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 #1 : Literary Analysis Of British Plays
Adapted from Timon of Athens, IV:3, lines 409-447 by William Shakespeare
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft.
Which of the following is NOT exemplified in the above selection from Timon of Athens?
Sprung Rhythm
Iambic Pentameter
Personification
Blank Verse
Poetic Conceit
Sprung Rhythm
Sprung Rhythm is a system of scansion in which only stressed syllables are counted. It was invented by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in the late-19th century.
Blank Verse is a poetic form composed of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter is a metrical form in which each line consists of five iambic feet. A metrical foot is a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables. An iambic foot consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.
Personification is the attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects.
A Poetic Conceit is an extended metaphor that compares dissimilar objects in a surprising and imaginative manner.
Example Question #1 : Literary Analysis
Adapted from Timon of Athens, IV:3, lines 409-447 by William Shakespeare
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft.
The above passage from Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" is the source of the title of a novel by which twentieth century author?
John Updike
Vladimir Nabokov
Thomas Pynchon
Ernest Hemingway
William Faulkner
Vladimir Nabokov
"Timon of Athens" (one of the more obscure works by Shakespeare) is a key intertext in Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire, the title of which was drawn from the third line of the passage in question.
Example Question #1 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry
The versification of the poem would be best classified as __________.
running rhythm
blank verse
sprung rhythm
free verse
trochaic verse
sprung rhythm
Sprung rhythm is a rhythmic structure that was developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Rather than using lines built around metric feet containing a set number of syllables, sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in the foot. Sprung rhythm is based on the rhythmic structure of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Passage adapted from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)
Example Question #2 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry
This poem from which this excerpt is taken best exemplifies __________.
a folk ballad
an eclogue
a pastoral elegy
an ode
a lover's lament
a pastoral elegy
A pastoral elegy is a poem of mourning sung by or featuring a shepherd or shepherds. The poem from which this is taken is among the most famous pastoral elegies written in the English Language. The fact that the excerpt begins "Oh weep for Adonais!" should clue you in to the fact that it is from some type elegiac poem, and the description of the "Passion-winged Ministers of thought" as the deceased's "Flocks" is a clear indication of a conventional pastoral elegy.
Passage adapted from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley, I.1-9 (1821)
Example Question #2 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry
The verse form in this poem most closely resembles that in which of the following works?
Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard"
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
John Milton's Lycidas
Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Shelley wrote the poem in what are known as Spenserian stanzas. The Spenserian stanza was first invented by Edmund Spenser for his allegorical epic, The Faerie Queene, and consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter followed by an alexandrine (a line of iambic hexameter). The rhyme scheme of the Spenserian Stanza is A-B-A-B-B-C-B-C-C.
Passage adapted from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley, I.1-9 (1821)
Example Question #771 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
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."
What form does this poem take?
Sestina
Villanelle
Eulogy
Ode
Ballad
Ode
Although the poem’s title suggests it is an elegy, the work is really more similar to an ode, or a lyrical stanza. The poem is mainly concerned with a deep contemplation of death and life after death, and it mourns general human mortality much more than any single individual in the churchyard.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
Example Question #4 : Literary Analysis Of Poetry
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
What genre is this poem classified as?
Epic
Comedic
Mock-heroic
Melodramatic
Tragicomic
Mock-heroic
The Rape of the Lock is a famous mock-heroic poem. This genre of poetry parodies classical epics, exaggerating situations and characters to make them worthy of (satirically) epic narratives.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12 (1712; ed. 1906)
Example Question #1 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry 1660–1925
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
What is the meter of this poem?
Spondaic pentameter
Blank verse
Free verse
Heroic couplets
Iambic tetrameter
Heroic couplets
Like most mock-heroic poems, this work relies on heroic couplets, or rhyming lines of iambic pentameter.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12 (1712; ed. 1906)
Example Question #7 : Literary Analysis Of Poetry
Most epic poets plunge 'in medias res'
(______ makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,
What went before—by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.
That is the usual method, but not mine—
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,
And also of his mother, if you'd rather.
Who is the author referred to in line 2?
Petronius
Ovid
Longinus
Horace
Horace
The Roman poet Horace wrote Ars Poetica, a how-to guide or instruction manual for aspiring poets in which he coined the phrase "in medias res," which translates to into the middle of things. To create reader interest from the get-go, Horace recommends that poets start from the middle point of a story, instead of from the beginning, and this is what Byron takes issue with here, albeit ironically.
Note the "Horace," "heroic", "hero" alliteration.
While Longinus did write a treatise on poetry (On the Sublime), he is not associated with the doctrine of "in medias res."
Furthermore, the meter calls for a disyllabic (two-syllable) word, so "Longinus" and "Petronius" wouldn't really scan.
Passage adapted from Don Juan by George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) (1819)
Example Question #8 : Literary Analysis Of Poetry
Most epic poets plunge 'in medias res'
(______ makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,
What went before—by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.
That is the usual method, but not mine—
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,
And also of his mother, if you'd rather.
How do the two highlighted lines relate to each other?
The second line exemplifies how the poet has gone through great pains to avoid "sinning"
The second line is a partial critique of the first one.
The second line is an ironic comment on the first one
The second line is an acknowledgement that the poet might have sinned, although only time will tell.
The second line is an ironic comment on the first one
The stanzas are highly ironic as Byron, on the one hand, goes to great pains to explain how dangerous it is to digress (the sin of "wandering") when writing poetry but, on the other hand, takes great pleasure in digressing at the same time.
This irony is brought to the fore with the "sinning"/"spinning" rhyme. Describing how long it took him to pen the line instead of actually getting on with the story is an example of a digression that has nothing to do with the actual story of Don Juan. As such, the line makes a mockery of the idea that "wandering" is the worst of sinning.
Passage adapted from Don Juan by George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) (1819)
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