GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Cultural and Historical Contexts
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #6 : Contexts Of British Plays 1660–1925
THE FLOWER GIRL: There's menners f' yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].
THE MOTHER: How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them? [Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.]
Which of the following is not a subject of the play?
Cockney slang
A gentlemen’s wager
Irish famine
Class distinctions
Social deception
Irish famine
The play’s premise is as follows: a professor of linguistics (Henry Higgins) and an old friend (Colonel Pickering) make a wager that the professor can take a Cockney street vendor (Eliza Doolittle) and, through intensive guidance and tutelage, transform her into a duchess who can be presented in high society without anyone suspecting. Irish famine is the only subject that does not appear in the play.
(Passage adapted from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, I.26-29 (1916))
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of British Plays 1660–1925
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
Who is the author of this play?
George Bernard Shaw
Noel Coward
Oscar Wilde
Harold Pinter
W.B. Yeats
Oscar Wilde
This is Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #32 : Contexts Of Plays
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
During what decade was this play first performed?
1880s
1900s
1870s
1890s
1910s
1890s
The Importance of Being Earnest was first performed in 1895. If you didn’t know this, you could at least rule out a few of the answers; Oscar Wilde died in 1900, and he was still alive to see the premier of his work.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #691 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
This play satirizes all of the following except __________.
matrimony
English immigrants
London society
upper-class norms and behaviors
Victorian traditions
English immigrants
The play’s clever storyline follows several English characters through light-hearted deceptions, courtship, and farcical situations caused by their own dishonesty. It is an extended examination of triviality as well as a satire of Victorian London and its upper-class marriage customs. The only topic listed that the play does not touch on is immigration.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #692 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
This author wrote all of the following works except __________.
Salome
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ravenna
Tamburlaine
Tamburlaine
Tamburlaine is a 1590 play by the Elizabeth author Christopher Marlowe. The rest of the works are by Oscar Wilde.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #31 : Contexts Of Plays
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
Although initially successful, this play closed early due to what scandal?
The playwright’s affair with a married woman
The playwright’s imprisonment in debtor’s gaol
The playwright’s contraction of venereal disease
The playwright’s homosexuality
The playwright’s public criticism of the Queen of England
The playwright’s homosexuality
While it received great critical acclaim, The Importance of Being Earnest also led to Wilde’s personal downfall. After the mother of Lord Alfred Douglas (nicknamed “Bosie” and Wilde’s lover) was denied entry to the play, Wilde’s relationship with Bosie became public and led to his imprisonment. As a result of the scandal, the play closed early.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #32 : Contexts Of Plays
CECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.
ALGERNON: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
CECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
ALGERNON: For the last three months?
CECILY: Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.
ALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?
CECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.
Which of the following is not a character in this play?
Gwendolyn Fairfax
Lady Augusta Bracknell
Algy Moncrieff
Jack Worthing
Willy Loman
Willy Loman
Willy Loman is a character from Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman. All the rest appear in Wilde's play.
(Passage adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, II.i (1895))
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
In what decade was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead first performed?
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1940s
1960s
The play was first staged in 1966 in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Festival Fringe, the world's largest annual arts festival.
Example Question #2 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
The author of The Birthday Party also wrote work belonging to all but which of the following genres?
comedy of menace
theater of the absurd
memory plays
morality plays
morality plays
Morality plays were popular during medieval times. Pinter’s work was avant-garde, not antiquated, so we can infer that his work was categorized as comedy of menace, memory plays, and theater of the absurd.
Example Question #695 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
In what decade was Waiting for Godot published?
1970s
1940s
1950s
1930s
1960s
1950s
The play was published in 1953.
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