Identification of Prose
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AP English Literature and Composition › Identification of Prose
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early, considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in question.
Which of the following authors did not later write a work in the same genre?
Charles Dickens
Clara Reeve
Edgar Allan Poe
Ann Radcliffe
Mary Shelley
Explanation
Reeve, Poe, Shelley, and Radcliffe all published Gothic novels in the nineteenth century. Dickens’ novels, which include Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield, did not write Gothic literature, but rather Victorian works with elements of realism, social commentary, comedy, melodrama, and eloquent description.
Adapted from The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764; ed. 1901)
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early, considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in question.
Which of the following authors did not later write a work in the same genre?
Charles Dickens
Clara Reeve
Edgar Allan Poe
Ann Radcliffe
Mary Shelley
Explanation
Reeve, Poe, Shelley, and Radcliffe all published Gothic novels in the nineteenth century. Dickens’ novels, which include Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield, did not write Gothic literature, but rather Victorian works with elements of realism, social commentary, comedy, melodrama, and eloquent description.
Adapted from The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764; ed. 1901)
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early, considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in question.
Which of the following authors did not later write a work in the same genre?
Charles Dickens
Clara Reeve
Edgar Allan Poe
Ann Radcliffe
Mary Shelley
Explanation
Reeve, Poe, Shelley, and Radcliffe all published Gothic novels in the nineteenth century. Dickens’ novels, which include Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield, did not write Gothic literature, but rather Victorian works with elements of realism, social commentary, comedy, melodrama, and eloquent description.
Adapted from The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764; ed. 1901)
This Pulitzer- and Nobel-Prize winning novelist and three-time recipient of the National Book Award wrote such novels as The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog. Who is he?
Saul Bellow
Don DeLillo
Norman Mailer
William S. Burroughs
Denis Johnson
Explanation
This is Saul Bellow. In addition to The Adventures of Augie March (1953) and Herzog (1964), he wrote Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), Seize the Day (1956), and Humboldt's Gift (1975). Bellow had one of the most prolific and successful literary careers of the 20th century. His first novel was released in 1944 and his last in 2000; he won the National Book Award three times in three decades, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976.
This Pulitzer- and Nobel-Prize winning novelist and three-time recipient of the National Book Award wrote such novels as The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog. Who is he?
Saul Bellow
Don DeLillo
Norman Mailer
William S. Burroughs
Denis Johnson
Explanation
This is Saul Bellow. In addition to The Adventures of Augie March (1953) and Herzog (1964), he wrote Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), Seize the Day (1956), and Humboldt's Gift (1975). Bellow had one of the most prolific and successful literary careers of the 20th century. His first novel was released in 1944 and his last in 2000; he won the National Book Award three times in three decades, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976.
This Pulitzer- and Nobel-Prize winning novelist and three-time recipient of the National Book Award wrote such novels as The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog. Who is he?
Saul Bellow
Don DeLillo
Norman Mailer
William S. Burroughs
Denis Johnson
Explanation
This is Saul Bellow. In addition to The Adventures of Augie March (1953) and Herzog (1964), he wrote Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), Seize the Day (1956), and Humboldt's Gift (1975). Bellow had one of the most prolific and successful literary careers of the 20th century. His first novel was released in 1944 and his last in 2000; he won the National Book Award three times in three decades, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976.
The following line is the opening of which literary work?
“A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.”
The Return of the Native
The Turn of the Screw
Bleak House
“Bartleby the Scrivener"
A Passage to India
Explanation
The excerpt is the opening lines of Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel, The Return of the Native.
The following line is the opening of which literary work?
“A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.”
The Return of the Native
The Turn of the Screw
Bleak House
“Bartleby the Scrivener"
A Passage to India
Explanation
The excerpt is the opening lines of Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel, The Return of the Native.
The following line is the opening of which literary work?
“A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.”
The Return of the Native
The Turn of the Screw
Bleak House
“Bartleby the Scrivener"
A Passage to India
Explanation
The excerpt is the opening lines of Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel, The Return of the Native.
This author was the first American horror, mystery, and science fiction writer. His most famous tales include The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart and the poem The Raven.
Edgar Allen Poe
Herman Melville
Stephen King
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mark Twain
Explanation
Edgar Allen Poe (1809–1849) was a romantic writer, meaning that he relies on emotion and individualism. He was one of America's first short story writers. Edgar Allen Poe tried to please his audience by writing in the Gothic genre as well, where his themes had questions of death, its physical signs, decomposition, premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.