All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #8 : Contexts Of World Poetry To 1660
Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon’s shore,
Thro’ seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the wat’ry waste,
With prowess more than human forc’d their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they wag’d, what seas, what dangers pass’d,
What glorious empire crown’d their toils at last,
Vent’rous I sing…
This poem’s dividing structure is the same as which other epic?
The Odyssey
The Metamorphoses
The Divine Comedy
The Iliad
The Aeneid
The Divine Comedy
Both Dante’s Divine Comedy and de Damões’s The Lusiads are divided into cantos.
Passage adapted from Luís Vaz de Camões Os Lusíadas, trans. William Julius Mickle (1877)
Example Question #9 : Contexts Of World Poetry To 1660
Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o’er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.
Which poem is this?
The Iliad
The Aeneid
The Odyssey
The Metamorphoses
Lamentation for Ur
The Aeneid
These are the first lines of Virgil’s famous epic poem The Aeneid. The poem concerns the legend of Aeneas, with the first half discussing the hero’s travels from Troy to Italy and the second half describing the war between the Trojans and the Latins.
Passage adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. E. Fairfax Taylor (1907)
Example Question #141 : Contexts Of Poetry
Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o’er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.
When was this poem written?
the 20s CE
the 20s BCE
the 200s CE
the 2000s BCE
the 200s BCE
the 20s BCE
The Aeneid was written sometime between 19 and 29 BCE.
Passage adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. E. Fairfax Taylor (1907)
Example Question #141 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o’er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.
Which of the following works was not influenced by this one?
The Decameron
The Divine Comedy
Beowulf
Paradise Lost
The Rape of the Lock
The Decameron
Boccaccio's The Decameron (1351), a 14th-century collection of Italian stories, does not demonstrate any direct influence by Virgil’s work; instead, The Decameron is often cited as the inspiration for other European prose (most notably, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1475)).
John Milton's Paradise Lost (1674), Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1712), and Beowulf (975-1025?) were also used as alternative answers.
Passage adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. E. Fairfax Taylor (1907)
Example Question #142 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o’er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.
Which of the following is not a major character in this work?
Juno
Dido
Menelaus
Anchises
Creusa
Menelaus
Although Aeneis is from Troy and Menelaus is the husband of Helen of Troy, Menelaus is in fact a major character in Homer’s The Iliad and not Virgil’s The Aeneid.
Passage adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. E. Fairfax Taylor (1907)
Example Question #143 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Le Bateau Ivre
Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs;
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
(As I floated the impassible rivers
I no longer felt myself guided by the haulers;
The gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets,
And had nailed them naked to totem poles.)
What other work did the author of this poem write?
Les Illuminations
La bonne chanson
Hombres (Hommes)
Sagesse
Poèmes saturniens
Les Illuminations
Les Illuminations (1886) is an unfinished series of prose poems by Rimbaud. Poèmes saturniens (1866), Sagesse (1880), Hombres (Hommes) (1891), and La bonne chanson (1870) are all works by Paul Verlaine.
Passage adapted from Arthur Rimbaud's "Le Bateau Ivre" ("The Drunken Boat") (1871)
Example Question #144 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Le Bateau Ivre
Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs;
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
(As I floated the impassible rivers
I no longer felt myself guided by the haulers;
The gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets,
And had nailed them naked to totem poles.)
What country was the author of this poem from?
France
Austria-Hungary
Prussia
Abyssinia
Wales
France
Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, in 1854, although he would later abandon poetry and move to Abyssinia to work. Rimbaud died in Marseilles in 1891.
Passage adapted from Arthur Rimbaud's "Le Bateau Ivre" ("The Drunken Boat") (1871)
Example Question #145 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Le Bateau Ivre
Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs;
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
(As I floated the impassible rivers
I no longer felt myself guided by the haulers;
The gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets,
And had nailed them naked to totem poles.)
Which of the following is a contemporary and confidant of this author?
Guillaume Apollinaire
Paul Valéry
Paul Verlaine
Jean Racine
André Breton
Paul Verlaine
All of the poets on this list are French, but not all lived at the same time as Rimbaud. Not only was Paul Verlaine a contemporary of Rimbaud’s, the French poet was also Rimbaud’s lover and partner for a brief, tumultuous period.
Passage adapted from Arthur Rimbaud's "Le Bateau Ivre" ("The Drunken Boat") (1871)
Example Question #146 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.
Who is the author of this poem?
Friedrich Hölderlin
Rainer Maria Rilke
Heinrich Heine
Hermann Hesse
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Rainer Maria Rilke
This is Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “The Panther.”
Passage adapted from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Poems, transl. Jessie Lamont (1918)
Example Question #147 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.
Besides German, which of the following languages did this author most frequently write in?
French
Russian
Czech
Hungarian
English
French
Rilke was known for his writings in not only German but also in French. More than 400 of his poems were originally written in his second language.
Passage adapted from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Poems, transl. Jessie Lamont (1918)
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