All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #43 : Contexts Of World Poetry
Which of the following is not another work by the author of The Labyrinth of Solitude?
Airborn
The Double Flame
Sunstone
The Dream
Renga: A Chain of Poems
The Dream
Octavio Paz wrote Sunstone (1956), The Double Flame (1994), In Light of India (1997), Airborn (1979), and Renga: A Chain of Poems (1972). The Dream (1692) is by the 17th-century Mexican nun Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Example Question #21 : Contexts Of World Poetry After 1925
Who is the author of The Striders?
Maxine Hong Kingston
Paul Yoon
Jhumpa Lahiri
Hanya Yanagihara
A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan
The Striders (1966) is a collection of poetry by the writer and translator A. K. Ramanujan.
Paul Yoon wrote Once the Shore (2009), Jhumpa Lahiri wrote The Namesake (2003), Maxine Hong Kingston wrote Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), and Hanya Yanagihara wrote The People in the Trees (2013)
Example Question #373 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
What country is the author of The Striders from?
Afghanistan
Turkey
Indonesia
India
Pakistan
India
A. K. Ramanujan is an Indian writer. He was born in Mysuru in the state of Karnataka, India.
The Striders was published in 1966.
Example Question #22 : Contexts Of World Poetry After 1925
Which of the following authors is not from the same country as the author of The Striders?
Salman Rushdie
Marjane Satrapi
Rabindranath Tagore
Amitav Ghosh
Arundhati Roy
Marjane Satrapi
Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy are all Indian writers. Marjane Satrapi is a French-Iranian writer and graphic novelist.
The Striders was published in 1966.
Example Question #23 : Contexts Of World Poetry After 1925
Which of the following is another work by the author of Autobiography of Red?
Last Poems
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Casa Guidi Windows
Aurora Leigh
Red Doc>
Red Doc>
Red Doc> (2013) is a 21st-century sequel to Autobiography of Red (1998). The other titles are all by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Sonnets from the Portuguese was published in 1850, Last Poems was published in 1862, Aurora Leigh was published in 1857, and Casa Guidi Windows was published in 1851.
Example Question #1 : Identification Of World Prose
“In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide. The old servants of the family suspected him to have been the son of the Baron's sister, by a good, honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of his genealogical tree having been lost through the injuries of time.
The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but windows. His great hall, even, was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farm-yards formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate of the village was his grand almoner. They called him "My Lord," and laughed at all his stories.”
Which author wrote the above paragraphs?
Molière
Voltaire
Rousseau
Montesquieu
Diderot
Voltaire
This passage is taken from the opening paragraphs of Voltaire’s Candide, a 1759 French satire concerning the sheltered young man Candide and a teacher, Professor Pangloss. The work, a novella, is also known as l'Optimisme.
Passage adapted from Candide by Voltaire (1759; trans. 1918, The Modern Library)
Example Question #2 : Identification Of World Prose
“Neither Mercedes nor Edmond observed the strange expression of his countenance; they were so happy that they were conscious only of the sunshine and the presence of each other.
Having acquitted themselves of their errand, and exchanged a hearty shake of the hand with Edmond, Danglars and Caderousse took their places beside Fernand and old Dantes,—the latter of whom attracted universal notice. The old man was attired in a suit of glistening watered silk, trimmed with steel buttons, beautifully cut and polished. His thin but wiry legs were arrayed in a pair of richly embroidered clocked stockings, evidently of English manufacture, while from his three-cornered hat depended a long streaming knot of white and blue ribbons. Thus he came along, supporting himself on a curiously carved stick, his aged countenance lit up with happiness, looking for all the world like one of the aged dandies of 1796, parading the newly opened gardens of the Tuileries and Luxembourg. Beside him glided Caderousse, whose desire to partake of the good things provided for the wedding-party had induced him to become reconciled to the Dantes, father and son, although there still lingered in his mind a faint and unperfect recollection of the events of the preceding night; just as the brain retains on waking in the morning the dim and misty outline of a dream.”
Which author wrote the above passage?
Dumas
Hugo
Rousseau
Molière
Voltaire
Dumas
The passage includes several of the main characters of The Count of Monte Cristo, written in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas. The novel follows the adventures of Dantes, who is engaged to marry Mercedes and is the eponymous count, and is one of Dumas’ most famous works.
Adapted from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844; 1888 ed. by George Routledge and Sons)
Example Question #1 : Identification Of World Prose Before 1925
"When he was twelve years old his mother had her own way; he began lessons. The cure took him in hand; but the lessons were so short and irregular that they could not be of much use. They were given at spare moments in the sacristy, standing up, hurriedly, between a baptism and a burial; or else the cure, if he had not to go out, sent for his pupil after the Angelus. They went up to his room and settled down; the flies and moths fluttered round the candle. It was close, the child fell asleep, and the good man, beginning to doze with his hands on his stomach, was soon snoring with his mouth wide open. On other occasions, when Monsieur le Cure, on his way back after administering the viaticum to some sick person in the neighborhood, caught sight of Charles playing about the fields, he called him, lectured him for a quarter of an hour and took advantage of the occasion to make him conjugate his verb at the foot of a tree. The rain interrupted them or an acquaintance passed. All the same he was always pleased with him, and even said the "young man" had a very good memory.
A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the sound
of a bell. Here, the evening prayer.
Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary took strong steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary gave in without a struggle, and they waited one year longer, so that the lad should take his first communion."
Who wrote the above passage?
Victor Hugo
Thomas Hardy
Honoré de Balzac
Guy de Maupassant
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
This passage is taken from Gustave Flaubert’s first novel, the 1856 Madame Bovary. The final lines of the passage mention the eponymous character herself.
Passage adapted from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856; trans. Aveline 1886).
Example Question #3 : Identification Of World Prose
“See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. They said to me, 'Be off,' at both places. No one would take me. I went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog's kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the town, to seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me, and said to me, 'Knock there!' I have knocked. What is this place? Do you keep an inn? I have money—savings. One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am very weary; twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should remain?”
Who wrote the above passage?
Gustave Flaubert
Victor Hugo
Honoré de Balzac
Émile Zola
Guy de Maupassant
Victor Hugo
This passage was written by the French writer Victor Hugo. It appears in his 1862 novel Les Misérables, which is widely considered one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century and which documents the plight of the poor in post-revolutionary France. The novel follows the lives of several characters, the most important of which is Jean Valjean.
Quotation adapted from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862; trans. Hapgood 1887).
Example Question #4 : Identification Of World Prose
“The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in the state of embryo, we might almost say a coterie, if coteries ended in heroes. They assembled in Paris in two localities, near the fish-market, in a wine-shop called Corinthe, of which more will be heard later on, and near the Pantheon in a little cafe in the Rue Saint-Michel called the Cafe Musain, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was close to the workingman, the second to the students.
The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back room of the Cafe Musain.
This hall, which was tolerably remote from the cafe, with which it was connected by an extremely long corridor, had two windows and an exit with a private stairway on the little Rue des Gres. There they smoked and drank, and gambled and laughed. There they conversed in very loud tones about everything, and in whispers of other things. An old map of France under the Republic was nailed to the wall,—a sign quite sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent.
The greater part of the Friends of the A B C were students, who were on cordial terms with the working classes. Here are the names of the principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history: Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle, Joly, Grantaire.
These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship. All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South.”
The author of the above passage also wrote which work?
Candide
In Search of Lost Time
A Sentimental Education
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Madame Bovary
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
This passage is taken from Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel Les Misérables. An important subplot of the novel is the political rebellions fomented by the students of 1830s Paris, students who comprise the Friends of the ABC. While Hugo’s most famous work is Les Misérables, he is also known for his 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Quotation adapted from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862; trans. Hapgood 1887).
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