All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #12 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Which of the following poets would not be considered an early or proto-Modernist?
Robert Frost
Arthur Rimbaud
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Each of the following poets anticipated Modernism with their work: Emily Dickinson, with her experimental punctuation and brevity; Walt Whitman, with his revolutionary portrayals of identity and sexuality and his eschewal of strict meter; Robert Frost, with his clear, precise language and his crisp imagery; and Arthur Rimbaud, for his refusal to romanticize and his use of prose poetry. Poe, however, was a Gothic writer and not a proto-Modernist.
Example Question #13 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
During what decade was Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth published?
1970s
1980s
1960s
1990s
2000s
2000s
Given that this is Adrienne Rich’s penultimate poetry collection, it makes sense that it would have been published near the end of Rich’s life (1929-2012). Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth was published in 2007.
Example Question #114 : Contexts Of Poetry
When was Meditations in an Emergency published?
1960s
1940s
1950s
1920s
1930s
1950s
This collection was first published in 1957.
Example Question #14 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Which of the following is not another work by the author of Helen in Egypt?
Red Roses for Bronze
Hippolytus Temporizes
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
Sea Garden
Hymen
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
In addition to Helen in Egypt, H.D. wrote the poetry collections Sea Garden (1916), Hymen (1921), Hippolytus Temporizes (1927), and Red Roses for Bronze (1932). Sword Blades and Poppy Seed is a 1914 collection by the Imagist poet Amy Lowell.
Helen in Egypt (1961) was H.D's last book of poetry.
Example Question #15 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Which of the following labels could not be applied to the work of the author of Helen in Egypt?
Feminist
Classicist
Confessional
Avant-garde
Imagist
Confessional
H.D. was not a confessional poet, as this movement did not emerge until the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her work, however, took inspiration from Classical Greek poetry and was both Imagist and avant-garde. She was also an outspoken feminist, and works such as Helen in Egypt challenged traditional male voices in poetry.
Helen in Egypt (1961) was H.D's last book of poetry.
Example Question #16 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Who is the author of Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth?
Adrienne Rich
Sylvia Plath
Amy Lowell
Marianne Moore
Gwendolyn MacEwen
Adrienne Rich
Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth (2007) is one of Adrienne Rich’s last poetry collections.
Amy Lowell wrote Legends (1921), Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar (1963), Marianne Moore wrote O to Be a Dragon (1959), and Gwendolyn MacEwen wrote The Rising Fire (1963).
Example Question #17 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Which of the following is not another book by the author of Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth?
The Dream of a Common Language
The Diamond Cutters, and Other Poems
Diving into the Wreck
The Colossus and Other Poems
An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems
The Colossus and Other Poems
The Colossus and Other Poems is a 1960 collection by Sylvia Plath. All the rest are works by Adrienne Rich.
An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems was published in 1991, The Diamond Cutters, and Other Poems was published in 1955, Diving into the Wreck was published in 1973, The Dream of a Common Language was published in 1978, and Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth was published in 2007.
Example Question #18 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
What award did the author of Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth infamously decline?
The National Medal of Arts
The Pulitzer Prize
The National Book Award
The Nobel Prize
The U.S. Poet Laureate
The National Medal of Arts
In 1997, Rich declined the National Medal of Arts in order to protest a proposition to cut government funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and other government policies.
Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth was published in 2007.
Example Question #19 : Contexts Of American Poetry After 1925
Who is the author of Meditations in an Emergency?
William S. Burroughs
Denis Johnson
John Ashbery
Frank O’Hara
Kenneth Koch
Frank O’Hara
Meditations in an Emergency (1957) is Frank O’Hara’s third collection. The title is allegedly an allusion to a work by the English poet John Donne.
Kenneth Koch wrote Thank You and Other Poems (1962), John Ashbery wrote Your Name Here (2000), William S. Burroughs wrote Junky (1953), and Denis Jonson wrote Jesus' Son (1992).
Example Question #31 : Contexts Of American Poetry
The author of Meditations in an Emergency was considered an important founder of which literary group?
The Factory
The Inklings
The Algonquin Round Table
The Bloomsbury Group
The New York School
The New York School
Along with Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara was an important member of the New York School and contributed greatly to its surrealist, abstract expressionist, and avant-garde aesthetic.
Meditations in an Emergency was published in 1957.
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