MCQs Modernism
SET-I
Q.1. Which lady is the subject of many of Yeats' poems?
1. Fanny Brawne
2. Maud Gonne
3. Ellen Turnar
4. Sylvia
Answer: 2
Explanation: Maud Gonne, Yeats’s lifelong muse and unrequited love, inspired many of his poems, including No Second Troy and When You Are Old.
Q.2. Which of the following is not a trench poet?
1. Auden
2. Rupert Brooke
3. Sassoon
4. Wilfred Owen
Answer: 1
Explanation: Auden belonged to the 1930s generation, not the World War I trench poets like Brooke, Sassoon, and Owen.
Q.3. “Let us go then, you and I” is the opening line from—
1. The Waste Land
2. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
3. The Hollow Men
4. The Second Coming
Answer: 2
Explanation: The line opens T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), a key modernist poem.
Q.4. The Gokulastami festival is referred to in—
1. A Passage to England
2. A Passage to India
3. Kanthapura
4. India: A Million Mutinies Now
Answer: 2
Explanation: There is a long description of the Hindu festival of Gokul-Ashtami (Krishana-Janma-Asthami) in the Novel A Passage To India.
Q.5. "Sir, No Man's Enemy” is written by—
1. W. B. Yeats
2. Wilfred Owen
3. Auden
4. Evelyn Waugh
Answer: 3
Explanation: W. H. Auden wrote Sir, No Man’s Enemy expressing post-war disillusionment and moral struggle.
Q.6. Which of the following was not written by James Joyce?
1. Dubliners
2. The Island
3. Ulysses
4. Finnegans Wake
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Island was not written by Joyce; his major works are Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake.
Q.7. “I am an Indian poet writing in English” — who made this comment?
1. Arun Kolatkar
2. Kamala Das
3. Nissim Ezekiel
4. R. K. Narayan
Answer: 3
Explanation: Nissim Ezekiel made this statement, asserting his Indian identity despite writing in English.
Q.8. Who described India as the 'Continent of Circe'?
1. Nirad C. Chaudhuri
2. Tagore
3. Raja Rao
4. Sunetra Gupta
Answer: 1
Explanation: Nirad C. Chaudhuri used the phrase “Continent of Circe” to describe India’s contradictions in The Continent of Circe (1965). In his classic 1965 book, Nirad Chaudhuri called India “The Continent of Circe.” (In Greek mythology, Circe seduces Odysseus and his men with her songs, turning them into swine.)
Q.9. ‘Imagism’ advocated the use of—
1. Blank verse
2. Free verse
3. Heroic couplet
4. Haiku
Answer: 2
Explanation: Imagism promoted clarity and precision in language, often using free verse instead of traditional metrical forms.
Q.10. "Disenchantment of our culture with the culture itself" is by Lionel Trilling about—
1. Victorianism
2. Modernism
3. Postmodernism
4. Postcolonialism
Answer: 2
Explanation: Trilling used this phrase to describe Modernism’s critical view of its own cultural heritage.
Q.11. The refrain 'A terrible beauty is born' belongs to—
1. Easter 1916
2. The Second Coming
3. Leda and the Swan
4. The Waste Land
Answer: 1
Explanation: Yeats used this refrain in Easter 1916 to express the paradox of beauty and tragedy in Ireland’s revolution.
Q.12. "Ten Upanishads of Sanskrit” was translated into English by—
1. W. B. Yeats
2. Carlyle
3. T. S. Eliot
4. Saki
Answer: 1
Explanation: Yeats collaborated with Shri Purohit Swami to translate The Ten Principal Upanishads into English.
Q.13. Robert Frost, Drinkwater, Abercrombie, and Brooke are known as—
1. Lake Poets
2. War Poets
3. Dymock Poets
4. Imagists
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Dymock Poets were a group of Georgian poets associated with rural themes before WWI.
Q.14. Gerontion is a poem by T. S. Eliot which means—
1. Little young man
2. Little old man
3. Large old man
4. Large young man
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Greek-derived title Gerontion means “little old man,” reflecting spiritual decay and aging.
Q.15. The Magi in ‘The Journey of the Magi’ are three—
1. Travellers
2. Magicians
3. Pilgrims
4. Wise men from the East
Answer: 4
Explanation: Eliot’s poem refers to the Biblical Magi—three wise men from the East who visited infant Christ.
Q.16. Auden's use of assonance and internal rhyme is an attribute of—
1. Yeats
2. Hopkins
3. Eliot
4. Ezra Pound
Answer: 2
Explanation: Auden was influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins’s use of sprung rhythm, assonance, and internal rhyme.
Q.17. “World within world” is the autobiography of—
1. Auden
2. Yeats
3. Spender
4. Louis MacNeice
Answer: 3
Explanation: Stephen Spender’s autobiography World Within World recounts his literary and political experiences.
Q.18. Inscape and Instress are concepts of—
1. Aristotle
2. W. B. Yeats
3. Hopkins
4. G. B. Shaw
Answer: 3
Explanation: Hopkins coined Inscape (unique essence) and Instress (energy perceiving it) in his poetic theory.
Q.19. William Empson and I. A. Richards explained "The Windhover" as Hopkins’s envy for—
1. Pristine beauty
2. Divine beauty
3. Moral beauty
4. Natural beauty
Answer: 2
Explanation: Critics interpreted The Windhover as Hopkins’s admiration for divine beauty manifested in nature.
Q.20. Twenty-four sonnets published in 1876 are called—
1. Love Sonnets
2. The Spirit of Man
3. The Terrible Sonnets
4. The Growth of Love
Answer: 4
Explanation: The Growth of Love by Robert Bridges (1876) comprises 24 sonnets exploring love’s evolution.
Q.21. Which among the following offers the correct chronological sequence?
1. A Portrait – Dubliners – Finnegans Wake – Ulysses
2. Ulysses – Dubliners – A Portrait – Finnegans Wake
3. Finnegans Wake – A Portrait – Ulysses – Dubliners
4. Dubliners – A Portrait – Ulysses – Finnegans Wake
Answer: 4
Explanation: Joyce’s works appeared in this order: Dubliners (1914), A Portrait (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).
Q.22. Match the Nobel Laureates in Literature with the years.
a. Samuel Beckett
b. Seamus Heaney
c. T. S. Eliot
d. W. B. Yeats
i. 1948
ii. 1923
iii. 1969
iv. 1995
Code:
1. A1, b2, c3, d4
2. a4,b3,c2,d1
3. a3,b4,c1,d2
4. a2,b3,c4,d1
Answer: 3
Explanation: Beckett (1969), Heaney (1995), Eliot (1948), and Yeats (1923) are all Nobel laureates in literature.
Q.23. Poems written by G. M. Hopkins were published in 1918 by—
1. T. S. Eliot
2. W. B. Yeats
3. Robert Bridges
4. Edward Thomas
Answer: 3
Explanation: Robert Bridges, Hopkins’s friend, published his poems posthumously in 1918.
Q.24. Virginia Woolf exemplifies the idea that tyranny at home is connected to tyranny abroad in—
1. A Haunted House
2. Orlando
3. Night and Day
4. Three Guineas
Answer: 4
Explanation: Three Guineas links patriarchal oppression to imperialism and fascism.
Q.25. Modernism has been described as being concerned with “disenchantment of our culture with culture itself” by—
1. Stephen Spender
2. Malcolm Bradbury
3. Lionel Trilling
4. Joseph Frank
Answer: 3
Explanation: Lionel Trilling described Modernism as a self-critical movement of cultural disillusionment.
SET-II
Q.26. The number of sections in Eliot's The Waste Land—
1. 4
2. 5
3. 6
4. 7
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Waste Land has five sections, reflecting spiritual desolation in post-war Europe.
Q.27. R. L. Stevenson wrote which novel to explore duality within human nature?
1. Kidnapped
2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
3. Weir of Hermiston
4. The Wrong Box
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explores the conflict between good and evil in human nature.
Q.28. G. M. Hopkins’s term for the unique characteristics that make an object distinctive is—
1. Inscape
2. Instress
3. Curtal Sonnet
4. Sprung Rhythm
Answer: 1
Explanation: Inscape refers to the unique design or essence of an object as perceived by the poet.
Q.29. "The Circus Animals' Desertion" is a work by—
1. Edward Albee
2. Eugene Ionesco
3. Anton Chekhov
4. W. B. Yeats
Answer: 4
Explanation: Yeats’s late poem The Circus Animals’ Desertion reflects his creative exhaustion and self-reflection.
Q.30. Max Beerbohm, a modernist writer, ferociously attacked—
1. G. B. Shaw
2. H. G. Wells
3. Rudyard Kipling
4. W. H. Auden
Answer: 3
Explanation: The only two targets he attacked with ferocity were British imperialism—in the persona of a blustering John Bull—and Rudyard Kipling. As a parodist, he is frequently held to be unsurpassed.
Q.31. Which poet used symbols like Rose, Falcon, Tower, Wind, and Lion?
1. Arthur Symons
2. W. B. Yeats
3. Wilfred Owen
4. Ezra Pound
Answer: 2
Explanation: Yeats’s symbolic system used recurring images such as the rose and tower to convey mystical meanings.
Q.32. Autumn Journal is an autobiographical long poem written by—
1. W. H. Auden
2. Rupert Brooke
3. Louis MacNeice
4. Seamus Heaney
Answer: 3
Explanation: MacNeice’s Autumn Journal (1939) combines personal and political reflections before WWII.
Q.33. Identify the poet who was not a Poet Laureate.
1. John Dryden
2. T. S. Eliot
3. William Wordsworth
4. Andrew Motion
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eliot was never Poet Laureate; Dryden, Wordsworth, and Motion held the title.
Q.34. The process of substituting a harsh word with a mild one (e.g., "passed away" for "dead") is—
1. Circumlocution
2. Slang
3. Cliché
4. Euphemism
Answer: 4
Explanation: Euphemism softens harsh expressions to make them more socially acceptable.
Q.35. “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” are lines from Eliot’s—
1. The Waste Land
2. Little Gidding
3. Journey of the Magi
4. The Hollow Men
Answer: 4
Explanation: The famous closing lines of The Hollow Men (1925) signify spiritual and moral decay.
Q.36. Which novel by Joseph Conrad begins, “Mr. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law”?
1. Heart of Darkness
2. Under Western Eyes
3. The Secret Agent
4. The Nigger of the Narcissus
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Secret Agent opens with this line and explores terrorism and espionage in London.
Q.37. James Joyce’s Dubliners is a—
1. Collection of essays
2. Collection of 15 short stories
3. Play
4. Novel
Answer: 2
Explanation: Dubliners (1914) is a collection of 15 short stories depicting Irish middle-class life.
Q.38. Which is not a characteristic of Kitchen Sink Drama or Angry Young Men Movement?
1. Portrayal of working class
2. Social reality
3. Angry confrontations
4. Absurd situations
Answer: 4
Explanation: Absurd situations belong to the Theatre of the Absurd, not the social realism of the Angry Young Men.
Q.39. Which play was not written by Beckett?
1. Endgame
2. Happy Days
3. Waiting for Godot
4. Juno and the Paycock
Answer: 4
Explanation: Juno and the Paycock is by Sean O’Casey, not Beckett.
Q.40. Imagism was influenced by the aesthetic theories of—
1. Keats
2. Hilda Doolittle
3. Coleridge
4. T. E. Hulme
Answer: 4
Explanation: T. E. Hulme’s aesthetic ideas about precision and clarity influenced the Imagist movement.
Q.41. Which poem by W. H. Auden was written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II?
1. September 1, 1939
2. The Shield of Achilles
3. The Unknown Citizen
4. Refugee Blues
Answer: 1
Explanation: “September 1, 1939” was written by W. H. Auden after the German invasion of Poland, marking the start of World War II. It reflects disillusionment with politics and society.
Q.42. In T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, who is the “third who walks always beside you”?
1. A symbol of Christ
2. The poet’s alter ego
3. Tiresias
4. The Fisher King
Answer: 1
Explanation: The “third” refers to a mysterious, comforting presence, often interpreted as a Christ figure symbolizing spiritual companionship in desolation.
Q.43. The phrase “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” comes from Yeats’s poem—
1. The Tower
2. Easter 1916
3. Sailing to Byzantium
4. The Second Coming
Answer: 4
Explanation: Yeats’s The Second Coming reflects post–World War I chaos and disintegration of moral and political order.
Q.44. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is based on a series of lectures delivered at—
1. Cambridge University
2. Oxford University
3. King’s College London
4. University of London
Answer: 1
Explanation: Woolf delivered the lectures at Newnham and Girton Colleges, Cambridge, in 1928, addressing women’s need for independence and creative space.
Q.45. “Make it new” was the motto of—
1. T. S. Eliot
2. Ezra Pound
3. W. B. Yeats
4. James Joyce
Answer: 2
Explanation: Ezra Pound’s famous modernist slogan “Make it new” called for innovation, precision, and renewal in artistic expression.
Q.46. Which of the following is not a characteristic of Modernist literature?
1. Stream of consciousness
2. Objective narration
3. Fragmentation
4. Alienation
Answer: 2
Explanation: Modernist literature typically rejects objective narration and linear storytelling, favoring subjectivity and fragmented perspectives.
Q.47. “April is the cruellest month” is the opening line of—
1. The Hollow Men
2. The Waste Land
3. Ash Wednesday
4. Gerontion
Answer: 2
Explanation: The first line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land establishes the ironic tone of renewal and despair in modern civilization.
Q.48. In which year did James Joyce’s Ulysses appear?
1. 1918
2. 1922
3. 1928
4. 1930
Answer: 2
Explanation: Ulysses was published in 1922, the same year as Eliot’s The Waste Land, marking a milestone in modernist fiction.
Q.49. Who among the following coined the term “Stream of Consciousness”?
1. Sigmund Freud
2. William James
3. Virginia Woolf
4. James Joyce
Answer: 2
Explanation: Psychologist William James introduced the term “stream of consciousness” to describe the continuous flow of human thought, later used in modernist literature.
Q.50. Which of the following plays by T. S. Eliot is a verse drama?
1. The Cocktail Party
2. Murder in the Cathedral
3. The Family Reunion
4. All of the above
Answer: 4
Explanation: Eliot revived verse drama in the 20th century with Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.
SET-III
Q.1. The death of which monarch in 1901 marked the beginning of the Modern Age in English Literature?
1. King Edward VII
2. Queen Victoria
3. King George V
4. Queen Elizabeth I
Answer: 2
Explanation: Queen Victoria’s death in January 1901 ended the Victorian Age and ushered in the Modern Period. In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.
Q.2. Modernism is essentially _______ as it explains mankind’s place in the modern world.
1. Post-Colonial
2. Post-Romantic
3. Post-Darwinian
4. Post-Industrial
Answer: 3
Explanation: Modernism is post-Darwinian because it deals with mankind’s redefined place after Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Q.3. Modernism represents a radical break with _______.
1. Renaissance ideals
2. Victorian conventions
3. Romantic imagination
4. Medieval theology
Answer: 2
Explanation: Modernism rejected conventional Victorian norms in subject matter, form, and style.
Q.4. The focus of early twentieth-century poetry shifted from countryside to _______.
1. Empire
2. The Great City
3. Nature
4. The Church
Answer: 2
Explanation: Modern poetry moved away from rural romanticism and began focusing on urban life and industrial modernity.
Q.5. Which of the following intellectuals is not considered a precursor of Modernism?
1. Karl Marx
2. Sigmund Freud
3. Friedrich Nietzsche
4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Answer: 4
Explanation: Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche influenced Modernism with their ideas on society, psyche, and morality.
Q.6. Who remarked that “not only human character, but all human relations between masters and servants, husband and wife, parent and child are shifted”?
1. D. H. Lawrence
2. Virginia Woolf
3. T. S. Eliot
4. James Joyce
Answer: 2
Explanation: Virginia Woolf, commenting on the social transformations of the Modern Age, made this statement in 1910.
Q.7. Lionel Trilling defined Modernism as “being concerned with the disenchantment of our culture with _______.”
1. History
2. Politics
3. Culture itself
4. Religion
Answer: 3
Explanation: Trilling emphasized Modernism’s self-critical stance toward culture itself.
Q.8. The Boer War (1899–1902) marked the beginning of rebellion against _______.
1. Industrial capitalism
2. British imperialism
3. Modern technology
4. Political democracy
Answer: 2
Explanation: The 'South African War (a.k.a. the Anglo-Boer War) War between Britain and South Africa reflected rising resistance to imperial rule.
Q.9 “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” is a line from:
1. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
2. Ulysses
3. Finnegans Wake
4. Dubliners
Answer: 2
Explanation: The line “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” is spoken by Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce. It occurs in the “Nestor” episode, where Stephen discusses history and identity with Mr. Deasy. The line expresses Stephen’s view of history as an oppressive burden from which he seeks intellectual and spiritual freedom.
Q.10 Which event shattered faith in a peaceful world and deeply influenced literature?
1. Great Depression
2. World War I
3. Boer War
4. Russian Revolution
Answer: 2
Explanation: The First World War (1914–18) caused immense death and destruction, inspiring disillusionment in writers.
Q.11. The year 1928 is significant for Britain because it witnessed:
1. Women’s suffrage
2. End of World War I
3. Start of Great Depression
4. Fall of British Empire
Answer: 1
Explanation: Universal suffrage for women was granted in 1928, marking a major social change.
Q.12. Which event in the 1930s created widespread financial instability?
1. Great Fire of London
2. Great Depression
3. Spanish Civil War
4. Suez Crisis
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Great Depression (1930s) followed the 1929 stock market crash, affecting the global economy.
Q.13. Which scientific and philosophical figures influenced Modernist literature?
1. Newton, Locke, and Hobbes
2. Freud, Einstein, and Bergson
3. Spencer, Darwin, and Carlyle
4. Marx, Weber, and Nietzsche
Answer: 2
Explanation: Freud (psychology), Einstein (relativity), and Bergson (subjective time) shaped modern literary consciousness.
Q.14. Which year is considered the landmark of High Modernism due to the publication of three major texts?
1. 1910
2. 1914
3. 1922
4. 1930
Answer: 3
Explanation: In 1922, The Waste Land, Ulysses, and Jacob’s Room were published—marking the height of Modernism.
Q.15. “Make it new(Avante-Garde)”” was the motto of which literary movement?
1. Symbolism
2. Modernism
3. Imagism
4. Romanticism
Answer: 2
Explanation: Ezra Pound’s Modernist slogan “Make it new” urged writers to break away from tradition and experiment with form, imagery, and language.
Q.16. Modernist literature emphasized:
1. External realism
2. Inner reality of the mind
3. Pastoral nostalgia
4. National identity
Answer: 2
Explanation: The focus shifted from external to internal realities—depicting consciousness and subjective time.
Q.17. Which narrative technique became prominent in Modernist fiction?
1. Epistolary narration
2. Stream of consciousness
3. Third-person omniscient
4. Allegorical narration
Answer: 2
Explanation: The “stream of consciousness” technique revealed the psychological depths of characters.
Q.18. “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” is written by:
1. Dylan Thomas
2. W. H. Auden
3. Louis MacNeice
4. Stephen Spender
Answer: 2
Explanation: Auden’s elegy In Memory of W. B. Yeats (1939) honors Yeats’s poetic legacy and examines the poet’s role in a time of political turmoil.
Q.19. Which of the following novelists does not belong to the Modernist group?
1. Virginia Woolf
2. James Joyce
3. D. H. Lawrence
4. Thomas Hardy
Answer: 4
Explanation: Hardy bridges Victorian and Modern eras but is often seen as a late Victorian realist.
Q.20. The phrase “Workers of the world unite” appears in which text?
1. The Republic
2. Das Kapital
3. Communist Manifesto
4. Beyond Good and Evil
Answer: 3
Explanation: Marx and Engels used this slogan in The Communist Manifesto (1848).
Q.21. The Georgian Poets were active roughly between:
1. 1890–1900
2. 1901–1911
3. 1912–1922
4. 1925–1935
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Georgian Poets flourished during 1912–1922, named after King George V.
Q.22. Who edited the Georgian Poetry anthologies?
1. Ezra Pound
2. Edward Marsh
3. G. K. Chesterton
4. Edmund Blunden
Answer: 2
Explanation: Edward Marsh edited five Georgian Poetry anthologies featuring poets like Brooke and Sassoon.
Q.23. Which of the following is not a Georgian poet?
1. Rupert Brooke
2. Siegfried Sassoon
3. D. H. Lawrence
4. T. S. Eliot
Answer: 4
Explanation: T. S. Eliot was a Modernist poet, while the others belonged to the Georgian group.
Q.24. Walter de la Mare’s pseudonym was:
1. Walter Ramel
2. George Orwell
3. Lewis Carroll
4. Ellis Bell
Answer: 1
Explanation: De la Mare wrote children’s literature under the pseudonym “Walter Ramel.”
Q.25. W. H. Davies’ poem “Leisure” begins with which famous line?
1. “I wandered lonely as a cloud”
2. “What is life, if full of care”
3. “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”
4. “When I was one-and-twenty”
Answer: 2
Explanation: Davies’ “Leisure” begins with the reflective line “What is life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”
SET-IV
Q.26. Which poetic movement arose in reaction to the romantic idealism of the Georgians?
1. Symbolism
2. Surrealism
3. Imagism
4. Expressionism
Answer: 3
Explanation: Imagism, led by Ezra Pound and H.D., reacted against sentimental Georgian poetry by stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language.
Q.27. Which poet’s dictum was “Direct treatment of the ‘thing,’ whether subjective or objective”?
1. T. S. Eliot
2. Ezra Pound
3. W. B. Yeats
4. W. H. Auden
Answer: 2
Explanation: Ezra Pound’s rule for Imagism emphasized presenting objects directly without unnecessary commentary.
Q.28. The Imagist movement began around the year:
1. 1905
2. 1910
3. 1912
4. 1918
Answer: 3
Explanation: Imagism emerged in 1912 with Pound, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Richard Aldington as its core members.
Q.29. Which of the following statements best defines Imagist poetry?
1. Use of traditional rhyme schemes
2. Use of free verse and precise imagery
3. Use of allegory and moral symbolism
4. Use of blank verse and long narrative form
Answer: 2
Explanation: Imagist poetry employed free verse, direct language, and sharp visual images.
Q.30. “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” was written by
1. Amy Lowell
2. Ezra Pound
3. T. E. Hulme
4. Ford Madox Ford
Answer: 2
Explanation: Pound’s 1913 manifesto “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” laid out rules for writing precise, image-driven poetry.
Q.31. T. E. Hulme’s essays “Romanticism and Classicism” helped lay the foundation for:
1. Surrealism
2. Symbolism
3. Imagism
4. Expressionism
Answer: 3
Explanation: Hulme’s emphasis on hard, clear, and precise imagery influenced the Imagist movement.
Q.32. Who among the following was not an Imagist poet?
1. Richard Aldington
2. H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)
3. Amy Lowell
4. W. B. Yeats
Answer: 4
Explanation: Yeats was a Symbolist and later Modernist poet, not associated with Imagism.
Q.33. The Dada movement originated during:
1. World War I
2. World War II
3. The Great Depression
4. The Victorian Age
Answer: 1
Explanation: Dadaism arose during WWI (1916) as a protest against war and bourgeois values.
Q.34. The term “Dada” was coined in:
1. Zurich
2. Paris
3. London
4. Berlin
Answer: 1
Explanation: The Dada movement began in Zurich at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916.
Q.35. Surrealism developed out of which earlier movement?
1. Symbolism
2. Romanticism
3. Dadaism
4. Imagism
Answer: 3
Explanation: Surrealism evolved from Dadaism, focusing on dreams and the unconscious mind.
Q.36. The leading figure of Surrealism was:
1. Guillaume Apollinaire
2. André Breton
3. Stéphane Mallarmé
4. Jean Cocteau
Answer: 2
Explanation: André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) officially launched the movement.
Q.37. Who defined Surrealism as “pure psychic automatism”?
1. Ezra Pound
2. André Breton
3. T. S. Eliot
4. Paul Éluard
Answer: 2
Explanation: In his Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton described it as “pure psychic automatism” — expression of unconscious thought.
Q.38. Who among the following coined the term “Stream of Consciousness”?
1. William James
2. Virginia Woolf
3. James Joyce
4. Henry James
Answer: 1
Explanation: The term was coined by psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890) to describe the flow of thoughts in the human mind, later applied to literary narrative techniques.
Q.39. The phrase “mythical method” is associated with which critic?
1. F. R. Leavis
2. T. S. Eliot
3. Northrop Frye
4. I. A. Richards
Answer: 2
Explanation: T. S. Eliot, in his essay on Joyce’s Ulysses, called the “mythical method” a way to order modern chaos.
Q.40. The Irish Literary Revival was led by:
1. James Joyce and J. M. Synge
2. W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory
3. George Moore and G. B. Shaw
4. Seán O’Casey and Thomas Kinsella
Answer: 2
Explanation: Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory founded the Irish Literary Theatre, later Abbey Theatre.
Q.41. Yeats’s early poetry is influenced primarily by:
1. Nationalism and Celtic mythology
2. Symbolism and Imagism
3. Romantic love and melancholy
4. Modern industrial life
Answer: 1
Explanation: Yeats’s early verse drew on Irish folklore and nationalistic themes.
Q.42. The later poetry of W. B. Yeats reflects:
1. Romantic idealism
2. Political satire
3. Philosophical mysticism and symbolism
4. Natural description
Answer: 3
Explanation: Yeats’s later poems, like “The Second Coming,” show mystical and symbolic tendencies.
Q.43. Yeats’s famous refrain “A terrible beauty is born” appears in:
1. Sailing to Byzantium
2. Easter 1916
3. The Second Coming
4. The Tower
Answer: 2
Explanation: The refrain appears in Yeats’s political poem Easter 1916, about the Irish Rebellion.
Q.44. The poem “The Second Coming” symbolizes:
1. The birth of Christ
2. The end of civilization
3. The Irish Revolution
4. The victory of science
Answer: 2
Explanation: Yeats envisions a chaotic apocalypse where “the centre cannot hold.”
Q.45. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is an example of:
1. Biblical allusion
2. Symbolism
3. Prophetic imagery
4. All of the above
Answer: 4
Explanation: The line combines apocalyptic prophecy, symbolic vision, and biblical allusion.
Q.46. The title of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart comes from which poem?
1. “Easter 1916”
2. “The Second Coming”
3. “Sailing to Byzantium”
4. “Leda and the Swan”
Answer: 2
Explanation: Achebe’s novel title derives from Yeats’s “The Second Coming.”
Q.47. “Leda and the Swan” dramatizes which mythological event?
1. Birth of Athena
2. Rape of Leda by Zeus
3. Fall of Troy
4. The Flood
Answer: 2
Explanation: The poem retells Zeus’s seduction of Leda in the form of a swan.
Q.48. “Sailing to Byzantium” explores:
1. Political decay
2. Spiritual transcendence through art
3. Nature’s beauty
4. War and death
Answer: 2
Explanation: Yeats expresses a longing for immortal artistic perfection beyond mortal decay.
Q.49. Which of the following plays by Yeats is based on Irish legend?
1. Purgatory
2. The Dreaming of the Bones
3. Deirdre
4. All of the above
Answer: 4
Explanation: Yeats’s plays, including Deirdre and Purgatory, draw on Irish myth and folklore.
Q.50. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in:
1. 1918
2. 1923
3. 1928
4. 1932
Answer: 2
Explanation: W. B. Yeats received the Nobel Prize in 1923 for his “inspired poetry” that gave expression to the Irish spirit.
SET-V
Q.51. The term War Poets refers to poets who wrote mainly about which war?
1. Boer War
2. Crimean War
3. World War I
4. World War II
Answer: 3
Explanation: The War Poets depicted the horror and futility of World War I in their works.
Q.52. Who among the following is not a War Poet?
1. Siegfried Sassoon
2. Wilfred Owen
3. Rupert Brooke
4. W. H. Auden
Answer: 4
Explanation: Auden belonged to the 1930s generation, not the World War I group.
Q.53. Which poem begins with the line “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”
1. Dulce et Decorum Est
2. Anthem for Doomed Youth
3. The Soldier
4. Futility
Answer: 2
Explanation: Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth mourns soldiers’ deaths with bitter irony.
Q.54. “Dulce et Decorum Est” criticizes which idea?
1. Romantic love
2. Patriotism in war
3. Religion
4. Industrialism
Answer: 2
Explanation: Owen calls the patriotic saying “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” an “old lie.”
Q.55. Rupert Brooke’s famous war sonnet “The Soldier” reflects:
1. Pessimism
2. Patriotism and idealism
3. Nihilism
4. Cynicism
Answer: 2
Explanation: Brooke’s early war poetry glorified patriotic sacrifice before the horrors of war became apparent.
Q.56. Which poem begins with the line ““I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark?”
1. Dulce et Decorum Est
2. Anthem for Doomed Youth
3. The Soldier
4. Strange Meeting
Answer: 4
Explanation: Wilfred Edward Salter Owen is best known for his poems "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and " Dulce et Decorum Est." The poem ‘Strange Meeting‘ describes a soldier who escapes from battle and finds himself in a hellish, underground tunnel where he encounters the ghost of an enemy soldier he killed. The enemy soldier speaks about the futility of war and the shared humanity of all soldiers, ultimately revealing their potential for friendship despite the conflict.
Q.57. Wilfred Owen’s poems were first published posthumously by:
1. Ezra Pound
2. Robert Graves
3. Siegfried Sassoon
4. Edmund Blunden
Answer: 3
Explanation: Sassoon edited and published Owen’s poems in 1920 after his death in combat.
Q.58. Which novel by Aldous Huxley depicts a dystopian future dominated by science and technology?
1. Eyeless in Gaza
2. Brave New World
3. Point Counter Point
4. Island
Answer: 2
Explanation: Brave New World (1932) envisions a technologically controlled society where human freedom and individuality are sacrificed for stability.
Q.59. The group of poets active during the 1930s and concerned with social and political issues were known as:
1. Imagists
2. Decadents
3. The Auden Group
4. The Symbolists
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Auden Group (or Thirties poets) included Spender, MacNeice, and Day-Lewis, focusing on politics and morality.
Q.60. The poets of the 1930s were deeply influenced by which ideology?
1. Capitalism
2. Marxism
3. Romanticism
4. Existentialism
Answer: 2
Explanation: Many 1930s poets were drawn to Marxism and socialism due to economic depression and political unrest.
Q.61. Which poet’s autobiography is titled World Within World?
1. W. H. Auden
2. Stephen Spender
3. Louis MacNeice
4. Cecil Day-Lewis
Answer: 2
Explanation: Spender’s World Within World (1951) reflects his experiences as a poet and intellectual in the 1930s.
Q.62. “Look, stranger, on this island now” is a line from a poem by:
1. T. S. Eliot
2. W. H. Auden
3. Louis MacNeice
4. Stephen Spender
Answer: 2
Explanation: The poem “Look, Stranger!” (1936) by Auden presents modern man’s alienation and dislocation.
Q.63. Auden’s use of assonance and internal rhyme is an influence from:
1. Yeats
2. Hopkins
3. Eliot
4. Ezra Pound
Answer: 2
Explanation: Auden admired Hopkins’s rhythmic experimentation and adopted similar sound patterns.
Q.64. Which Auden poem begins “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”?
1. Funeral Blues
2. Refugee Blues
3. The Shield of Achilles
4. September 1, 1939
Answer: 1
Explanation: Funeral Blues is one of Auden’s most famous elegies, expressing personal grief with deep emotion.
Q.65. The poem “September 1, 1939” was written on the eve of:
1. The Spanish Civil War
2. World War II
3. The Great Depression
4. The Russian Revolution
Answer: 2
Explanation: The poem marks the outbreak of WWII and meditates on collective guilt and loss.
Q.66. Which poet described poetry as “a criticism of life”?
1. T. S. Eliot
2. Matthew Arnold
3. W. H. Auden
4. I. A. Richards
Answer: 2
Explanation: Though Victorian, Arnold’s idea influenced later modern critics like Eliot and Auden.
Q.67. Which of the following works is not by T. S. Eliot?
1. The Waste Land
2. Four Quartets
3. Ash-Wednesday
4. The Tower
Answer: 4
Explanation: The Tower is a collection by W. B. Yeats, not Eliot.
Q.68. The Waste Land was published in:
1. 1918
2. 1920
3. 1922
4. 1925
Answer: 3
Explanation: T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) is the defining poem of High Modernism.
Q.69. How many sections does The Waste Land contain?
1. Four
2. Five
3. Six
4. Seven
Answer: 2
Explanation: The poem has five sections—each exploring spiritual and cultural desolation.
Q.70. Ezra Pound’s role in the publication of The Waste Land was as:
1. Editor
2. Co-author
3. Translator
4. Publisher
Answer: 1
Explanation: Pound edited and condensed Eliot’s manuscript, famously called “il miglior fabbro” (the better craftsman).
Q.71. Which of the following poets was not a part of the “Thirties Poets”?
1. W. H. Auden
2. Stephen Spender
3. Louis MacNeice
4. Philip Larkin
Answer: 4
Explanation: Philip Larkin belonged to the post-war “Movement” poets of the 1950s, not the politically conscious “Thirties Poets” like Auden, Spender, and MacNeice.
Q.72. “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” appears in:
1. The Waste Land
2. The Hollow Men
3. Gerontion
4. Four Quartets
Answer: 2
Explanation: Eliot ends The Hollow Men (1925) with these haunting lines expressing spiritual exhaustion.
Q.73. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was first published in:
1. 1909
2. 1911
3. 1915
4. 1917
Answer: 3
Explanation: Prufrock (1915) introduced Eliot’s modern voice of alienation and paralysis.
Q.74. The phrase “objective correlative” was introduced by:
1. T. S. Eliot
2. Ezra Pound
3. F. R. Leavis
4. I. A. Richards
Answer: 1
Explanation: Eliot proposed that emotions in art should be expressed through an “objective correlative”—a set of objects or events.
Q.75. Eliot’s Four Quartets are primarily concerned with:
1. Political allegory
2. Religious and spiritual meditation
3. Social satire
4. Classical mythology
Answer: 2
Explanation: Four Quartets (1943) explore time, divinity, and redemption in a Christian philosophical framework.
SET-VI
Q.1 Who wrote the play Man and Superman which introduced the concept of “Life Force”?
1. Henrik Ibsen
2. George Bernard Shaw
3. John Galsworthy
4. James Barrie
Answer: 2
Explanation: Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903) is a comedy in which Ann represents the Life Force, and the play explores women’s role in choosing better mates for superior offspring.
Q.2 Which of Shaw’s plays deals with the profession of prostitution and was banned at the time?
1. Widower’s Houses
2. Mrs. Warren’s Profession
3. The Philanderer
4. Major Barbara
Answer: 2
Explanation: Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893) centers on Vivie and her mother, exposing societal hypocrisies and limited opportunities for women.
Q.3 The term “Bardolatry” was coined by:
1. William Shakespeare
2. George Bernard Shaw
3. J. M. Barrie
4. John Galsworthy
Answer: 2
Explanation: Shaw coined “Bardolatry” in Three Plays for Puritans (1901), criticizing the idolization of Shakespeare as a social thinker.
Q.4 Which play by J. M. Barrie first introduced the character Peter Pan?
1. Peter and Wendy
2. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
3. The Little White Bird
4. When Wendy Grew Up
Answer: 3
Explanation: Peter Pan first appeared in Barrie’s The Little White Bird (1902) before being expanded into later works.
Q.5 The “Dublin Trilogy” was written by:
1. John Galsworthy
2. Sean O’Casey
3. George Bernard Shaw
4. Noel Coward
Answer: 2
Explanation: Sean O’Casey’s trilogy (The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars) portrays working-class Dublin amid revolutionary politics.
Q.6 Which play by John Osborne is considered the first major example of “Kitchen Sink Drama”?
1. The Entertainer
2. Look Back in Anger
3. Luther
4. Déjà vu
Answer: 2
Explanation: Look Back in Anger (1956) focuses on Jimmy Porter’s frustrations, reflecting post-WWII working-class struggles.
Q.7 Harold Pinter’s plays are often referred to as:
1. Shavian Plays
2. Memory Plays
3. Kitchen Sink Dramas
4. Problem Plays
Answer: 2
Explanation: Pinter’s “Memory Plays” feature events narrated from a character’s memory, e.g., Old Times, No Man’s Land, Betrayal. A memory play is a play in which a lead character narrates the events of the play, which are drawn from the character's memory. The term was coined by playwright Tennessee Williams, describing his work The Glass Menagerie.
Q.8 The term “Comedy of Menace” was coined by:
1. Harold Pinter
2. Irving Wardle
3. David Compton
4. Samuel Beckett
Answer: 2
Explanation: Irving Wardle coined it in 1958 reviewing Compton’s play The Lunatic View, describing plays blending humor and fear.
Q.9 Which of the following is a play by Eugene Ionesco that contributed to the Theatre of Absurd?
1. Waiting for Godot
2. The Bald Soprano
3. Endgame
4. The Homecoming
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Bald Soprano (1950) is a one-act absurdist play portraying meaningless communication, marking the start of Ionesco’s absurdist style.
Q.10 Beckett’s Waiting for Godot exemplifies:
1. Kitchen Sink Drama
2. Comedy of Menace
3. Theatre of Absurd
4. Problem Play
Answer: 3
Explanation: Waiting for Godot (1953) portrays two tramps waiting endlessly for Godot, symbolizing human existential waiting and futility.
Q.11 George Bernard Shaw received both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In which years?
1. 1925 and 1930
2. 1915 and 1938
3. 1915 and 1930
4. 1925 and 1938
Answer: 4
Explanation: Shaw won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 and an Oscar for screenplay adaptation later; he was the first person to win both awards.
Q.12 Which Shaw play is a historical play about Joan of Arc?
1. St. Joan
2. Major Barbara
3. Caesar and Cleopatra
4. The Apple Cart
Answer: 1
Explanation: St. Joan (1923) portrays Joan’s rise, leadership, capture, trial, and execution, emphasizing historical realism and individual heroism.
Q.13 The “Shavian Alphabet” was created to:
1. Promote Shakespearean literacy
2. Simplify English spelling for social mobility
3. Encode his plays for privacy
4. Represent phonetic poetry
Answer: 2
Explanation: Shaw believed English spelling was a barrier to literacy; the alphabet aimed to improve education and social mobility. It was designed by Ronald Kingsley Read.
Q.14 Which Beckett play features a character buried to her waist and later to her neck?
1. Endgame
2. Happy Days
3. Krapp’s Last Tape
4. Watt
Answer: 2
Explanation: Happy Days (1961) presents Winnie buried in earth while continuing her daily routine, exploring human resilience and absurdity.
Q.15 Which playwright is associated with the “Angry Young Men” movement?
1. John Osborne
2. Harold Pinter
3. Eugene Ionesco
4. Alan Ayckbourn
Answer: 1
Explanation: Osborne’s Look Back in Anger epitomized working-class frustration; the movement included post-war British writers rebelling against upper-class hypocrisy.
Q.16 A Taste of Honey (1958) is a kitchen sink play by:
1. Arnold Wesker
2. Shelagh Delaney
3. John Osborne
4. Alan Ayckbourn
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Taste of Honey is the first play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was 19. It was adapted into an award-winning film of the same title in 1961. It explores working-class life, interracial romance, and teenage pregnancy in Salford, England.
Q.17 The “Fabian Essays in Socialism” were published by:
1. George Bernard Shaw
2. John Galsworthy
3. J. M. Barrie
4. Samuel Beckett
Answer: 1
Explanation: Shaw edited this 1889 collection promoting socialism through debate, books, and the press.
Q.18 Rhinoceros (1959) by Ionesco symbolizes:
1. Absurdity of war
2. Loss of individuality under fascism
3. Kitchen sink realism
4. Comedy of manners
Answer: 2
Explanation: The inhabitants transform into rhinoceroses, reflecting conformity and the rise of totalitarian ideologies during WWII.
Q.19 Who wrote The Quintessence of Ibsenism, an essay influencing problem plays?
1. George Bernard Shaw
2. Henrik Ibsen
3. John Galsworthy
4. Sean O’Casey
Answer: 1
Explanation: Shaw’s essay (1891) promoted Ibsen’s style, focusing on plays as vehicles for social critique and ideas rather than action alone.
Q.20 Which playwright created the character Eliza Doolittle?
1. George Bernard Shaw
2. J. M. Barrie
3. John Galsworthy
4. Harold Pinter
Answer: 1
Explanation: In Pygmalion (1913), Eliza is transformed from a flower girl to a duchess, highlighting social mobility and class distinctions.
Q.21 The “Kailyard School” is associated with:
1. George Bernard Shaw
2. J. M. Barrie
3. John Galsworthy
4. Sean O’Casey
Answer: 2
Explanation: Derived from Scottish term “Kail yard,” Barrie and others depicted sentimental, rural life, highlighting everyday issues of ordinary people.
Q.22 Which play by Sean O’Casey depicts Irish Civil War effects on working-class families?
1. Juno and the Paycock
2. The Shadow of a Gunman
3. The Plough and the Stars
4. Dubliners
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Plough and the Stars (1926) focuses on ordinary Dubliners amid political turmoil, showing social and personal struggles.
Q.23 Which of these plays was part of Harold Pinter’s “Memory Plays”?
1. The Caretaker
2. Old Times
3. The Birthday Party
4. Endgame
Answer: 2
Explanation: Old Times draws on characters’ memories to reveal tensions and ambiguities; memory itself becomes a dramatic device. The Old Times is a memory play as the events in the play is developed from the memory of the character. His other important memory plays are Betrayal and No Man's Land.
Q.24 Who is the author of The Forsyte Saga series?
1. George Bernard Shaw
2. John Galsworthy
3. Sean O’Casey
4. Harold Pinter
Answer: 2
Explanation: Galsworthy’s novels (1906–1921) were adapted into plays, focusing on social issues, property, and character development.
Q.25 The Bald Soprano by Ionesco is considered:
1. Problem play
2. Absurdist one-act play
3. Memory play
4. Kitchen sink drama
Answer: 2
Explanation: The play exemplifies absurdist theatre, highlighting meaningless dialogues and human communication failures.
SET-VII
Q.26 Who wrote the trilogy Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots, and I’m Talking about Jerusalem?
1. Shelagh Delaney
2. Arnold Wesker
3. John Osborne
4. Alan Ayckbourn
Answer: 2
Explanation: Wesker’s trilogy (1958–1960) portrays working-class Jewish life and socialist ideals in post-war Britain.
Q.27 Heartbreak House (1919) by Shaw reflects:
1. Decline of Britain as a world power
2. Romantic love
3. Kitchen sink realism
4. Absurdism
Answer: 1
Explanation: Heartbreak House is a play written by Irish playwright Bernard Shaw between 1916 and 1917 and first published in 1919. This work reflects Shaw's reaction to World War I, exploring themes of illusion, deception, and societal apathy in the face of global conflict. Shaw critiques the upper classes’ complacency during national decline, blending social commentary with his characteristic wit.
Q.28 Who is the protagonist in Osborne’s Look Back in Anger?
1. Jimmy Porter
2. Stanley Webber
3. Vladimir
4. Eliza Doolittle
Answer: 1
Explanation: Jimmy Porter embodies the post-war disillusioned working-class man, whose anger defines the “Angry Young Man” movement.
Q.29 Which of the following is a play by Harold Pinter that exemplifies the Comedy of Menace?
1. The Birthday Party
2. Happy Days
3. Rhinoceros
4. Heartbreak House
Answer: 1
Explanation: The Birthday Party (1958) blends humor and threatening situations, creating tension characteristic of the Comedy of Menace.
Q.30 In The Caretaker by Pinter, which theme is most prominent?
1. Political satire
2. Power and dominance in personal relationships
3. Romance and betrayal
4. Social realism
Answer: 2
Explanation: The play explores manipulation and psychological dominance among three characters, highlighting Pinter’s signature pauses and silences.
Q.31 Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1956) critiques:
1. Working-class struggles
2. Fascism, power, and illusion
3. Marriage and domesticity
4. Theatre traditions
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Balcony uses a brothel as a metaphor to examine power structures and societal hierarchies. Irma (called as Queen), a brothel owner, orchestrates role-playing scenarios symbolizing societal authority, while the play critiques illusions of power.
Q.32 Which Ibsen play is considered a “problem play” focusing on women’s emancipation?
1. Ghosts
2. A Doll’s House
3. Hedda Gabler
4. The Master Builder
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Doll’s House (1879) deals with Nora’s struggle for independence within a patriarchal society, initiating discussions on women’s rights.
Q.33 Sean O’Casey’s plays primarily belong to:
1. Absurdist Theatre
2. Irish Working-class Realism
3. Shavian Satire
4. Kitchen Sink Comedy
Answer: 2
Explanation: O’Casey depicts Dublin’s working-class struggles during political upheaval, especially in the “Dublin Trilogy.”
Q.34 In Pinter’s No Man’s Land, the setting primarily serves to:
1. Provide historical context
2. Create psychological tension and ambiguity
3. Develop romantic relationships
4. Highlight social realism
Answer: 2
Explanation: The ambiguous setting emphasizes memory, power struggles, and existential themes, typical of Pinter’s “Memory Plays.”
Q.35 The Birthday Party ends with:
1. Reconciliation between characters
2. Kidnapping of Stanley, unresolved tension
3. Execution of a central character
4. Arrival of police to restore order
Answer: 2
Explanation: Stanley is forcibly taken by two mysterious men, leaving his fate uncertain and creating a sense of menace.
Q.36 Which play by Harold Pinter features two elderly characters waiting for an undefined visitor?
1. Old Times
2. No Man’s Land
3. The Caretaker
4. The Dumb Waiter
Answer: 2
Explanation: No Man’s Land (1975) explores memory, identity, and social power through two characters in a single room, waiting for a mysterious figure.
Q.37 The term “Theatre of the Absurd” was coined by:
1. Samuel Beckett
2. Martin Esslin
3. Harold Pinter
4. Eugene Ionesco
Answer: 2
Explanation: Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his book The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), categorizing works by Beckett, Ionesco, and others.
Q.38 Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize in Literature in:
1. 2005
2. 2003
3. 2000
4. 1998
Answer: 1
Explanation: Pinter received the Nobel Prize in 2005 for his contribution to drama characterized by “daring theatrical innovation.”
Q.39 Which Beckett play presents two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for someone who never arrives?
1. Endgame
2. Waiting for Godot
3. Happy Days
4. Krapp’s Last Tape
Answer: 2
Explanation: Waiting for Godot (1953) centers on existential waiting and human futility.
Q.40 Arnold Wesker’s Chicken Soup with Barley depicts:
1. Middle-class domesticity
2. Jewish working-class life and socialist ideals
3. Irish Civil War
4. Absurdist theatre
Answer: 2
Explanation: Part of Wesker’s trilogy, it portrays post-war struggles, socialism, and family conflict in East London.
Q.41 Harold Pinter’s “Pause” technique serves to:
1. Slow down the plot unnecessarily
2. Increase tension, ambiguity, and dramatic effect
3. Create comic relief
4. Reveal historical context
Answer: 2
Explanation: Pinter’s silences and pauses create menace, psychological tension, and ambiguity, central to the Comedy of Menace.
Q.42 The term “Comedy of Menace” primarily describes:
1. Plays mixing humor with threat
2. Traditional farce
3. Political propaganda
4. Absurdist dialogue
Answer: 1
Explanation: Harold Pinter’s early plays exemplify this genre, where everyday situations acquire a subtle, unsettling tension.
Q.43 Which Harold Pinter play involves two hitmen waiting in a basement for orders?
1. The Caretaker
2. The Dumb Waiter
3. No Man’s Land
4. Betrayal
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Dumb Waiter combines humor with suspense, embodying Comedy of Menace.
Q.44 Beckett’s Waiting for Godot illustrates:
1. A clear historical narrative
2. Human existential waiting and absurdity
3. Romantic relationships
4. Social realism
Answer: 2
Explanation: The play is central to Absurd Theatre, depicting characters waiting endlessly for someone who never comes.
Q.45 Pinter’s The Birthday Party is set in:
1. A café in Dublin
2. A seaside boarding house in England
3. A Parisian apartment
4. A country estate in Ireland
Answer: 2
Explanation: The play’s confined setting intensifies psychological tension and the sense of menace
Q.46 Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape uses:
1. Historical reenactment
2. Recorded tapes to explore memory, regret, and identity
3. Absurdist dialogue between multiple characters
4. Romantic tension
Answer: 2
Explanation: The protagonist listens to his younger self, highlighting passage of time and existential reflection.
Q.47 Which play is considered one of the earliest examples of absurdist theatre?
1. The Dumb Waiter
2. The Bald Soprano
3. The Birthday Party
4. A Taste of Honey
Answer: 2
Explanation: Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (1950) uses nonsensical dialogue and illogical situations to depict absurdity. The Dumb Waiter (1957) and The Birthday Party (1957) are by Harold Pinter, who blended absurdism with menace but came later. A Taste of Honey (1958) by Shelagh Delaney is kitchen-sink realism focusing on social issues, not absurdism.
Q.48 Match List – I with List – II according to the code given below:
List – I (Dramatists):
i. Arnold Wesker
ii. Harold Pinter
iii. Joe Orton
iv. Tom Stoppard
List – II (Plays):
a. Jumpers
b. What the Butler Saw
c. The Room
d. Roots
Codes: i ii iii iv
1. D C B A
2. C D A B
3. B A C D
4. A B C D
Answer: 1
Explanation:
Arnold Wesker wrote Roots,
Harold Pinter wrote The Room,
Joe Orton wrote What the Butler Saw, and
Tom Stoppard wrote Jumpers.
Q.49 What game do the characters play in Act II of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party?
1. Musical Chairs
2. Blind Man’s Buff
3. Charades
4. Hide and Seek
Answer: 2
Explanation:
In Act II of The Birthday Party, the characters play “Blind Man’s Buff.” The game symbolizes confusion, vulnerability, and psychological menace.
Q.50 In Pinter’s The Birthday Party, Stanley is terrorised by two visitors to a seaside boarding house. Identify them.
1. McGrath and Robinson
2. Goldberg and McCann
3. Davies and Aston
4. Lenny and Max
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Goldberg and McCann are the two mysterious visitors who mentally and emotionally torture Stanley in The Birthday Party.
SET-VIII
Q.51 In Pinter’s The Birthday Party, Stanley is given a birthday present. What is it?
1. A toy drum
2. A pair of white gloves
3. A mirror
4. A necktie
Answer: 1
Explanation:
Stanley receives a toy drum with sticks
Q.52 In which of the following texts do Aston, Davies, and Mick appear as characters?
1. The Birthday Party
2. The Caretaker
3. The Homecoming
4. The Dumb Waiter
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Aston, Davies, and Mick are the three main characters in The Caretaker, a play exploring human isolation and power dynamics. The play centers on two brothers, Mick and Aston, who take in a homeless man, Davies, into their cluttered West London home.
Q.53 “When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.” Identify the playwright who underlines the significance of silence thus.
1. John Osborne
2. Harold Pinter
3. Samuel Beckett
4. Tom Stoppard
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Harold Pinter emphasized the power of silence in his works, often using pauses and silences to reveal psychological tension and hidden meaning. Harold Pinter (2009). “Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008”
Q.54 What is the occupation of Max’s son, Lenny, in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming?
1. Boxer
2. Pimp
3. Butcher
4. Writer
Answer: 2
Explanation:
The Homecoming takes place in an expansive room situated in working-class North London. This residence belongs to Max, a retired butcher, and is shared with his brother Sam, who drives for a cab service, along with two of Max's sons: Lenny, a notorious pimp, and Joey, who works in demolition by day while aspiring to be a professional boxer.
Q.55 Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the pause from seeing a popular American comedian. Which one?
1. Charlie Chaplin
2. W C Fields
3. Jack Benny
4. Bob Hope
Answer: 3
Explanation:
He became famous for his use of the pause, something he claimed to have learned from the comedian Jack Benny. Pinter is legendry for his ‘pauses’ and ‘silences’ that are extensively often called ‘Pinter pause’ and ‘Pinter Silence.’.
Q.56 Who among the following English playwrights wrote screenplays on novels such as Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale?
1. David Hare
2. Harold Pinter
3. Alan Bennett
4. Tom Stoppard
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Harold Pinter adapted several major literary works for film, showcasing his versatility as both playwright and screenwriter.
Q.57 Which one of the following statements is appropriately true of Harold Pinter’s plays?
1. They are mostly historical dramas.
2. They often feature themes of menace, ambiguity, and pauses.
3. They are set in exotic foreign locations.
4. They reject realism entirely.
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Pinter’s plays are characterized by tension, ambiguity, and the use of pauses — often called “Pinteresque” — creating a sense of unease and menace.
Q.58 Which is the correct sequence of publication of Pinter’s plays?
1. The Birthday Party, The Room, The Homecoming, The Caretaker
2. The Room, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming
3. The Caretaker, The Birthday Party, The Room, The Homecoming
4. The Room, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, The Birthday Party
Answer: 2
Explanation:
The chronological order of Harold Pinter’s plays is: The Room (1957), The Birthday Party (1958), The Caretaker (1960), and The Homecoming (1965).
Q.59 Match the plays to their setting:
Plays:
(a) Krapp’s Last Tape
(b) Happy Days
(c) Waiting for Godot
(d) Endgame
Settings:
(i) A country road; a tree
(ii) Bare interior; two small windows high up; grey light
(iii) Expanse of scorched grass forming a low mound; blinding light
(iv) A late evening in future, white light
1. (a)-(3), (b)-(4), (c)-(1), (d)-(2)
2. (a)-(2), (b)-(3), (c)-(1), (d)-(4)
3. (a)-(4), (b)-(3), (c)-(1), (d)-(2)
4. (a)-(2), (b)-(4), (c)-(3), (d)-(1)
Answer: 3
Explanation:
Krapp’s Last Tape – (4) a late evening in future, white light;
Happy Days – (3) a scorched grassy mound under blinding light;
Waiting for Godot – (1) a country road with a tree;
Endgame – (2) a bare interior with two small windows.
Q.60 Which of the following plays is characterized by the exclusivity of a single character talking to himself?
1. A Streetcar Named Desire
2. Equus
3. The Misanthrope
4. Krapp’s Last Tape
Answer: 4
Explanation:
Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape features a single character, Krapp, who listens to and comments on his recorded tapes, reflecting on memory and time.
Q.61 Who makes the following speech in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot:
“Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps.”
1. Estragon
2. Lucky
3. Vladimir
4. Pozzo
Answer: 3
Explanation:
The line is spoken by Vladimir, capturing Beckett’s existential meditation on life, death, and absurdity in Waiting for Godot.
Q.62 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has:
1. Three Acts
2. Five Acts
3. Four Acts
4. Two Acts
Answer: 4
Explanation:
Waiting for Godot consists of two acts, each repeating similar events to highlight monotony and the futility of human waiting.
Q.63 Who are Didi and Gogo?
1. Two characters in Endgame
2. Nicknames, respectively, for Lucky and Pozzo
3. Nicknames, respectively, for Vladimir and Estragon
4. Two characters in Breath
Answer: 3
Explanation:
Didi and Gogo are affectionate nicknames for Vladimir and Estragon, the two tramps waiting endlessly for Godot.
Q.64 Samuel Beckett’s trilogy published together in London in 1959 under the English titles is:
1. More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy, Molloy
2. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
3. Molloy, Murphy, Malone Dies
4. The Unnamable, More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Beckett’s famous trilogy — Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable — explores identity, consciousness, and narrative breakdown.
Q.65 In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the characters often use dislocated, repetitious, and clichéd speech primarily to:
1. Illustrate the illogical, purposeless nature of human existence
2. Re-create the workings of the subconscious
3. Mock self-proclaimed intellectuals
4. Reinforce comic farce
Answer: 1
Explanation:
Beckett’s language reflects existential absurdity — the repetitive, fragmented dialogue underscores the meaningless routines of human life.
Q.66 Bertolt Brecht’s concept of alienation was a rejection of the idea that realism was the only mode of art a critique of capitalist society should produce. Alienation is best described as:
1. Making the audience feel they do not belong
2. Distancing artistic conventions to prevent emotional catharsis
3. Scripting unnatural behaviour on stage
4. A rejection of capitalism
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) encourages critical detachment in the audience, preventing emotional immersion to inspire reflection.
Q.67 In Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, which song does Yvette sing to Mother Courage and Kattrin?
1. “The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth”
2. “The Fraternization Song”
3. “The Song of the Great Capitulation”
4. “The Memorial Song”
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Eilif and his mother sing "The Fishwife and the Soldier".
The camp prostitute, Yvette Pottier, sings "The Fraternization Song".
Mother Courage sings the "Song of Great Capitulation" to a young soldier.
Q.68 Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children presents the war-torn Europe as its protagonist as she follows troops with her canteen wagon. What is the real name of Mother Courage?
1. Paula Danckert
2. Anna Fierling
3. Jane Vanstone
4. Jani Lauzon
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Mother Courage’s real name is Anna Fierling, symbolizing the ordinary person’s struggle for survival amid war’s chaos.
Q.69 Who of the following playwrights rejects the Aristotelian concept of tragic play as imitation of reality?
1. G. B. Shaw
2. Arthur Miller
3. Bertolt Brecht
4. John Galsworthy
Answer: 3
Explanation:
Brecht dismissed Aristotelian tragedy’s emotional catharsis, advocating instead for epic theatre that prompts critical awareness and social change.
Q.70 John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger is an example of:
1. Drawing-room comedy
2. Kitchen-sink drama
3. Absurd drama
4. Melodrama
Answer: 2
Explanation:
Look Back in Anger (1956) exemplifies the kitchen-sink drama genre, portraying working-class disillusionment and postwar frustration.
Q.71 “Why don’t we have a little game? Let’s pretend that we’re human beings, and that we are actually alive.” This passage forms part of:
1. The Mousetrap – Agatha Christie
2. Look Back in Anger – John Osborne
3. Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
4. The Birthday Party – Harold Pinter
Answer: 2
Explanation:
This cynical line from Look Back in Anger captures Jimmy Porter’s existential bitterness and disillusionment with modern life.
Q.72 Match the characters with their works:
Characters:
(a) Jim Dixon
(b) Jimmy Porter
(c) Joe Lampton
(d) Charles Lumley
Works:
(i) Room at the Top
(ii) Hurry on Down
(iii) Look Back in Anger
(iv) Lucky Jim
Code: (a) (b) (c) (d)
1. (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
2. (iv) (iii) (ii) (i)
3. (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
4. (iii) (i) (ii) (iv)
Answer: 1
Explanation:
Jim Dixon – Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis); Jimmy Porter – Look Back in Anger (John Osborne); Joe Lampton – Room at the Top (John Braine); Charles Lumley – Hurry on Down (John Wain).
Q.73. Which of the following novels by Virginia Woolf employs the “stream of consciousness” technique most intensely?
1. Night and Day
2. Mrs Dalloway
3. The Voyage Out
4. Jacob’s Room
Answer: 2
Explanation: Mrs Dalloway (1925) is Woolf’s finest example of the stream-of-consciousness technique, depicting a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway through internal monologues and shifting perspectives.
Q.74. “April is the cruellest month” is the opening line of which modern poem?
1. The Hollow Men
2. The Waste Land
3. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
4. Gerontion
Answer: 2
Explanation: T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (1922) opens with this line, symbolizing sterility and disillusionment after World War I, contrasting spring’s renewal with the moral decay of modern life.
Q.75. Which of the following was not written by D. H. Lawrence?
1. Women in Love
2. The Rainbow
3. A Passage to India
4. Sons and Lovers
Answer: 3
Explanation: A Passage to India was written by E. M. Forster. D. H. Lawrence authored Women in Love, The Rainbow, and Sons and Lovers, all exploring human relationships and sexuality.
SET-IX
Q.1 Thomas Hardy’s first written novel, which remained unpublished after being rejected by several publishers, is:
1. Desperate Remedies
2. The Poor Man and the Lady
3. Under the Greenwood Tree
4. A Pair of Blue Eyes
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Poor Man and the Lady was Hardy’s first novel, written in 1867, but it was never published. It was rejected by at least five publishers.
Q.2 Which of Thomas Hardy’s novels was first published anonymously in 1871 and tells the story of Cytherea Graye?
1. Desperate Remedies
2. Far From the Madding Crowd
3. The Hand of Ethelberta
4. The Trumpet-Major
Answer: 1
Explanation: Desperate Remedies (1871) was Hardy’s second novel but the first published, anonymously. It follows Cytherea Graye, who becomes a lady’s maid to Miss Aldclyffe.
Q.3 The title of Hardy’s novel Under the Greenwood Tree is drawn from:
1. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
2. Shakespeare’s As You Like It
3. Milton’s Paradise Lost
4. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads
Answer: 2
Explanation: The title comes from a song in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It. The novel depicts the Mellstock parish choir and the romance of Dick Dewy and Fancy Day.
Q.4 In A Pair of Blue Eyes by Hardy, who does Elfride Swan Court ultimately marry?
1. Stephen Smith
2. Henry Knight
3. Lord Luxellian
4. Donald Farfrae
Answer: 3
Explanation: Elfride marries Lord Luxellian, the third man, after rejecting her two suitors Stephen Smith and Henry Knight. The tragic ending involves her coffin being escorted by her former suitors unaware she is already dead.
Q.5 Which Hardy novel features Bathsheba Everdene and her relationships with Gabriel Oak, William Boldwood, and Sergeant Troy?
1. The Return of the Native
2. Far From the Madding Crowd
3. Tess of the d’Urbervilles
4. The Mayor of Casterbridge
Answer: 2
Explanation: Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) is a tragi-comedy set in Hardy’s Wessex and focuses on Bathsheba Everdene and her suitors, with the title inspired by Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
Q.6 The Return of the Native is set on which fictional location in Wessex?
1. Casterbridge
2. Egdon Heath
3. Mellstock
4. Talbothays
Answer: 2
Explanation: Egdon Heath is the barren moor setting of The Return of the Native. The novel explores characters torn between rural traditions and city life, with Eustacia Vye and Damon Wildeve embodying passion and recklessness.
Q.7 Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge depicts the auction of which character’s wife?
1. William Boldwood
2. Michael Henchard
3. Gabriel Oak
4. Donald Farfrae
Answer: 2
Explanation: Michael Henchard, drunk on rum, auctions his wife Susan and their infant daughter Elizabeth-Jane to Richard Newson for five guineas, an action that drives the novel’s tragic narrative.
Q.8 Who is the protagonist of Tess of the d’Urbervilles?
1. Angel Clare
2. Alec d’Urberville
3. Tess Durbeyfield
4. John Durbeyfield
Answer: 3
Explanation: Tess Durbeyfield is the central figure, a young woman tragically affected by societal norms and male dominance, leading to her eventual execution. The novel’s subtitle is “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented.”
Q.9 Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness primarily explores:
1. Naval adventures in the Pacific
2. The darkness in human hearts through a Congo expedition
3. The industrial revolution in England
4. A political conspiracy in Europe
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novella symbolizes the darkness within human nature and follows Marlow’s journey to find Kurtz in the Congo, highlighting issues of colonialism and morality.
Q.10 In Lord Jim (1900) by Conrad, Jim serves on which ship?
1. SS Narcissus
2. SS Patna
3. Nan-Shan
4. Vidar
Answer: 2
Explanation: Jim serves on the SS Patna. The novel explores his moral dilemmas after abandoning the ship in a crisis, with Captain Marlow serving as a guiding figure.
Q.11 William Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (1915) is primarily about:
1. A painter inspired by Paul Gauguin
2. The life of Philip Carey, an orphan with a club foot
3. British espionage during WWI
4. A philosophical exploration of love
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novel is semi-autobiographical, following Philip Carey’s struggles with his physical disability and personal relationships during his formative years.
Q.12 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel is:
1. The Sign of the Four
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
3. A Study in Scarlet
4. The Hound of the Baskervilles
Answer: 3
Explanation: A Study in Scarlet (1887) introduced Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes was inspired by Doyle’s teacher, Joseph Bell.
Q.13 Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book features which boy raised by wolves?
1. Akela
2. Mowgli
3. Shere Khan
4. Bagheera
Answer: 2
Explanation: Mowgli is the central character, raised by wolves in the Seoni forest, navigating challenges posed by animals like Shere Khan and allies like Bagheera and Baloo.
Q.14 Aldous Huxley’s first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), is primarily:
1. A dystopian novel
2. A romance set in India
3. A science fiction epic
4. A detective novel
Answer: 1
Explanation: Crome Yellow is a dystopian novel set in an English country estate, satirizing contemporary society and intellectual pretensions.
Q.15 D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is considered the first:
1. Postcolonial novel
2. Freudian novel
3. Science fiction novel
4. Picaresque novel
Answer: 2
Explanation: Sons and Lovers (1913) explores Oedipal dynamics between Paul and his mother, making it the first novel to depict Freudian psychological influence in English literature.
Q.16 D. H. Lawrence’s sequel to The Rainbow, which explores the love lives of the Brangwyn sisters, is:
1. Women in Love
2. The Lost Girl
3. Aaron’s Rod
4. Kangaroo
Answer: 1
Explanation: Women in Love (1920) continues the story of the Brangwyn family, focusing on Gudrun and Ursula and their respective lovers, Gerald Crich and Rupert Birkin.
Q.17 Who is often called the “Father of Science Fiction” because:
1. He wrote novels about Victorian domestic life
2. He introduced several classical themes in science/literature
3. He created Sherlock Holmes
4. He wrote psychological novels
Answer: 2
Explanation: Wells popularized science fiction through works like The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898), introducing futuristic and scientific themes.
Q.18 In H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the Eloi are:
1. Ape-like cave dwellers who live underground
2. Small, childlike adults who live above ground
3. Scientists who invent time travel
4. Soldiers defending London
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Eloi are a fragile, childlike race living above ground in the distant future, contrasted with the underground Morlocks, who are ape-like and predatory.
Q.19 Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo is set in:
1. London
2. Congo
3. Sulaco, a fictional South American republic
4. India
Answer: 3
Explanation: The novel is set in Sulaco, a fictional republic in South America, and revolves around political corruption and the struggles of European expatriates and local inhabitants.
Q.20 In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz’s famous last words are:
1. “Mistah Kurtz he dead”
2. “The Horror! The Horror!”
3. “I am the master of the Congo”
4. “God’s not in his heaven”
Answer: 2
Explanation: Kurtz’s last words, “The Horror! The Horror!”, signify his realization of the moral and existential darkness of humanity. Marlow later narrates the story to others, including Kurtz’s impact.
Q.21 William Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence is based on the life of:
1. Paul Gauguin
2. Vincent van Gogh
3. Claude Monet
4. Pablo Picasso
Answer: 1
Explanation: The novel tells the story of a stockbroker who abandons his family to become a painter, inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin.
Q.22 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles primarily involves:
1. A historical conspiracy in France
2. A hound terrorizing Baskerville Hall
3. A political assassination in London
4. A theft of royal jewels
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novel features a legendary hound said to haunt the Baskerville family, blending detective fiction with Gothic suspense.
Q.23 What is Kim's full Christian name in Rudyard Kipling's novel?
1. Kimberly O'Hara
2. Kimball O'Hara
3. Kimon O'Hara
4. Kimson O'Hara
Answer: 2
Explanation: Kim’s full name is Kimball O’Hara, the poorest of the poor, who lives mostly, in the slum streets of Lahore, the Punjab (now part of Pakistan).
Q.24 Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) depicts:
1. A post-apocalyptic world after WWI
2. A futuristic society with Bokanovsky cloning and hypnopaedic education
3. The life of a poet in England
4. Adventures in the Congo
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novel depicts a dystopian future in 2540 AD, exploring technological control over society, genetic engineering, and social hierarchy.
Q.25 D. H. Lawrence’s controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was:
1. Published immediately in 1928
2. Not published until 1960 due to explicit content
3. Written in France
4. A children’s novel
Answer: 2
Explanation: Lady Chatterley’s Lover was considered obscene due to explicit sexual content and was not officially published until 1960.
SET-X
Q.1 Arnold Bennett is best known for his novels set in:
1. London
2. Five Towns of the pottery district, Staffordshire
3. Dublin
4. Wessex
Answer: 2
Explanation: Arnold Bennett’s novels prominently feature the “Five Towns,” a fictionalized version of the Staffordshire Potteries.
Q.2. Which novel by Arnold Bennett tells the story of two sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, over seventy years?
1. Anna of the Five Towns
2. The Man from the North
3. The Old Wives’ Tale
4. Clayhanger
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Old Wives’ Tale (1908) follows the lives of two sisters, one eloping and one staying home, exploring their contrasting destinies.
Q.3. E. M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India is divided into how many parts?
1. Two
2. Three
3. Four
4. Five
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Passage to India (1924) is divided into three parts: Mosques, Caves, and Temples, reflecting different seasons and locations in India.
Q.4. The term “stream of consciousness” in literature was first coined by:
1. James Joyce
2. Henry James
3. May Sinclair
4. Dorothy Richardson
Answer: 2
Explanation: Henry James coined the term in his Principles of Psychology, while May Sinclair first applied it to literary work.
Q.5. Who is the protagonist of Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage series?
1. Constance Baines
2. Miriam Henderson
3. Rachel Vinrace
4. Clarissa Dalloway
Answer: 2
Explanation: Miriam Henderson is the central character of Richardson’s Pilgrimage, an experimental autobiographical novel series.
Q.6. In James Joyce’s Ulysses, June 16, 1904, is significant because:
1. It is the protagonist’s birthday
2. It marks the death of a family member
3. It is the day Leopold Bloom first met his wife, Nora
4. It is the publication date of the novel
Answer: 3
Explanation: June 16, 1904, is celebrated as Bloomsday, the day Leopold Bloom first met his future wife, Nora.
Q.7. Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse is divided into how many sections?
1. Two
2. Three
3. Four
4. Five
Answer: 2
Explanation: To the Lighthouse (1927) is divided into three sections: The Window, Time Passes, and The Lighthouse, narrating events from different perspectives.
Q.8. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an allegory of:
1. French Revolution
2. Industrial Revolution
3. Russian Revolution and Stalinism
4. American Revolution
Answer: 3
Explanation: Animal Farm (1945) uses animals on Manor Farm to allegorically depict the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s dictatorship.
Q.9. Who wrote The Windhover, a curtal sonnet employing sprung rhythm?
1. Gerard Manley Hopkins
2. John Drinkwater
3. Max Beerbohm
4. Christopher Isherwood
Answer: 1
Explanation: Gerard Manley Hopkins developed the sprung rhythm, used in his sonnet The Windhover (1877, published 1914).
Q.10. Virginia Woolf co-founded the Hogarth Press in:
1. 1910
2. 1917
3. 1924
4. 1931
Answer: 2
Explanation: Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf established the Hogarth Press in 1917, which published many of her works and modernist literature.
Q.11. Which novel by E. M. Forster is set in Tuscany and takes its title from Alexander Pope?
1. A Room with a View
2. Howards End
3. Where Angels Fear to Tread
4. The Longest Journey
Answer: 3
Explanation: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) is set in Tuscany; the title comes from Pope's line, "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
Q.12. E. M. Forster coined the phrase:
1. Only Connect
2. Stream of Consciousness
3. Bildungsroman
4. Roman-a-clef
Answer: 1
Explanation: “Only Connect” is the epigraph from Howards End (1910), reflecting Forster’s emphasis on humanism and social connections.
Q.13. Which work by G. K. Chesterton features a metaphysical thriller with anarchists named after the days of the week?
1. The Napoleon of Notting Hill
2. Father Brown Stories
3. The Man Who Was Thursday
4. The Everlasting Man
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is a metaphysical thriller with a council of seven anarchists, each named after a day.
Q.14 T S Eliot got Nobel prize in:
1. 1910
2. 1925
3. 1948
4. 1930
Answer: 3
Explanation: The 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, T.S. Eliot is highly distinguished as a poet, a literary critic, a dramatist, an editor, and a publisher.
Q.15 James Joyce’s literary alter ego, who appears in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is:
1. Leopold Bloom
2. Stephen Dedalus
3. Molly Bloom
4. Rudy Bloom
Answer: 2
Explanation: Stephen Dedalus, named after the mythic craftsman Daedalus, represents Joyce’s alter ego in several works, including Portrait and Ulysses.
Q.16. Which Virginia Woolf novel is considered her most autobiographical and is divided into three sections: The Window, Time Passes, and The Lighthouse?
1. Mrs Dalloway
2. To the Lighthouse
3. Orlando
4. Jacob’s Room
Answer: 2
Explanation: To the Lighthouse (1927) is Woolf’s most autobiographical work, narrating the Ramsay family’s experiences in a summer home.
Q.17. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which phrase is NOT one of the Party’s slogans?
1. War is peace
2. Freedom is slavery
3. Ignorance is strength
4. Liberty is justice
Answer: 4
Explanation: The Party’s slogans are: “War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength.” “Liberty is justice” does not appear in the text.
Q.18. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, who represents Stalin?
1. Snowball
2. Napoleon
3. Old Major
4. Boxer
Answer: 2
Explanation: Napoleon, the cruel pig, symbolizes Joseph Stalin and becomes the dictatorial leader of Animal Farm.
Q.19. The literary device “epiphany,” popularized by James Joyce, refers to:
1. A sudden realization or spiritual manifestation
2. The protagonist’s childhood memories
3. A narrative from multiple perspectives
4. Symbolic use of colors in literature
Answer: 1
Explanation: Joyce used “epiphany” to describe moments of sudden insight, often applied to everyday objects or experiences.
Q.20. Which work by Virginia Woolf is a feminist essay insisting that “a woman must have money and a room of her own” to write fiction?
1. The Modern Fiction
2. Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
3. A Room of One’s Own
4. Three Guineas
Answer: 3
Explanation: A Room of One’s Own (1929) emphasizes the economic and personal freedom necessary for women writers to produce literature.
Q.21. Which of Virginia Woolf’s novels focuses on the life of Clarissa Dalloway over a single day?
1. To the Lighthouse
2. Mrs. Dalloway
3. Jacob’s Room
4. Orlando
Answer: 2
Explanation: Mrs. Dalloway (1925) narrates one day in Clarissa Dalloway’s life, exploring themes of sanity, community, and the impact of WWI through Septimus Smith.
Q.22. Which novel by Virginia Woolf traces the adventurous life of a poet who changes sex and lives for over 300 years?
1. The Waves
2. Orlando: A Biography
3. To the Lighthouse
4. Jacob’s Room
Answer: 2
Explanation: Orlando: A Biography (1928) is a Roman-a-clef inspired by Vita Sackville-West, exploring English literary history through a poet’s fantastical lifespan.
Q.23. The Bloomsbury Group was influenced by:
1. Karl Marx
2. G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica
3. T.S. Eliot
4. James Joyce
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Bloomsbury Group drew philosophical and ethical attitudes from Moore’s Principia Ethica, focusing on aesthetics, art, and ethics.
Q.24. Which poet introduced the concepts of Inscape and Instress?
1. Gerard Manley Hopkins
2. Robert Bridges
3. T.S. Eliot
4. Max Beerbohm
Answer: 1
Explanation: Hopkins’ concepts of Inscape (uniqueness of individual objects) and Instress (force binding the object’s uniqueness to the observer) are central to his poetry.
Q.25. Which Hopkins poem is a curtal sonnet depicting a bird as a metaphor for Christ?
1. Pied Beauty
2. The Wreck of the Deutschland
3. The Windhover
4. Spring and Fall
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Windhover (1877) praises a falcon hovering in the air, symbolizing spiritual and divine control.
SET-XI
Q.26 Sprung rhythm in Hopkins’ poetry is characterized by:
1. Fixed number of syllables per line
2. Variable number of stressed syllables per line
3. Strict iambic pentameter
4. Rhymed couplets
Answer: 2
Explanation: Sprung rhythm allows a variable number of stressed syllables per line, creating a unique and irregular rhythm.
Q.27 Max Beerbohm’s A Christmas Garland (1912) is best known for:
1. Satirical essays on politics
2. Collection of parodies of literary styles
3. Historical drama
4. Poetry collection
Answer: 2
Explanation: A Christmas Garland parodies literary styles of authors like G.B. Shaw, Henry James, and Hardy.
Q.28. Which Henry Graham Greene novel features a whisky priest fleeing authorities in Mexico?
1. Brighton Rock
2. The Power and the Glory
3. The End of the Affair
4. The Heart of the Matter
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Power and the Glory (1940) follows an unnamed whisky priest on the run, addressing morality and faith under persecution.
Q.29. Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London primarily explores:
1. Totalitarianism
2. Poverty experienced by the author
3. Science fiction
4. Colonial administration
Answer: 2
Explanation: This non-fiction work draws on Orwell’s personal experiences with poverty in Paris and London.
Q.30. In Animal Farm, the Seven Commandments are eventually reduced to:
1. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
2. Four legs good, two legs bad
3. Work is freedom
4. No animals shall sleep
Answer: 1
Explanation: The final modification of the commandments reflects the corruption and tyranny of Napoleon’s leadership, highlighting inequality.
Q.31. George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language advises writers to:
1. Use long and complex words wherever possible
2. Prioritize clarity and truth in writing
3. Employ as many metaphors as possible
4. Use passive voice predominantly
Answer: 2
Explanation: Orwell lays out rules to promote clear, precise, and truthful writing, condemning pretentious or “ugly” language.
Q.32. John Drinkwater is best known for which historical drama?
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Blue Review
3. Angel Pavement
4. Socrates
Answer: 1
Explanation: Abraham Lincoln (1918) is Drinkwater’s most famous historical play.
Q.33. Which literary group included Robert Frost, Rupert Brooke, and John Drinkwater?
1. Bloomsbury Group
2. Dymock Poets
3. Georgian Poets
4. Imagists
Answer: 2
Explanation: The Dymock Poets lived in Gloucestershire and published their own quarterly, New Numbers.
Q.34. Clifford Bax founded the Phoenix Society to:
1. Promote modernist poetry
2. Revive Elizabethan and Restoration dramas
3. Publish satirical essays
4. Translate classical texts
Answer: 2
Explanation: Bax aimed to revive neglected Elizabethan and Restoration plays through the Phoenix Society.
Q.35. Katherine Masefield co-edited which magazine?
1. The Garden Party
2. Blue Review
3. New Numbers
4. The Criterion
Answer: 2
Explanation: Blue Review was a small magazine she co-edited with Murray, adopting the playful identities "Tig & Tag." This little magazine ran for only three months in 1913, as a successor to ‘Rhythm’.
Q.36. J.B. Priestly’s Angel Pavement (1930) is:
1. A play
2. A novel
3. A poetry collection
4. An essay
Answer: 2
Explanation: Angel Pavement is a successful novel by J.B. Priestly, highlighting urban life and social concerns.
Q.37. Christopher Isherwood collaborated with which poet on plays like The Dog Beneath the Skin?
1. T.S. Eliot
2. W.H. Auden
3. Rupert Brooke
4. James Joyce
Answer: 2
Explanation: Isherwood and Auden co-authored plays, combining political and social themes with experimental forms.
Q.38. Virginia Woolf co-founded which publishing house with her husband Leonard Woolf?
1. Hogarth Press
2. Phoenix Press
3. Blue Review
4. New Numbers
Answer: 1
Explanation: Hogarth Press (1917) was co-founded by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, publishing modernist works including Woolf’s own novels.
Q.39. In Hopkins’ poem Pied Beauty, what is the main theme?
1. Praise of God’s creation in variety and diversity
2. Human suffering and redemption
3. Romantic love
4. Industrialization
Answer: 1
Explanation: Pied Beauty celebrates the variety and imperfection in nature as a reflection of divine creation.
Q.40. Which James Joyce work is considered the most difficult in English literature, featuring “thunderwords” and an infinite circle structure?
1. Dubliners
2. Ulysses
3. Finnegans Wake
4. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Answer: 3
Explanation: Finnegans Wake (1939) is a complex, experimental novel with circular narrative, invented words, and challenging syntax.
Q.41 The “Lost Generation” refers to:
1. The group of poets in post–World War I England
2. The expatriate writers in Paris after World War I
3. The social realists of the 1930s
4. The absurdist playwrights of the 1950s
Answer: 2
Explanation: The “Lost Generation,” a term popularized by Gertrude Stein and associated with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, described disillusioned American expatriate writers in postwar Paris.
Q.42 Which of the following plays by T. S. Eliot deals with Thomas Becket?
1. Murder in the Cathedral
2. The Family Reunion
3. The Cocktail Party
4. The Confidential Clerk
Answer: 1
Explanation: Murder in the Cathedral (1935) dramatizes the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, exploring faith, temptation, and divine will.
Q.43 H. G. Wells’ novel The Invisible Man (1897) features:
1. A man who discovers immortality
2. Griffin, who turns himself invisible and plans terror
3. A time traveler who explores the distant future
4. A spaceship journey to Mars
Answer: 2
Explanation: Griffin, a scientist, discovers invisibility but descends into violence and terror, demonstrating Wells’ exploration of scientific and moral consequences.
Q.44 Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge explores:
1. Industrialization and urban society
2. Fate, character, and the consequences of impulsive actions
3. Time travel and science fiction
4. Colonial expeditions
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novel follows Michael Henchard’s rise and fall, exploring themes of fate, regret, and human character within a Wessex rural setting.
Q.45 Joseph Conrad collaborated with Ford Madox Ford to write which quasi-science fiction novel?
1. Nostromo
2. Lord Jim
3. The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story
4. Typhoon
Answer: 3
Explanation: The Inheritors (1901) is a quasi-science fiction novel about Fourth Dimensionists and represents a speculative exploration of humanity’s future.
Q.46 In Sons and Lovers, the psychological conflict is primarily based on:
1. Class struggle
2. Oedipus Complex between Paul and his mother
3. Colonial conquest
4. Romantic idealism
Answer: 2
Explanation: The novel portrays Paul Morel’s intense emotional attachment to his mother, reflecting Freudian themes and marking it as the first Freudian novel.
Q.47 Thomas Hardy’s Two on a Tower (1882) is:
1. His only historical novel
2. A minor Wessex novel set in late Victorian Dorset
3. A semi-autobiographical novel
4. A science fiction work
Answer: 2
Explanation: Two on a Tower: A Romance is a minor Wessex novel exploring love and social difference in late Victorian Dorset.
Q.48 Which of the following modernist works was published first?
1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
2. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
3. Ulysses by James Joyce
4. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Answer: 1
Explanation: Heart of Darkness was published in 1899 (serialized) and 1902 (book form), marking an early modernist text. The Waste Land (1922), Ulysses (1922), and Mrs. Dalloway (1925) followed later, reflecting the peak of modernist experimentation.
Q.49 Which of the following modernist works was published before the start of World War I (1914)?
1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
2. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
3. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Answer: 2
Explanation: Sons and Lovers was published in 1913, before World War I. Mrs. Dalloway (1925), The Waste Land (1922), and Brave New World (1932) were published after the war, reflecting its impact.
Q.50 Arrange the following modernist works in chronological order of their publication:
i. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
ii. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
iii. Dubliners by James Joyce
iv. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
1. 1, 3, 2, 4
2. 3, 1, 2, 4
3. 1, 2, 3, 4
4. 4, 2, 3, 1
Answer: 1
Explanation:
• Heart of Darkness (1899, serialized; 1902, book form)
• Dubliners (1914)
• The Waste Land (1922)
• Mrs. Dalloway (1925) This sequence reflects the correct order of publication, starting with Conrad’s early modernist novella and ending with Woolf’s post-World War I novel.
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