All CLEP Humanities Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of British Plays
The story told in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is often thought to be derived from the story of __________.
Lancelot and Guinevere from Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart by Chretien de Troyes
Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid's Metamorphoses
Orpheus and Eurydice from Ovid's Metamorphoses
Samson and Delilah from the Bible
Dido and Aeneas from the Aeneid, by Virgil
Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid's Metamorphoses
The general consensus among scholars reflects that Shakespeare derived his story and main characters for Romeo and Juliet from Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe depicts two tragic lovers who are separated by their families, who do not approve of their marriage. They communicate their love through a cement wall and plan to meet under a tree outside to confess their love. However, when Thisbe comes out first, she mistakes the blood of a lion for Pyramus' blood and, believing he had been killed, kills herself.
Example Question #271 : Clep: Humanities
Which Shakespeare play opens with three witches forecasting the future?
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
Titus Andronicus
Macbeth
Hamlet
Macbeth
The image of three witches calmly prophesying the future is one of the indelible images of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The titular character's rise to power is conditioned and effected by the witches' proclamations, providing one of the key themes of the play, predestination and foreshadowing.
Example Question #32 : Drama
Who wrote the plays King Lear and Richard III?
Samuel Johnson
William Shakespeare
Thomas Middleton
Christopher Marlowe
Ben Jonson
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare wrote several historical plays in addition to his comedies and tragedies. The histories focus on English history, especially the Wars of the Roses. The Wars of the Roses were English civil wars that happened in the 1400s.
Example Question #33 : Drama
Which Shakespeare play features a Roman general who seeks revenge against a Gothic queen?
Macbeth
Julius Caesar
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus was William Shakespeare's first tragedy, performed originally in the early 1590s, when Shakespeare only had success as a comedy writer. Titus Andronicus is by far the goriest and most violent of Shakespeare's plays, in which he emulated contemporary "revenge plays." The play finishes with the titular Roman general feeding a pie to a Gothic queen that contains the meat of her two dead sons.
Example Question #34 : Drama
What is the Shakespeare play that features the witty repartee between characters Beatrice and Benedick?
Much Ado About Nothing
As You Like It
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Twelfth Night
Much Ado About Nothing
Among Shakespeare's comedies, Much Ado About Nothing is relatively straightforward narratively, with the action focusing on two couples, the young lovers Claudio and Hero and the combative couple Beatrice and Benedick. The straightforward narrative, however, allows Shakespeare to play up the witty dialogue between Beatrice and Benedick. The play is famous for some of Shakespeare's cleverest writing and funniest scenes.
Example Question #35 : Drama
The Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote which of the following plays?
Othello
Doctor Faustus
Bartholomew Fayre
The Spanish Tragedy
Macbeth
Doctor Faustus
Christopher Marlowe was an early contemporary of William Shakespeare, and was arguably more popular in his time than Shakespeare. Marlowe's death in 1593 under mysterious circumstances was seen to have cut short a promising literary career. His work continues on, as in his telling of the Faust myth, Doctor Faustus, from 1589.
Example Question #36 : Drama
All of the following writers were from the Elizabethan Era in England except __________.
Edmund Spenser
Ben Johnson
Christopher Marlowe
William Shakespeare
John Milton
John Milton
The "Elizabethan Era" refers to England under the reign of Elizabeth I, who ruled from 1558 to 1603. Literature first flowered in England under Elizabeth, and saw the rise of playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson, poets like Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, who wrote both plays and poems. John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, wrote during the period of the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, nearly a half decade after Elizabeth's death.
Certified Tutor