GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

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Example Questions

Example Question #1 : Identification Of American Poetry

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

During which decade was this poem published?

Possible Answers:

1890s

1900s

1920s

1910s

1820s

Correct answer:

1890s

Explanation:

Even if you weren’t sure when this poem was published, 1895, you could rule out the other choices. Stephen Crane lived a short life, dying in 1900 at the age of 29. All of the five books Crane published in his lifetime were released in the six year period between 1893 and 1899.

The passage is adapted from "In the Desert," which appeared in Stephen Crane's The Black Rider and Other Lines (1895).

Example Question #10 : Identification Of American Poetry Before 1925

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

The same author also wrote which famous war novel?

Possible Answers:

The Scarlet Letter

The Red Badge of Courage

The Naked and the Dead

For Whom the Bell Tolls

All Quiet on the Western Front

Correct answer:

The Red Badge of Courage

Explanation:

Stephen Crane published the novel The Red Badge of Courage in 1895, the same year in which The Black Riders and Other Lines, his only volume of poetry, was published. He was said to prefer The Black Riders and Other Lines to this novel, although the latter was vastly more famous.

The passage is adapted from "In the Desert," which appeared in Stephen Crane's The Black Rider and Other Lines (1895). Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1958) were all used as alternative options.

Example Question #11 : Identification Of American Poetry

In silent night when rest I took,

For sorrow near I did not look,

I wakened was with thund’ring noise

And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.

That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”

Let no man know is my Desire.

I, starting up, the light did spy,

And to my God my heart did cry

To straighten me in my Distress

And not to leave me succourless.

Who wrote the poem from which this passage is adapted?

Possible Answers:

Stephen Crane

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anne Bradstreet

Edgar Allan Poe

Walt Whitman

Correct answer:

Anne Bradstreet

Explanation:

Anne Bradstreet wrote “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666,” as well as many other early poems. Bradstreet, the first female author to be published in America, lived in the seventeenth century and is known for including her Puritan ideals in her poetry.

Passage adapted from "Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666" (1666)

Example Question #12 : Identification Of American Poetry

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

 

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

 

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Who wrote this poem?

Possible Answers:

Anne Bradstreet

Emily Dickinson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edgar Allan Poe

Robert Frost

Correct answer:

Emily Dickinson

Explanation:

This is “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” written by Emily Dickinson and published after her death. Although Dickinson’s poetry is often recognizable by her extensive use of em dashes (see “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” et al.), readers can also distinguish her work by her short lines and stanzas, her keen observations, and her philosophical musing.

Example Question #13 : Identification Of American Poetry

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.

Who wrote the poem from which these lines are excerpted?

Possible Answers:

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Henry David Thoreau

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Correct answer:

Robert Frost

Explanation:

“Mending Wall,” published in 1914, is one of Frost’s better known works. The poem is written in blank verse and discusses a dispute between two neighbors about the necessity of a fence between their properties.

Passage adapted from "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost in Modern American Poetry (ed. Untermeyer, 1919)

Example Question #14 : Identification Of American Poetry

But how presumptuous shall we hope to find
Divine acceptance with the Almighty mind
While yet a deed ungenerous they disgrace
And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race
Let virtue reign and then accord our prayers
Be victory ours and generous freedom theirs.

Based on the subject matter of this excerpt, the author of the poem is most likely to be which of the following?

Possible Answers:

Frederick Douglass

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Whitman

Phillis Wheatley

Anne Bradstreet

Correct answer:

Phillis Wheatley

Explanation:

This excerpt, taken from a eulogy to an American general, was written by the female poet, Phillis Wheatley. An African slave, Wheatley was well educated and wrote on a variety of topics—everything from slavery to infant mortality. She favored couplets in her work and was the first African-American to publish a book.

Example Question #15 : Identification Of American Poetry

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
     this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
     their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Who wrote this poem?

Possible Answers:

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Anne Bradstreet

Walt Whitman

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Correct answer:

Walt Whitman

Explanation:

This is the opening of Walt Whitman’s beautiful “Song of Myself,” taken from Leaves of Grass (1855). The poem is said to represent the heart of Whitman’s poetic vision and be inspired by the Transcendentalist movement, although it was initially criticized for its raw, uncensored depictions of human sexuality.

Example Question #16 : Identification Of American Poetry

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
     “That is not it at all,
     That is not what I meant, at all.”

Identify the title of poem from which the selection was adapted based on its content and style.

Possible Answers:

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

“If You Forget Me”

“Howl”

“At a Window"

“I Need Not Go"

Correct answer:

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Explanation:

The stanza is from T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which was published in 1915.

Passage adapted from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" l.99-110 (1915)

Example Question #17 : Identification Of American Poetry

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

Which American author wrote this poem?

Possible Answers:

William Cullen Bryant

Walt Whitman

Stephen Crane

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Robert Frost

Correct answer:

Walt Whitman

Explanation:

Written by Walt Whitman in 1865 (and popularized by the movie, Dead Poets Society), this iconic American elegy eulogizes Abraham Lincoln, compaings him to a stalwart ship captain. “O Captain! My Captain!” is included in later editions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and often accompanies another Whitman elegy for Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

Example Question #18 : Identification Of American Poetry

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes— the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

This poem was written by __________.

Possible Answers:

Walt Whitman

Carl Sandburg

Ambrose Bierce

Emily Dickinson

Robert Frost

Correct answer:

Walt Whitman

Explanation:

This passage is adapted from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” taken from the first edition of his Leaves of Grass (1855). Always be vigilant about the edition of Leaves of Grass, as Whitman significantly revised and expanded the book in later editions.

Passage adapted from "Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, ln.1-8 (1855)

All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

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