Contexts of British Plays
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AP English Literature and Composition › Contexts of British Plays
KING: … Hieronimo, it greatly pleaseth us
That in our victory thou have a share
By virtue of thy worthy son’s exploit.
… Bring hither the young prince of Portingale!
The rest march on, but, ere they be dismissed,
We will bestow on every soldier
Two ducats, and on every leader ten,
That they may know our largesse welcomes them.
Exeunt all \[the army\] but BALTHAZAR,
LORENZO, and HORATIO.
What genre of play is this?
revenge
morality
mystery
blackface minstrel
Restoration comedy
Explanation
Revenge plays are works typically written during the Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods wherein a protagonist seeks vengeance, pursuing a path that often leads to madness and/or ruin. The Spanish Tragedy features the character Hieronimo’s attempts to avenge his son Horatio, who was killed by Lorenzo, the scheming nephew of the king of Portugal.
Passage adapted from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1587)
KING: … Hieronimo, it greatly pleaseth us
That in our victory thou have a share
By virtue of thy worthy son’s exploit.
… Bring hither the young prince of Portingale!
The rest march on, but, ere they be dismissed,
We will bestow on every soldier
Two ducats, and on every leader ten,
That they may know our largesse welcomes them.
Exeunt all \[the army\] but BALTHAZAR,
LORENZO, and HORATIO.
What genre of play is this?
revenge
morality
mystery
blackface minstrel
Restoration comedy
Explanation
Revenge plays are works typically written during the Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods wherein a protagonist seeks vengeance, pursuing a path that often leads to madness and/or ruin. The Spanish Tragedy features the character Hieronimo’s attempts to avenge his son Horatio, who was killed by Lorenzo, the scheming nephew of the king of Portugal.
Passage adapted from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1587)
THE FLOWER GIRL: There's menners f' yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. \[She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist\].
THE MOTHER: How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them? \[Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.\]
Who is one of the protagonists of this play?
Henry Higgins
Lord Henry Wotton
Pygmalion
Basil Hallward
Lord Alfred Douglas
Explanation
The two main characters of Pygmalion are the Cockney flower vendor Eliza Doolittle and the phonetics professor Henry Higgins.
(Passage adapted from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, I.26-29 (1916))
To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear’d. ‘Tis much he dares,
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and under him
My genius is rebuked, as it is said
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar.
What historical document served as a basis for this play’s storyline?
Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland
Herodotus’ Histories
The Domesday Book
Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The Magna Carta
Explanation
Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) contains an account of real Scottish historical figures called Macbeth, Macduff, and Duncan. The story of Shakespeare’s play differs considerably from Holinshed’s story, though.
Herodotus' The Histories (440 BCE), The Domesday Book (1086), Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), and The Magna Carta (1215) were all used as alternate answer choices.
To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear’d. ‘Tis much he dares,
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and under him
My genius is rebuked, as it is said
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar.
What historical document served as a basis for this play’s storyline?
Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland
Herodotus’ Histories
The Domesday Book
Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The Magna Carta
Explanation
Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) contains an account of real Scottish historical figures called Macbeth, Macduff, and Duncan. The story of Shakespeare’s play differs considerably from Holinshed’s story, though.
Herodotus' The Histories (440 BCE), The Domesday Book (1086), Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), and The Magna Carta (1215) were all used as alternate answer choices.
THE FLOWER GIRL: There's menners f' yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. \[She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist\].
THE MOTHER: How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them? \[Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.\]
Who is one of the protagonists of this play?
Henry Higgins
Lord Henry Wotton
Pygmalion
Basil Hallward
Lord Alfred Douglas
Explanation
The two main characters of Pygmalion are the Cockney flower vendor Eliza Doolittle and the phonetics professor Henry Higgins.
(Passage adapted from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, I.26-29 (1916))
Which of the following is not a character in Waiting for Godot?
Molloy
Pozzo
Estragon
Vladimir
Lucky
Explanation
Molloy is the title of a 1951 novel by Samuel Beckett, but it is not the name of a character in Waiting for Godot (1953).
Which of the following is not a character in Waiting for Godot?
Molloy
Pozzo
Estragon
Vladimir
Lucky
Explanation
Molloy is the title of a 1951 novel by Samuel Beckett, but it is not the name of a character in Waiting for Godot (1953).
But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth unto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the ugly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.
The author of the poem was a contemporary of .
William Shakespeare
John Milton
Caedmon
Geoffrey Chaucer
John Skelton
Explanation
The excerpt is taken from a poem by Edmund Spenser, who lived during the second half of the sixteenth century. Though he was a contemporary of Early Modern poets like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Spenser utilized deliberately archaic language that may seem like something that one would be more likely to find in Chaucer's poetry.
Passage adapted from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, I.xiv.1-9 (1590)
But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth unto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the ugly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th'other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.
The author of the poem was a contemporary of .
William Shakespeare
John Milton
Caedmon
Geoffrey Chaucer
John Skelton
Explanation
The excerpt is taken from a poem by Edmund Spenser, who lived during the second half of the sixteenth century. Though he was a contemporary of Early Modern poets like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Spenser utilized deliberately archaic language that may seem like something that one would be more likely to find in Chaucer's poetry.
Passage adapted from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, I.xiv.1-9 (1590)