GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Literary Analysis of British Poetry
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Grammar And Syntax
1 If but some vengeful god would call to me
2 From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
3 Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
4 That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
5 Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
6 Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
7 Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
8 Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
9 But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
10 And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
11 —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
12 And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
13 These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
14 Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
(1898)
In line 7, the speaker mentions "a Powerfuler than I" (line 7). To whom is this referring?
"Casualty" (line 11)
"Doomsters" (line 13)
"Time" (line 12)
the speaker's "love" (line 4)
"some . . . god" (line 1)
"some . . . god" (line 1)
In line 7, the speaker is referring to a god when he mentions "a Powerfuler than I." The first two stanzas emphasize that the speaker would "bear it" (line 5) to know if "some vengeful god" (line 1) "had willed and meted me the tears I shed" (line 8). If a god has "willed and meted" the speaker's tears, then that god is "Powerfuller" (line 7).
(Passage adapted from "Hap" by Thomas Hardy)
Example Question #1 : Sat Subject Test In Literature
Cupid, because thou shin'st in Stella's eyes
from Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella
1 Cupid, because thou shin’st in Stella’s eyes,
2 That from her locks, thy day-nets, none ‘scapes free,
3 That those lips swell, so full of thee they be,
4 That her sweet breath makes oft thy flames to rise,
5 That in her breast thy pap well sugared lies,
6 That her Grace gracious makes thy wrongs, that she
7 What words so ere she speak persuades for thee,
8 That her clear voice lifts thy fame to the skies:
9 Thou countest Stella thine, like those whose powers
10 Having got up a breach by fighting well,
11 Cry, “Victory, this fair day all is ours.”
12 Oh no, her heart is such a citadel,
13 So fortified with wit, stored with disdain,
14 That to win it, is all the skill and pain.
(1591)
"Oh no, her heart is such a citadel" (line 12) is an example of a(n) __________.
personification
simile
hyperbole
metaphor
satire
metaphor
"Oh no, her heart is such a citadel" is an example of a metaphor, as a "metaphor" is a figure of speech that is used to compare two objects without the use of words like "like" or "as." Stella's heart is being compared to a citadel.
(Passage adapted from "Astrophil and Stella" by Sir Philip Sydney, XII.1-14)
Example Question #3 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee
1 Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
2 And Make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
3 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
4 And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
5 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st
6 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
7 To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
8 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
9 O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
10 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.
11 Him in thy course untainted do allow,
12 For yet beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
13 Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong,
14 My love shall in my verse ever live young.
(1609)
To whom is the poet speaking?
None of the answers
The poet's beloved
Time
People in general
A young man
Time
The poet is speaking to time. The poem begins with the apostrophe "Devouring time," (line 1). In line 6, the poet says, "And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time." The poet also ends by telling time to "do thy worst, old time" (line 13).
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 19" by William Shakespeare)
Example Question #881 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English
1 Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
2 And Make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
3 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
4 And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
5 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st
6 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
7 To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
8 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
9 O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
10 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.
11 Him in thy course untainted do allow,
12 For yet beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
13 Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong,
14 My love shall in my verse ever live young.
(1609)
What "crime" is the poet forbidding time to commit?
Causing the poet to eventually forget some of his memories
None of the answers
Killing the poet
Causing the poet's lover to age
Speeding up time
Causing the poet's lover to age
The poet is forbidding time to commit the crime of causing the poet's lover to age. "O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, / Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen" (lines 9-10) suggests that time draws lines on the poet's love's fair brow; the lines can be understood as wrinkles because wrinkles can look as if they are lines carved into skin.
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 19" by William Shakespeare)
Example Question #1 : Genre: Poetry
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
1 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
2 Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
3 The vacant leaves thy mind’s impr'nt will bear,
4 And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:
5 The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
6 Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;
7 Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
8 Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
9 Look what thy memory cannot contain,
10 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
11 Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
12 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
13 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
14 Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
(1609)
This poem is a(n) __________.
Petrarchan Sonnet
Epic
Ballad
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet
Elegy
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet
This poem is an English (Shakespearean) Sonnet, which has 14 lines written in iambic pentameter and has the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 77" by William Shakespeare)
Example Question #13 : Literary Terminology Describing Poetry
“Gear and tackle and trim” (line 6) is an example of a(n) __________, while " "counter, original, spare, strange" (line 7) is an example of a(n) __________.
asyndeton . . . polysyndeton
polysyndeton . . . asyndeton
metonym . . . asyndeton
asyndeton . . . metonym
None of the answers
polysyndeton . . . asyndeton
“Gear and tackle and trim” (line 6) is an example of polysyndeton, while "counter, original, spare, strange" (line 7) is an example of an asyndeton. A polysyndeton is a figure of speech where conjunctions are repeated frequently in a sequence, while an asyndeton is a figure of speech where one or several conjunctions are intentionally left out of the sentence.
(Passage adapted from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Example Question #42 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry To 1660
Which of the following literary techniques is used most frequently in this poem?
Metaphor
Alliteration
Simile
Personification
Metonym
Alliteration
Alliteration is used most frequently in the poem. Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds or same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words. The following are some of the examples of alliteration in the poem:
"Fresh-firecoal . . . finches" (line 4)
"Plotted and pieced . . . plough" (line 5)
"Fold, fallow" (line 5)
"tackle and trim" (line 6)
"spare, strange" (line 7)
"fickle, freckled" (line 8)
"swift, slow; sweet, sour" (line 9)
"adazzle, dim" ("d" sound) (line 9)
"fathers-forrth" (line 10)
(Passage adapted from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918))
Example Question #2 : Other Content Analysis Questions
What does God "father" in line 10?
Change
Dappled things
None of the other answers
All trades
Nature
Change
God fathers change. In lines 7-5, the speaker is saying that "whatever is fickle" (line 8) "He fathers" (line 10). If something is "fickle," it is changing constantly. "All things counter, original, spare, strange" also supports the fact that the speaker believes God fathers change. In line 10, the speaker further states that God fathers change because God's "beauty is past change."
(Passage adapted from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Example Question #43 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry To 1660
The "Viceroy" (line 6) is the ____________.
poet's lover's soul
poet
wreath of hair
poem
poet's beloved
wreath of hair
"Viceroy" means person governing a colony and representing the monarch of the nation to which the colony belongs. In the poem, the "viceroy" (line 6) is the wreath of hair from line 3. Line 1 says to not harm that wreath of hair. Line 4 goes on to further say "you must not touch". Lines 5-6 explain why: the wreath is the poet's "outward soul" (line 5) and his viceroy (line 6).
(Passage adapted from "The Funeral" by John Donne)
Example Question #15 : Literary Terminology Describing Poetry
1 Stella, whence doth this new assault arise,
2 A conquer’d, yielden, ransack’d heart to win?
3 Whereto long since through my long batter’d eyes,
4 Whole armies of thy beauties entered in.
5 And there long since, Love thy lieutenant lies,
6 My forces raz’d, thy banners rais’d within:
7 Of conquest, do not these effects suffice,
8 But wilt now war upon thine own begin?
9 With so sweet voice, and by sweet Nature so
10 In sweetest strength, so sweetly skill’d withal,
11 In all sweet stratagems sweet Art can show,
12 That not my soul, which at thy foot did fall
13 Long since, forc’d by thy beams, but stone nor tree
14 By Sense’s privilege, can ‘scape from thee.
Which of the following is an example of alliteration?
“Lieutenant lies,” (line 5)
“forces raz’d,” (line 6)
“sweet Nature so” (line 9)
“But wild now war upon thine own” (line 8)
“conquer’d, yielden, ransack’d” (line 2)
“Lieutenant lies,” (line 5)
“Liutenant lies” (line 5) is an example of alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds or same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words.
(Passage adapted from "Astrophil and Stella" by Sir Philip Sydney, XXXVI.1-14 (1591))
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