All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #237 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
What collection is this poem taken from?
Songs of Eagerness
Songs of Ecstasy
Songs of Experience
Songs of Ecclesiastes
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience
William Blake wrote both Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence, but “The Tyger” is from the former collection. (The other titles are invented.)
Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).
Example Question #238 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Which of the following is not another work by this poet?
The Book of Los
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Lamia
Europe a Prophecy
An Island in the Moon
Lamia
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793), The Book of Los (1795), Europe a Prophecy (1794), An Island in the Moon (1785) are all by William Blake. Lamia is an 1820 narrative poem by John Keats.
Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).
Example Question #239 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
Who is the author of this poem?
Joanna Baillie
William Wordsworth
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
John Keats
Christina Rossetti
This is "Goblin Market,” a poem by the English author Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). It is a fantastical narrative poem about two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, and the cries they hear from magical goblin merchants. The poem is often read as an elaborate metaphor for loss of sexual innocence, although Rossetti stated that the poem was really intended for children.
William Wordsworth wrote The Excursion (1814), Matthew Arnold wrote Culture and Anarchy (1869), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), and Joanna Baillie wrote Plays on the Passions (1798).
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #240 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
The author of this passage wrote the words to which Christmas carol?
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
“Good King Wenceslas”
“In the Bleak Midwinter”
“Silent Night”
“Away in a Manger”
“In the Bleak Midwinter”
Following publication of Rossetti’s 1872 poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” in Scribner’s Monthly, Gustav Holst adapted the work to music.
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #241 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
When was this poem first published?
1880s
1860s
1900s
1920s
1840s
1860s
The poem was first published in 1862, although it was written several years earlier in the late 1850s.
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #242 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
Which famous artist was the illustrator of this poem?
J. M. W. Turner
Caspar David Friedrich
John Constable
William Holman Hunt
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti’s brother, illustrated the text. He was a poet himself and a leading founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic movement that rejected Mannerism and embraced lush, sensual details and rich colors in painting.
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #243 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
Who is the author of this poem?
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Blake
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
William Wordsworth
This is William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan (1816), Matthew Arnold wrote The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1849), William Blake wrote The Four Zoas (1797), and Christina Rossetti wrote Speaking Likenesses (1874).
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #244 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
When was this poem published?
1790s
1830s
1800s
1810s
1820s
1790s
As noted in the full title of the poem, “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” was published in 1798. Wordsworth lived from 1770 to 1850.
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #31 : Contexts Of British Poetry 1660–1925
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
Which of the following is not another work by the author of this poem?
“She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”
“The Solitary Reaper”
“Ulysses”
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
“The Tables Turned”
“Ulysses”
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1802), “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” (1798), “The Solitary Reaper” (1807), and “The Tables Turned” (1798) are all among Wordsworth’s best known poems. “Ulysses” is an 1844 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #52 : Contexts Of Poetry
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
What is the title of this author’s semi-autobiographical poem, known colloquially as “the poem to Coleridge”?
A Refutation of Deism: In a Dialogue
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem
The Prelude
The Task
The Prelude
The poem in question is the frequently revised and posthumously published The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem, which was intended as the introduction to a work that Wordsworth never finished.
The Task (1785) was written by William Cowper, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) was written by George Gordon, A Refutation of Deism: In a Dialogue (1814) was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810) was written by Thomas Love Peacock.
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).