GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification of British Poetry After 1925
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #11 : Identification Of British Poetry After 1925
Which British poet began a poem with “April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing” and that also included such lines as “I will show you fear in a handful of dust”?
Ted Hughes
Ezra Pound
e. e. cummings
T. S. Eliot
W. B. Yeats
T. S. Eliot
The poem, T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” is often cited as one of the most important literary works of the twentieth century. It is a polyphonic conglomeration of Arthurian legend, classical myth, modern social satire, and religious vision, and it discusses themes of disillusionment, despondency, death, and mortal judgment.
"April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing": Adapted from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, l.1-2 (1922)
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust": Adapted from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, l.30 (1922)
Example Question #12 : Identification Of British Poetry After 1925
This Irish poet is better known for his plays Waiting For Godot and Endgame, but his verses show similar qualities: fragmentation, absurdism, deceptively simple diction, and a disregard for grammatical conventions. Who is he?
Seamus Heaney
Samuel Beckett
Oscar Wilde
W. B. Yeats
Jonathan Swift
Samuel Beckett
The poet and playwright in question is Samuel Beckett, who (along with Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, and Tom Stoppard) is one of the key members of the Theatre of the Absurd. Works that belong to this so-called movement typically include nihilism, wordplay, elements of vaudevillian comedy or downright nonsense mixed with horror or tragedy, and frustration at the apparent meaninglessness of humanity’s place in the world. Although Beckett’s poetry is perhaps the least read of his various creative works, his contributions to the genre were not insignificant, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969.
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