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 #81 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
When was this poem published?
1790s
1870s
1830s
1810s
1850s
1810s
This poem first appeared in January 1818 in The Examiner, a few weeks before Horace Smith’s poem of the same name.
Passage adapted from "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818).
Example Question #82 : Contexts Of Poetry
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
This poem was written in competition with which poet?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Cowper
Horace Smith
Arthur Henry Hallam
William Blake
Horace Smith
Shelley and his friend, the English poet Horace Smith (1779–1849), each wrote a poem inspired by the British Museum’s acquisition of a statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ozymandias (also known as Ramesses II). Shelley’s was published a few weeks before Smith’s and achieved far more fame, even though there are many marked similarities between the two.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge co-wrote The Lyrical Ballads (1798), William Cowper wrote The Task (1785), William Blake wrote Songs of Innocence (1789), and Arthur Henry Hallam wrote Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam (1862).
Passage adapted from "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818).
Example Question #82 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
What form is this poem?
Sonnet
Villanelle
Pantoum
Sestina
Ghazal
Sonnet
This is a sonnet, identifiable by its 14 lines and loose iambic pentameter. This poem, though, lacks the traditional rhyme scheme and octave-sestet structure of most sonnets.
Passage adapted from "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818).
Example Question #84 : Contexts Of Poetry
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
What is the name of the work by this same poet that elegizes John Keats?
“The Masque of Anarchy”
Adonais
Prometheus Unbound
“Music, When Soft Voices Die”
The Revolt of Islam
Adonais
Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. is, as its full title suggests, an 1821 pastoral poem eulogizing the death of the English poet John Keats (by Percy Bysshe Shelley). All the other titles are also works by Shelley. The Revolt of Islam was published in 1818, Prometheus Unbound was published in 1820, “The Masque of Anarchy” was published in 1819, and “Music, When Soft Voices Die” was published in 1824.
Passage adapted from "Ozymandias" (1818) by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Example Question #83 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Who is the author of this poem?
George Gordon
William Wordsworth
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott.”
George Gordon (A.K.A Lord Byron) wrote Manfred (1817), William Wordsworth wrote The Prelude (1850), John Keats wrote Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820), and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Zastrozzi: A Romance (1810).
Passage adapted from "The Lady of Shalott" first published in Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1833).
Example Question #84 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Which of the following is not another poem by this author?
“Endymion”
“Ulysses”
“In Memoriam A.H.H.”
“Break, Break, Break”
“Crossing the Bar”
“Endymion”
“Ulysses” (1842), “In Memoriam A.H.H.” (1849), “Break, Break, Break” (1842), and “Crossing the Bar” (1889) are all among Tennyson’s best known works. “Endymion” is an 1818 poem by the English poet John Keats.
Passage adapted from "The Lady of Shalott" first published in Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1833).
Example Question #85 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
What is the form of this poem?
Sonnet
Villanelle
Pantoum
Sestina
Ballad
Ballad
A ballad is, traditionally, a long narrative poem that often contains detailed descriptions of characters and/or a love story. Sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and pantoums all have very specific rhyme schemes that “The Lady of Shalott” does not adhere to.
Passage adapted from "The Lady of Shalott," first published in Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1833).
Example Question #86 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
This poem features characters from what literary/historical tradition?
Homerian
Catholic
Reformation
Roman
Arthurian
Arthurian
“The Lady of Shalott” is based loosely on the medieval Arthurian legend of an imprisoned noblewoman named Elaine of Astolat. Several of Tennyson’s other poems also took Arthurian characters as their subject matter.
Passage adapted from "The Lady of Shalott," first published in Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1833).
Example Question #87 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
In what decade was this poem published?
1750s
1810s
1780s
1720s
1690s
1750s
Gray’s poem was completed in 1750 and first published in 1751. Even if you didn’t know this, you could rule out several of the other options if you knew Gray’s dates of birth and death: 1716 and 1771.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
During what decade was this poem first published?
1860s
1810s
1890s
1910s
1840s
1840s
The poem was first published in 1847. Even if you didn’t know this, the dates of Longfellow’s life (1807 to 1882) could have helped you narrow down the answer choices.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
