GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification of British Poetry 1660–1925
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #81 : Identification 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 is the subject of this poem?
The execution of a political prisoner in the Tower of London
A notorious London brothel and the life of a reformed prostitute
The undue importance that British society places on female virtue
An illicit haircut and a rift between two aristocratic families
A royal intrigue between Henry VIII and an imagined woman
An illicit haircut and a rift between two aristocratic families
This poem is based on the true story of two noble families in England during Pope’s lifetime. The inspiration for the poem occurred when a male suitor of one family cut off a lock of hair from a woman (named Belinda in the poem) of the other family without her permission. Pope uses his extensive powers of hyperbole, the mock-heroic form, and classical allusions to satirize this incident and blow it entirely out of proportion.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12 (1712; ed. 1906)
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