AP English Literature and Composition › GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
The poem from which this passage is excerpted ends with which of the following?
An epitaph
An epigraph
An epistle
An epigram
An epicure
An "epitaph" is a written commemoration of a person’s life, often on a gravestone. Even if you didn’t know how the poem ended, an epitaph would be the most logical choice to end this poem. An "epigraph" is a short quotation (usually presented at the beginning of a novel or other published work), an "epigram" is a short or witty saying, an "epistle" is a letter, and an "epicure" is someone who appreciates fine food and beverages. The particular epitaph at the end of this poem memorializes a poet who died with his work unknown, an insight into Gray’s own views of his work.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
Who wrote The Remains of the Day?
Kazuo Ishiguro
Arundhati Roy
Kiran Desai
Salman Rushdie
Yann Martel
The Remains of the Day (1989)is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It concerns Lord Darlington’s butler Stevens and his relationship with a housekeeper in the days leading up to World War II.
Arundhati Roy won the 1999 Man Booker for The God of Small Things (1997), Kiran Desai won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss (2006), Salman Rushdie won the Booker in 1981 for Midnight's Children (1981), and Yann Martel is Canadian.
In pious times, e’r Priest-craft did begin,
Before Polygamy was made a Sin;
When Man on many multipli’d his kind,
E’r one to one was cursedly confin’d,
When Nature prompted and no Law deni’d
Promiscuous Use of Concubine and Bride;
Then Israel’s Monarch, after Heavens own heart,
His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart
To Wives and Slaves: And, wide as his Command,
Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land.
Who is the author of this poem?
John Dryden
Sir William Davenant
John Milton
Thomas Shadwell
Edmund Spenser
These are the opening lines of John Dryden’s political allegory Absalom and Achitophel, a book-length poem concerning the rebellion of Absalom against the Biblical King David.
Passage adapted from John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Who is the author of this poem?
William Blake
William Cowper
John Keats
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).
William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).
Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
The poem from which this passage is excerpted ends with which of the following?
An epitaph
An epigraph
An epistle
An epigram
An epicure
An "epitaph" is a written commemoration of a person’s life, often on a gravestone. Even if you didn’t know how the poem ended, an epitaph would be the most logical choice to end this poem. An "epigraph" is a short quotation (usually presented at the beginning of a novel or other published work), an "epigram" is a short or witty saying, an "epistle" is a letter, and an "epicure" is someone who appreciates fine food and beverages. The particular epitaph at the end of this poem memorializes a poet who died with his work unknown, an insight into Gray’s own views of his work.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
The poem from which this passage is excerpted ends with which of the following?
An epitaph
An epigraph
An epistle
An epigram
An epicure
An "epitaph" is a written commemoration of a person’s life, often on a gravestone. Even if you didn’t know how the poem ended, an epitaph would be the most logical choice to end this poem. An "epigraph" is a short quotation (usually presented at the beginning of a novel or other published work), an "epigram" is a short or witty saying, an "epistle" is a letter, and an "epicure" is someone who appreciates fine food and beverages. The particular epitaph at the end of this poem memorializes a poet who died with his work unknown, an insight into Gray’s own views of his work.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
Which of the following literary devices does not appear in Angels in America?
Deus ex machina
Doubling
Religious allusions
Monologue
Hallucinatory visions
Angels in America features doubling (one actor playing two or more roles), Biblical allusions and visitations from angels, monologues by several of the main characters, and hallucinatory visions. It does not include deus ex machina, which is a theatrical device whereby something unexpected and unexplained intervenes to fix a plot problem and drastically alter the course of the play. (A famous deus ex machina occurs in Hamlet in the form of the pirates.)
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
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)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Who is the author of this poem?
William Blake
William Cowper
John Keats
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).
William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).
Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Who is the author of this poem?
William Blake
William Cowper
John Keats
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).
William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).
Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).