The Old Man and the Sea" is best described as a

A. Novel

B. Short story

C. Novella

D. Epic

 

24. The protagonist of "The Old Man and the Sea" is

A. Manolin

B. Santiago

C. Hemingway

D. Pedro

 

25. "The Scarlet Letter" was written by

A. Nathaniel Hawthorne

B. Herman Melville

C. Edgar Allan Poe

D. Henry James

 

26. Which Poet Laureate was removed from office due to political reasons?

A. William Wordsworth

B. Robert Southey

C. John Dryden

D. Ted Hughes

 

27. "Death of a Salesman" was written by

A. Tennessee Williams

B. Eugene O’Neill

C. Arthur Miller

D. Edward Albee

 

28. Willy Loman is a character in

A. The Glass Menagerie

B. A Streetcar Named Desire

C. Death of a Salesman

D. Long Day’s Journey into Night

 

29. The position of Poet Laureate originated in

A. France

B. Italy

C. England

D. Greece

 

30. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was written by

A. Mark Twain

B. F. Scott Fitzgerald

C. Ernest Hemingway

D. John Steinbeck

 

31. William Faulkner’s fictional county is called

A. Yoknapatawpha

B. Jefferson

C. Maycomb

D. Macondo

 

32. The phrase, "A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds," occurs in:

A. Shelley’s Defence of Poetry

B. Keats’ letters

C. Wordsworth’s Preface

D. Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria

 

33. Ted Hughes was married to

A. Anne Sexton

B. Sylvia Plath

C. Carol Ann Duffy

D. Emily Dickinson

 

34. Ted Hughes won the Hawthornden Prize for

A. Lupercal

B. Crow

C. Hawk in the Rain

D. Birthday Letters

 

35. Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature in

A. 1987

B. 1991

C. 1993

D. 1998

 

36. Which poet is associated with Transcendentalism?

A. Edgar Allan Poe

B. Walt Whitman

C. Robert Lowell

D. Wallace Stevens

 

37. Which was Ted Hughes’s first published collection of poetry?

A. Crow

B. Lupercal

C. Hawk in the Rain

D. Birthday Letters

 

38. "Literature is a criticism of life” was stated by

A. T. S. Eliot

B. Matthew Arnold

C. Leavis

D. Richards

 

39. Who was the first African-American Poet Laureate of the USA?

A. Maya Angelou

B. Rita Dove

C. Gwendolyn Brooks

D. Langston Hughes

 

40. The idea that poetry “says one thing and means another” supports

A. Allegory

B. Paradox

C. Catharsis

D. Mimesis

 

41. Which of the following best distinguishes hamartia from hubris?

A. Hamartia is always moral evil, hubris is error

B. Hamartia is an error in  judgment; hubris is excessive pride

C. Hamartia is divine fate; hubris is human choice

D. Hamartia is punishment; hubris is flaw

 

42. "The Great Tradition” is a work by

A. I. A. Richards

B. Cleanth Brooks

C. F. R. Leavis

D. Raymond Williams

 

43. The First Folio of Shakespeare was published seven years after Shakespeare’s

A. Birth

B. Marriage

C. Retirement

D. Death

 

44. For which award did "The Old Man and the Sea" win recognition in 1953?

A. Nobel Prize in Literature

B. National Book Award

C. Pulitzer Prize

D. Booker Prize

 

45. "Because I could not stop for Death –” is written by

A. Emily Dickinson

B. Sylvia Plath

C. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

D. Christina Rossetti

 

46. Ted Hughes became Poet Laureate of England in

A. 1975

B. 1981

C. 1984

D. 1998

 

47. "Do not go gentle into that good night” is an example of

A. Sonnet

B. Villanelle

C. Ode

D. Elegy

 

48. Philip Larkin is a leading poet of

A. Modernism

B. Neo-Romanticism

C. The Movement

D. Symbolism

 

49. “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” opens which poem by Larkin?

A. Church Going

B. High Windows

C. This Be the Verse

D. An Arundel Tomb

 

50. “September 1, 1939” reflects Auden’s response to

A. The Russian Revolution

B. The Great Depression

C. The outbreak of World War II

D. The Cold War