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 #85 : Contexts Of Poetry
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?
Pantoum
Sestina
Sonnet
Villanelle
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 : Contexts Of Poetry
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?
Catholic
Roman
Reformation
Homerian
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 : Contexts Of Poetry
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?
1810s
1690s
1780s
1750s
1720s
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?
1840s
1910s
1860s
1810s
1890s
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)
Example Question #2 : 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.
What type of poem is this?
Sonnet
Southern Gothic
Epic
Melodrama
Sestina
Epic
Longfellow’s Evangeline is an epic poem, spanning dozens of long stanzas and concerning a young woman’s search for her lover, Gabriel Lajeunesse. It is set during the Great Deportation of the Acadians in Canada, a period of time during the French and Indian War.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #3 : 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.
The author of this poem also wrote which of the following works?
The Red Badge of Courage
The Last of the Mohicans
Voices of the Night
Walden
Leaves of Grass
Voices of the Night
In addition to Evangeline and translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Longfellow was known for several early collections of poetry, including Voices of the Night.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #4 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
Who is the author of this poem?
Stephen Crane
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Edgar Allan Poe
Anne Bradstreet
Robert Frost
Edgar Allan Poe
These are the opening lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven," which follows the story of a lovelorn man who is possibly slowly driven mad by grief for a woman named Lenore.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #5 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
During what era was this poem first published?
Reconstruction
Fin de Siècle
Colonial
Antebellum
Revolutionary War
Antebellum
The poem was first published in 1845, which falls in the Antebellum Period (spanning from the War of 1812 to the Civil War). You could have eliminated several of these answers based on Poe’s short life: He was only alive between 1809 and 1849.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #6 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
The author of this poem also wrote all but which one of the following works?
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Mask of the Red Death”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The rest of the titles are all short stories by Poe.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #7 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
Which of the following poets would be least likely to employ a meter similar to the one in this passage?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Anne Bradstreet
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
“The Raven” is written in trochaic octameter. Whitman’s major work, Leaves of Grass, was written in free verse and is an important early example of this form. The other poets here all tended to write in strict meter. For example, Longfellow’s Evangeline is written in unrhymed dactylic hexameter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Oh could I raise the darken’d veil” is in iambic tetrameter, and Anne Bradstreet’s “Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666” is in rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
