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 #251 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
Who is the author of this poem?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Caroline Clive
Robert Browning
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
Christina Rossetti
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This is “How Do I Love Thee,” one of the best known poems by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).
Robert Browning wrote Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833), Mary Elizabeth Coleridge The King with Two Faces (1897), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Caroline Clive wrote Paul Ferroll: a Tale (1855).
Passage adapted from "How Do I Love Thee," from Sonnets from the Portugese (1850).
Example Question #252 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
What is the title of the collection of famous sonnets written by this poet to her husband?
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Leda and the Swan
Sweet Rose of Virtue
The New Colossus
Bread and Music
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Sonnets from the Portuguese is the title of the collection, which includes “How Do I Love Thee.” All the others are titles of individual sonnets by different authors.
"The New Colossus" (1883) is by Emma Lazarus, "Bread and Music" (1917) is by Conrad Aiken, "Sweet Rose of Virtue" (1633) is by George Herbert, and "Leda and the Swan" (1924) is by William Butler Yeats.
Passage adapted from "How Do I Love Thee," from Sonnets from the Portugese (1850).
Example Question #253 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
To what country did this poet move to aid her poor health?
France
Greece
India
Portugal
Italy
Italy
Due to problems with her lungs, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband moved to Italy in 1846. She would live there until her death in Florence in 1861.
Passage adapted from "How Do I Love Thee," from Sonnets from the Portugese (1850).
Example Question #254 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
Which of the following is the title of another work by this poet?
The Fiery Dawn
Holman Hunt
Aurora Leigh
The Lady on the Drawingroom Floor
The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Aurora Leigh
Aurora Leigh is an Elizabeth Barrett Browning novel written in blank verse. All the other titles are by the Victorian poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus was published in 1898, The Fiery Dawn was published in 1901, The Lady on the Drawingroom Floor was published in 1906, and Holman Hunt was published in 1908.
Passage adapted from "How Do I Love Thee," from Sonnets from the Portugese (1850).
Example Question #61 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Who is the author of this poem?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Thomas Hardy
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
These are the famous final lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses.”
Thomas Hardy wrote Satires of Circumstance (1914), Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote The Wreck of the Deutschland (1918), Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote Ballads and Sonnets (1881), and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound (1820).
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #62 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
When was this poem written?
1890s
1850s
1830s
1870s
1810s
1830s
Although the poem was published in 1842, it was written almost a decade earlier, in 1833.
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #63 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
This poem’s title alludes to a major character in which author’s epic?
Ovid
Virgil
Homer
Dante
Milton
Homer
Ulysses is an alternate name for Odysseus, an important character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Virgil wrote The Aeneid, Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy (1320), and John Milton wrote Paradise Lost (1674).
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #64 : Contexts Of British Poetry
… Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
This poem’s title is shared with a work by which Irish writer?
Seamus Heaney
Oscar Wilde
James Joyce
W.B. Yeats
Jonathan Swift
James Joyce
The work in question is James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses.
Jonathan Swift wrote A Journal to Stella (1766), Seamus Heaney wrote Field Work (1979), W.B. Yeats wrote The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), and Oscar Wilde wrote Intentions (1891).
Passage adapted from "Ulysses" from Poems (1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Example Question #65 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Who is the author of this poem?
Christina Rossetti
William Wordsworth
Matthew Arnold
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats
John Keats
This is the first stanza of “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” a famous poem by the English Romantic author John Keats (1795-1821).
William Wordsworth wrote The Prelude (1850), Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote A Defence of Poetry (1821), Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (1852), and Christina Rossetti wrote The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866).
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” (1820).
Example Question #66 : Contexts Of British Poetry
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
The author of this poem wrote all but which of the following works?
Prelude
“Ode to a Nightingale”
Hyperion
Endymion
Lamia
Prelude
The Prelude (1850) is a semi-autobiographical work by William Wordsworth. Lamia (1820), Endymion (1818), Hyperion (1819, unfinished), and “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) are all works by John Keats.
Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820).
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
