Passage adapted from Samuel Johnson, "Preface to Shakespeare (1756)," 9-63, in Johnson on Shakespeare: Essays and Notes Selected and Set Forth with an Introduction by Walter Raleigh (London: Oxford University Press, 1969): 29.

"Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide, and useless to enquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance."

Which of the following is NOT one of the "unities" alluded to in the above excerpt?

In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden. Each of these men performed certain poetic functions so magnificently well that the magnitude of the effect concealed the absence of others. The language went on and in some respects improved; the best verse of Collins, Gray, Johnson, and even Goldsmith satisfies some of our fastidious demands better than that of Donne or Marvell or King. But while the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude. The feeling, the sensibility, expressed in the "Country Churchyard" (to say nothing of Tennyson and Browning) is cruder than that in the "Coy Mistress."

The essay from which the passage was taken is concerned primarily with which of the following groups of poets?

In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden. Each of these men performed certain poetic functions so magnificently well that the magnitude of the effect concealed the absence of others. The language went on and in some respects improved; the best verse of Collins, Gray, Johnson, and even Goldsmith satisfies some of our fastidious demands better than that of Donne or Marvell or King. But while the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude. The feeling, the sensibility, expressed in the "Country Churchyard" (to say nothing of Tennyson and Browning) is cruder than that in the "Coy Mistress."

The author of the passage was __________.

The author of this poem was a contemporary of which of the following poets?

A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,

Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,

Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,

The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he never wield:

His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,

As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:

Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,

As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

Who is the author of this poem?

A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,

Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,

Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,

The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he never wield:

His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,

As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:

Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,

As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

When was this poem published?

A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,

Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,

Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,

The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he never wield:

His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,

As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:

Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,

As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

Which of the following was the closest contemporary of this author?

A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,

Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,

Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,

The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he never wield:

His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,

As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:

Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,

As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

This poem praises which of the following monarchs?

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote       

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,        

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,         

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;           

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth             

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth  

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne       

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,       

And smale fowles maken melodye,     

That slepen al the night with open ye,         

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

Who is the author of this work?

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote       

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,        

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,         

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;           

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth             

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth  

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne       

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,       

And smale fowles maken melodye,     

That slepen al the night with open ye,         

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages…

What important event was occurring at the time of this work’s publication?