GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of American Poetry After 1925

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Example Questions

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Example Question #21 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

The author of Meditations in an Emergency was considered an important founder of which literary group?

Possible Answers:

The Factory

The Inklings

The Algonquin Round Table

The Bloomsbury Group

The New York School

Correct answer:

The New York School

Explanation:

Along with Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara was an important member of the New York School and contributed greatly to its surrealist, abstract expressionist, and avant-garde aesthetic.

Meditations in an Emergency was published in 1957.

Example Question #22 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Which of the following is not a title of a poem in the collection Meditations in an Emergency?

Possible Answers:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

On Rachmaninoff's Birthday

Romanze, or The Music Students

To the Harbormaster

For Grace, After a Party

Correct answer:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Explanation:

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” is a 1917 poem by Wallace Stevens.

All of the other answer choices were published in Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency (1957).

Example Question #23 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Who is the author of Helen in Egypt?

Possible Answers:

Marianne Moore

H.D.

Ezra Pound

Robert Lowell

Amy Lowell

Correct answer:

H.D.

Explanation:

This is the female Imagist poet and prose writer H.D (H.D was the pen name of Hilda Doolittle). H.D was born in 1886, and was active in publishing from 1916 until her death in 1961.

Ezra Pound wrote Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (1920)Amy Lowell (another American Imagist poet) wrote A Dome of Many Coloured Glass (1912), Robert Lowell wrote the Mills of the Kavanaughs (1951), and Marianne Moore wrote Nevertheless (1944).

Helen in Egypt (1961) was H.D's last book of poetry.

Example Question #24 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

What is another name of the author of Helen in Egypt?

Possible Answers:

D.H. Lawrence

Hilda Doolittle

Donald Hughes

Henry Douglas

Henrietta Davenport

Correct answer:

Hilda Doolittle

Explanation:

H.D. is the pen name of Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961).

Henry Douglas, Henrietta Davenport, and Donald Hughes were not notable American poets at all, but were provided here as alternative names with the initials H.D. The novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers (1913). 

Helen in Egypt (1961) was H.D's last book of poetry.

Example Question #25 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Which of the following is the title of another collection by the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Possible Answers:

Mad Girl’s Love Song

Tulips

An Octopus

Questions of Travel

Marriage

Correct answer:

Questions of Travel

Explanation:

Published in 1965, Questions of Travel reflects Bishop’s residence in Brazil and journeys in South America. The rest of the titles are individual poems by Sylvia Plath and Marianne Moore.

Example Question #26 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Who is the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Possible Answers:

Frank O’Hara

Amy Lowell

Sylvia Plath

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Gaskell

Correct answer:

Elizabeth Bishop

Explanation:

Inspired by a newspaper misprint, “The Man-Moth” (1946) is a poem by the U.S. Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar (1963), Amy Lowell wrote Ballads for Sale (1927), and Frank O’Hara wrote Oranges: 12 pastorals (1953).

Example Question #27 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Which of the following is the title of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poems by the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Possible Answers:

Brotherhood

Between Going and Coming

Last Dawn

As One Listens to the Rain

Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring

Correct answer:

Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring

Explanation:

Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring is Bishop’s 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection. The rest are the titles of individual poems by Octavio Paz.

Example Question #28 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925

Which of the following poets was a major influence on the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Possible Answers:

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Shelley

Marianne Moore

Mary Dudley

Marilyn Robinson

Correct answer:

Marianne Moore

Explanation:

Marianne Moore, whom Bishop met as a student at Vassar, was a mentor and friend to Bishop. Critics observe distinct similarities in the two poets’ oeuvres.

Mary Shelley was a 19th-century novelist, Mary Wollstonecraft was a 19th-century essayist and seminal feminist thinker, Marilyn Robinson is a 20th-century novelist, and Mary Dudley was not a writer, but was rather a confidante of Queen Elizabeth I.

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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

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