GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of British Poetry 1660–1925
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #63 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
This poem’s title alludes to a major character in which author’s epic?
Dante
Milton
Homer
Ovid
Virgil
Homer
Ulysses is an alternate name for Odysseus, an important character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Virgil wrote The Aeneid, Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy (1320), and John Milton wrote Paradise Lost (1674).
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #64 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
This poem’s title is shared with a work by which Irish writer?
W.B. Yeats
Jonathan Swift
James Joyce
Seamus Heaney
Oscar Wilde
James Joyce
The work in question is James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses.
Jonathan Swift wrote A Journal to Stella (1766), Seamus Heaney wrote Field Work (1979), W.B. Yeats wrote The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), and Oscar Wilde wrote Intentions (1891).
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #65 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Who is the author of this poem?
John Keats
William Wordsworth
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Matthew Arnold
Christina Rossetti
John Keats
This is the first stanza of “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” a famous poem by the English Romantic author John Keats (1795-1821).
William Wordsworth wrote The Prelude (1850), Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote A Defence of Poetry (1821), Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (1852), and Christina Rossetti wrote The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866).
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” (1820).
Example Question #66 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
The author of this poem wrote all but which of the following works?
Prelude
Endymion
Lamia
“Ode to a Nightingale”
Hyperion
Prelude
The Prelude (1850) is a semi-autobiographical work by William Wordsworth. Lamia (1820), Endymion (1818), Hyperion (1819, unfinished), and “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) are all works by John Keats.
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820).
Example Question #67 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Which of the following did not belong to the same literary movement as this poet?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
George Gordon
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
All of the above except Alfred, Lord Tennyson were English Romantic poets, as was John Keats.
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820).
Example Question #68 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Who wrote a famous elegiac poem for the author of this poem?
Christina Rossetti
William Blake
Matthew Arnold
Percy Bysshe Shelley
William Wordsworth
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The poem in question is the 1821 Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc., written by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820).
Example Question #69 : Contexts Of British Poetry
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Who is the author of this poem?
Mary Alcock
George Gordon
Matthew Arnold
William Blake
Robert Southey
Matthew Arnold
This is “Dover Beach,” one of the most famous poems by the English poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-1888).
William Blake wrote Songs of Innocent (1789), George Gordon (A.K.A Lord Byron) wrote Manfred (1817), Robert Southey wrote Chronicle of the Cid (1808), and Mary Alcock wrote The Confined Debtor: a Fragment from a Prison (1775)
Passage adapted from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867).
Example Question #70 : Contexts Of British Poetry
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
When was this poem published?
1820s
1830s
1850s
1860s
1840s
1860s
The poem was first published in 1867, although Arnold worked on it for at least ten years before its publication.
Passage adapted from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867).
Example Question #71 : Contexts Of British Poetry
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Which of the following is an important prose work by this poet?
The Defense of Poesy
Tradition and the Individual Talent
The Anxiety of Influence
Essays in Criticism
Anatomy of Criticism
Essays in Criticism
The Defense of Poesy (1595) is by Sir Philip Sidney, Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919) is by T.S. Eliot, The Anxiety of Influence (1973) is by Harold Bloom, Anatomy of Criticism (1957) is by Northrop Frye, and Essays in Criticism (1865) is by Matthew Arnold. These are all works of criticism or critical theory.
Passage adapted from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867).
Example Question #72 : Contexts Of British Poetry
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
A late Romantic, this poet is also sometimes described as an early member of which literary movement?
Symbolism
Imagism
Surrealism
Realism
Modernism
Modernism
Poems such as “Dover Beach” contain elements of early Modernism, signaling a departure from the Romantic and Victorian sensibilities of the time.
Passage adapted from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867).
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