Literary Analysis Of British Poetry 1660–1925

This is an MCQ-based quiz for GRE on the Literary Analysis Of British Poetry 1660–1925.

This includes works like Pied Beauty, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, The Rape of the Lock, Paradise Lost, and An Elegy on the Death of John Keats.

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Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

The versification of the poem would be best classified as __________.

Running rhythm

Free verse

Sprung rhythm

Blank verse

Trochaic verse

Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams,
       The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
       Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
       Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
       The love which was its music, wander not—
       Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
       But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
       Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne"er will gather strength, or find a home again.

This poem from which this excerpt is taken best exemplifies __________.

An ode

An eclogue

A lover's lament

A folk ballad

A pastoral elegy

Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams,
       The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
       Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
       Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
       The love which was its music, wander not—
       Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
       But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
       Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne"er will gather strength, or find a home again.

The verse form in this poem most closely resembles that in which of the following works?

Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard"

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.

John Milton's Lycidas

If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of DawnBrushing with hasty Steps the Dews awayTo meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.There at the Foot of yonder nodding BeechThat wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,His listless Length at Noontide wou"d he stretch,And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."

What form does this poem take?

Ode

Villanelle

Sestina

Ballad

Eulogy

What dire offence from am"rous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things,I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:This, ev"n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compelA well-bred Lord t" assault a gentle Belle?O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor"d,Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?In tasks so bold, can little men engage,And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?

What genre is this poem classified as?

Melodramatic

Comedic

Epic

Mock-heroic

Tragicomic

Heroic couplets

Blank verse

Iambic tetrameter

Free verse

Spondaic pentameter

Most epic poets plunge "in medias res"
(______ makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene"er you please,
What went before—by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.

That is the usual method, but not mine—
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan"s father,
And also of his mother, if you"d rather.

Who is the author referred to in line 2?

Petronius

Ovid

Longinus

Horace

The second line exemplifies how the poet has gone through great pains to avoid

The second line is an ironic comment on the first one

The second line is an acknowledgement that the poet might have sinned, although only time will tell.

The second line is a partial critique of the first one.

Blake

Byron

Clare

Wordsworth

Of Man"s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning, how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa"s brook that flow"d
Fast by the oracle of God: I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

(John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I.)

What is the main verb in the first ten lines of the excerpt above?