GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Cultural and Historical Contexts
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #6 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
A classic American novel by this author depicts the glittering, empty lives of flappers and their ilk in the Hamptons of the early twentieth century.
Ernest Hemingway
D.H. Lawrence
John Dos Passos
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Robert Penn Warren
F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925.
Example Question #81 : Contexts Of Prose
Which of the following authors is not a Southern Gothic writer?
Carson McCullers
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
Walker Percy
Flannery O’Connor
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway was an expatriate who wrote terse, emotionally complex novels set mainly in Europe. He is not an exemplar of the Southern Gothic style, which is known for its setting of the American South and its use of macabre and grotesque events (often to provide social commentary).
Example Question #82 : Contexts Of Prose
This author set many of his novels in the fictional Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha. Who is he?
William Faulkner
John Dos Passos
Cormac McCarthy
Jack Kerouac
John Steinbeck
William Faulkner
This is William Faulkner. Yoknapatawpha comes from a Cherokee phrase and is based on real places in Mississippi, and many of his novels—such as Absalom! Absalom!, Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and The Sound and the Fury—are set here.
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
This 1958 novel features a storyline about an adult man who becomes obsessed with and begins a sexual relationship with a preteen girl.
Lolita
White Noise
Rabbit, Run
Of Mice and Men
All the King’s Men
Lolita
This is Vladimir Nabokov’s highly controversial Lolita. Although the book was largely regarded as pornographic and received little critical acclaim when it was first published, it has since become one of the most highly regarded novels of the twentieth century.
Example Question #81 : Contexts Of Prose
Who, by 2014, was the only African-American writer to win both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prizes?
James Baldwin
Langston Hughes
Maya Angelou
Toni Morrison
Richard Wright
Toni Morrison
This is Toni Morrison. Her novels, which include The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Sula, and Song of Solomon, feature deeply developed characters and examinations of race and history.
Example Question #85 : Contexts Of Prose
Which of the following writers was not an influential twentieth-century African-American novelist?
Richard Wright
Toni Morrison
Zora Neale Hurston
James Baldwin
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is a white novelist known for works such as Underworld and White Noise.
Example Question #82 : Contexts Of Prose
What is the subject of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men?
Richard Nixon’s Watergate hearing
The AIDS crisis
The Teapot Dome scandal
The Tuskegee experiments
Huey Long’s political corruption
Huey Long’s political corruption
Although Warren denied them, parallels were often drawn between Louisiana governor Huey Long’s rise to political power and the life of his novel’s characters.
Example Question #83 : Contexts Of Prose
Which of the following is a short story by the author of The Shipping News?
“The Gift of the Magi”
“The Story of an Hour”
“Bartleby the Scrivener”
“The Monkey’s Paw”
“Brokeback Mountain”
“Brokeback Mountain”
“Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853) is by Herman Melville, “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) is by O. Henry, “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902) is by W.W. Jacobs, and “The Story of an Hour” (1894) is by Kate Chopin. “Brokeback Mountain” was published in 1997 by E. Annie Proulx.
Example Question #84 : Contexts Of Prose
Which of the following is not another work by the author of The Shipping News?
Accordion Crimes
The Big Sleep
Heart Songs and Other Stories
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
The Big Sleep
Accordion Crimes (1996), Close Range: Wyoming Stories (1999), Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 (2004), and Heart Songs and Other Stories (1988) are all by E. Annie Proulx. The Big Sleep is a 1939 novel by Raymond Chandler.
Example Question #15 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
During what decade was Blood Meridian published?
1900s
1920s
1940s
1960s
1980s
1980s
Blood Meridian was published in 1985. Even if you didn’t know this, you could narrow down the answer choices by recognizing that McCarthy wasn’t born until 1933 and didn’t begin publishing until the 1960s.
Certified Tutor
Certified Tutor
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
