GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Literary Analysis of Poetry
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #121 : Overall Language Or Specific Words, Phrases, Or Sentences
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
"Eternal lines to time" (line 12) very probably refers to __________.
the burial of the speaker's beloved
the maturation of the speaker's beloved
poetry
the seasonal cycle
the bible
poetry
"Eternal lines to time" (line 12) refers to poetry, as poetry is lines of words often set to meter, (to the measure of time).
Example Question #1 : Inferences
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
In line 13, the "eyes" that "can see" are very likely envisioned by the speaker to be used for __________.
reading his or her poetry
enjoying the summer sun, however brief
fumbling in the dark of death's shade
admiring his or her beloved's beauty
watching the changing seasons
reading his or her poetry
In line 13, the "eyes" that "can see" are very likely envisioned by the speaker to be used for reading his or her poetry, as it is the speaker's poetry (his or her "eternal lines to time" (line 12)), which are the source of the beloved's immortality.
Example Question #2 : Meaning Of Specified Text: Poetry
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
"Thy eternal summer" (line 9) probably refers to __________.
"the eye of heaven" (line 5)
the loveliness and temperance of the speaker's beloved
"the darling buds of May" (line 3)
the summer season
the "gold complexion" (line 6) of the speaker's beloved
the loveliness and temperance of the speaker's beloved
"Thy eternal summer" probably refers to the loveliness and temperance of the speaker's beloved, mentioned in line 2 ("Thou art more lovely and more temperate"). It is that loveliness the speaker's poetry will guard from fading: "thy eternal summer shall not fade" (line 9).
Example Question #3 : Literary Terminology And Devices
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
"Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade," (line 9) is an example of __________
personification
consonance
alliteration
assonance
satire
personification
"Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade," (line 9) is an example of personification, as personification is a figure of speech wherein an inanimate object or idea is endowed with human qualities or abilities. In this case, death is said to brag.
Example Question #4 : Sat Subject Test In Literature
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The speaker's claim that "this gives life to thee" in line 14 is arguably an example of __________.
personification
hyperbole
asyndeton
metaphor
alliteration
hyperbole
The speaker's claim that "this gives life to thee" (line 14) is an example of hyperbole, as the speaker is making an exaggerated claim that his or her poetry will give the beloved immortality.
Example Question #1 : Other Content Analysis Questions
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Within his or her poetry, the speaker claims that his or her beloved will remain __________.
alive, yet faded
alive and fair
fair
enlivened by the returning summer
alive
alive and fair
Within his or her poetry, the speaker claims that his or her beloved will remain alive and fair.
"But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,"
Example Question #1 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
This poem is a(n) __________.
conceit
pastoral poem
elegy
epic poem
sonnet
elegy
This early-seventeenth-century poem, "On my First Son," by the Englishman, Ben Jonson, is an elegy, as it commemorates a dead person.
Example Question #141 : Content
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
Who is the speaker of this poem?
A friend of Ben Jonson
A sorrowful playmate of the deceased
An anonymous grieving father
The speaker cannot be determined
The grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson
The grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson
The speaker of this poem is the grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson. "Here doth lie / Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry," (Lines 9–10)
Example Question #1 : Effect Of Specified Text: Poetry
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
"Seven years thou wert lent to me," (line 3), very likely tells the reader what?
The length of time the child suffered
The age of the son at his death
The years since the child's death
The years the speaker was absent from the child's life
The time period wherein the speaker will mourn
The age of the son at his death
"Seven years thou wert lent to me," (line 3), very likely tells the reader the age of the son at his death. In the same line, "I thee pay" inclines the reader to believe that after seven years, the speaker had to relinquish his son.
Example Question #1 : Figurative Language
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
In which line is there a strong lending metaphor?
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, (Line 3)
As what he loves may never like too much." (Line 12)
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why (Line 5)
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. (Line 2)
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, (Line 7)
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, (Line 3)
"Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay," (Line 3), is a strong metaphor in which the speaker seems to believe he has entered into a contract with God, and God has come to collect his payment. The metaphor is the son being compared to a loan.
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
