GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #47 : Contexts Of Poetry
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
When was this poem first published?
1840s
1880s
1860s
1900s
1920s
1860s
The poem was first published in 1862, although it was written several years earlier in the late 1850s.
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #48 : Contexts Of Poetry
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries…
Which famous artist was the illustrator of this poem?
William Holman Hunt
John Constable
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
J. M. W. Turner
Caspar David Friedrich
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti’s brother, illustrated the text. He was a poet himself and a leading founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic movement that rejected Mannerism and embraced lush, sensual details and rich colors in painting.
Passage adapted from Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1862).
Example Question #49 : Contexts Of Poetry
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
Who is the author of this poem?
Christina Rossetti
William Blake
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Wordsworth
Matthew Arnold
William Wordsworth
This is William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan (1816), Matthew Arnold wrote The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1849), William Blake wrote The Four Zoas (1797), and Christina Rossetti wrote Speaking Likenesses (1874).
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #50 : Contexts Of Poetry
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
When was this poem published?
1790s
1800s
1820s
1810s
1830s
1790s
As noted in the full title of the poem, “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” was published in 1798. Wordsworth lived from 1770 to 1850.
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #51 : Contexts Of Poetry
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
Which of the following is not another work by the author of this poem?
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
“Ulysses”
“The Solitary Reaper”
“The Tables Turned”
“She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”
“Ulysses”
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1802), “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” (1798), “The Solitary Reaper” (1807), and “The Tables Turned” (1798) are all among Wordsworth’s best known poems. “Ulysses” is an 1844 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #52 : Contexts Of Poetry
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
What is the title of this author’s semi-autobiographical poem, known colloquially as “the poem to Coleridge”?
A Refutation of Deism: In a Dialogue
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem
The Prelude
The Task
The Prelude
The poem in question is the frequently revised and posthumously published The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem, which was intended as the introduction to a work that Wordsworth never finished.
The Task (1785) was written by William Cowper, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) was written by George Gordon, A Refutation of Deism: In a Dialogue (1814) was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810) was written by Thomas Love Peacock.
Passage adapted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798).
Example Question #52 : Contexts Of Poetry
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance…
Who is the author of this poem?
Lewis Carroll
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
Robert Browning
Caroline Clive
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
These are the opening lines of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830), Caroline Clive wrote Year after year: a tale (1858), Lewis Carroll wrote Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898), and Mary Elizabeth Coleridge wrote Non Sequitur (1900).
Passage adapted from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," from Dramatic Lyrics (1842).
Example Question #53 : Contexts Of Poetry
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance…
With which era is this poet associated?
Georgian
Modernist
Restoration
Regency
Victorian
Victorian
Robert Browning, who lived from 1812 to 1889, was a leading Victorian poet.
Passage adapted from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," from Dramatic Lyrics (1842).
Example Question #54 : Contexts Of Poetry
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance…
When was this poem published?
1850s
1820s
1840s
1810s
1830s
1840s
The poem first appeared in 1842 in Browning’s collection Dramatic Lyrics. Remembering Browning’s birth date (1812) may have helped rule out the earlier decades.
Passage adapted from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," from Dramatic Lyrics (1842).
Example Question #55 : Contexts Of Poetry
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance…
The author of this passage was married to which famous Victorian writer?
Christina Rossetti
Lady Charlotte Elliot
Elizabeth Barrett
George Eliot
Lady Caroline Lamb
Elizabeth Barrett
Elizabeth Barrett, known as Elizabeth Barrett Browning after her marriage, married Robert Browning in 1846. As a result of the elopement (she kept the courtship secret), she was disinherited by her family.
George Eliot was a novelist, and the author of Middlemarch (1874). Lady Caroline Lamb wrote Ada Reis (1823), Lady Charlotte Elliot wrote Hours of Sorrow Cheered and Comforted (1836), and Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862).
Passage adapted from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," from Dramatic Lyrics (1842).
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
