Introduction to Literary Studies Mcqs for Preparation
1. Which school of literary theory contends that sexual identity is not fixed and, instead, is generated by cultural forces?
a. Marxist theory
b. Deconstruction
c. Reader-response theory
d. Queer theory
2. Which of the following statements best describes the worldview represented by postmodern theater?
a. Mainstream audiences are so shallow that it is not worth writing plays for them.
b. Universal truth doesn’t exist, and audience members must discover it themselves.
c. The world is so complex that it does not require literature or theater.
d. The world is a bright and exciting place.
3. Which of the following offers the best definition of narrative poetry?
a. A narrative poem is written in the style of a conversation.
b. A narrative poem is a poem that does not have a plot or tell a story.
c. A narrative poem has a plot and tells a story.
d. A narrative poem is vague and difficult in style.
4. A work of criticism that considers how the author’s childhood trauma influenced his characters would be an example of_____________?
a. psychoanalytic criticism.
b. New Criticism.
c. Marxist criticism.
d. structuralism.
5. In his essay, “The Significance of Fictionalizing,” Wolfgang Iser argues which of the following points?
a. Fictionalizing reality is a basic human need.
b. Historically, writers have been considered liars or, at the very least, irrelevant.
c. Every text includes traces from the outside world, including social, historical, and literary remnants.
d. All of these.
6. Which of the following statements offers the best definition of a tragic hero?
a. A cowardly person who doubts themself despite possessing great wealth and political power
b. A noble person who becomes wholly corrupted
c. A cowardly person who shows some personal strength when faced with a crisis
d. A noble person who makes a costly mistake
7. Which of the following best describes epic theater as defined by Berthold Brecht?
a. Epic theater privileges feeling over reason.
b. Epic theater turns the passive spectator into an active observer.
c. Epic theater is plot-driven theater.
d. Epic theater maintains the illusion of realism.
8. Which of the following may be an antagonist to the protagonist of a novel?
a. Another character
b. Society
c. The protagonist
d. All of these
9. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”, the poet does which of the following?
a. Compares his Love to a turbulent sea
b. Compares his Love to a summer’s day
c. Compares his Love to a winter storm
d. Compares his Love to his fear of death
10. Ethos is essential to establish which of the following arguments?
a. Deductive arguments
b. Political arguments
c. Emotional arguments
d. Inductive arguments
11. In her text, “History of the Novel,” How does Dr. Agatha Taormina define the novel?
a. A narrative that emphasizes character development
b. A narrative that conveys the illusion of reality
c. A narrative with a unified, plausible plot structure
d. All of these
12. According to Dr. Taormina, Victorian novelists generally________________?
a. wrote in a hyperrealistic fashion.
b. accepted middle-class values.
c. wanted to subvert middle-class values.
d. had a negative view of human nature.
13. What are some of the hallmarks or conventions of the poetic form of the ode?
a. Simplicity in language, lengthiness in form, and humorousness in attitude
b. Complexity in language, lengthiness in form, and seriousness in attitude
c. Simplicity in language, brevity in form, and humorousness in attitude
d. Complexity in language, brevity in form, and humorousness in attitude
14. According to Dr. Frances Pritchett’s version of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s “The Historical Novel and the Historical Narrative,” which offers the best definition of a “history”?
a. A narrative without characters
b. A narrative that does not analyze characters on a situation-by-situation basis
c. A narrative based entirely on verifiable facts
d. A narrative that takes place in the past.
15. In his essay, “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,” William Hazlitt conceptualizes Hamlet as_______________?
a. a wicked and manipulative man.
b. a man of tremendous humor, Simplicity, and innate goodness and kindness.
c. a depressed but ultimately excellent and nonviolent man.
d. a disturbed and insane man.
16. In “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,” how does William Hazlitt ultimately conceptualize the character of Hamlet?
a. As boyish and immature
b. As a profound philosophical genius
c. As a crazed fool
d. As a brilliant warrior
17. Which of the following statements best represents the central theme of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”?
a. Redemption comes from surrendering to a higher power.
b. Good things, including salvation, come to those who are patient.
c. The world can be fully understood if people listen closely to what others are saying.
d. People are fundamentally unable to realize any inherent meaning in existence.
18. Which of the following descriptions best describes the character of Hamlet?
a. Hamlet is depressed yet highly intelligent.
b. Hamlet is spoiled and manipulative.
c. Hamlet is naive and simple-minded.
d. Hamlet is intellectually passive and deeply frightened of his father’s ghost.
19. Which of the following statements about Greek tragedies is true?
a. They were rarely set in the past.
b. They were usually set in the past.
c. They were not popular with ancient Greek audiences.
d. They were often done in honor of the Greek God Zeus.
20. What is the central argument in Dr. Richard Kelly’s “The Novelist’s Eye”?
a. All novelists are painters at heart.
b. George du Maurier felt that black-and-white illustrators could be as crucial as novelists and painters.
c. George du Maurier was a tremendous influence on Victorian novelists.
d. George du Maurier attacked the social position of the novelist in his illustrations.
21. What are the fundamental questions literary theory asks?
a. Why do people write literature?
b. What is literature?
c. What are the effects of literature?
d. All of these.
22. A work of criticism that considers how English imperialism affected native Indian authors would be an example of_______________?
a. psychoanalytic theory
b. Marxist theory
c. postcolonial theory
d. Deconstruction
23. In “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,” what does William Hazlitt mean when he states, “We do not like to see our author’s plays acted, and least of all,’ Hamlet.’ No play suffers so much in being transferred to the stage”?
a. Hamlet is not relevant to the Romantic age.
b. Hamlet cannot be adequately staged because of the play’s use of language complexity.
c. No actor can properly play Hamlet.
d. Hamlet is a work written to be read, not performed.
24. Which of the following offers the best definition of the theatrical concept of a chorus?
a. Characters who remind the audience that the play is fictional
b. Members of the audience who comment on the play’s actions
c. A group of characters who comment on the actions of the play while participating in them
d. A group of characters who comment on the actions of the play while not participating in them
25. Which of the following poems can be described as a haiku?
a. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”
b. Auden’s “Paysage Moralisé”
c. Bishop’s “One Art”
d. William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”
26. Which of the following are examples of poetic structures?
a. Lines of text with words that rhyme at the end
b. Unrhymed lines
c. A continuous block of text
d. All of these
27. Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” can be described as what kind of play?
a. A comedic play
b. A modern play
c. A tragic play
d. A tragi-comedy
28. Which of the following offers the best definition of a fable?
a. A story in which the author provides an explicit moral
b. A story that takes place in the distant past
c. A story told to little children
d. A light-hearted, humorous story in which viewers are shown proper ways to behave
29. Which of the following concepts does Aristotle consider the most critical element of a Greek tragedy?
a. Plot
b. Song composition
c. Poetic diction
d. Stage design
30. Which of the following assertions would William Wordsworth most likely agree with?
a. Poetry should be written in the common language of ordinary people.
b. Poetry should never concern itself with the natural world.
c. Poetry should focus on the lives and thoughts of elite people.
d. Poetry should rhyme.
31. Which of the following are examples of literary interpretation?
a. Investigating the relationship between words and objective reality
b. Comparing the Bible to folk tales from other cultures
c. Researching what previous critics have said about a literary work
d. Researching an author’s biography for clues about how to understand their Writing
32. What form of verse is usually sung and details a dramatic or exciting episode?
a. An elegy
b. An ode
c. An epitaph
d. A ballad
33. Which of the following is a component of a gothic novel?
a. An isolated protagonist
b. An atmosphere of dread, fear, and darkness
c. A hero or protagonist who a villain tempts
d. All of these
34. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” why does the Mariner kill the albatross?
a. To bring forth life-in-death
b. To change the weather
c. For revenge
d. It is never directly stated why he does so.
35. Which of the following statements best defines “rhetoric”?
a. Writing that is complicated and scholarly
b. Persuasive Writing and Speaking
c. Questions for which the answers are obvious
d. Logical Writing and speaking
36. A picaresque novel dramatizes the life of what kind of person?
a. A child as they develop into an adult
b. A lowborn, wandering adventurer
c. A member of the middle class engaging in self-exploration
d. A member of the royalty
37. Which of the following statements is a proper example of what Aristotle termed a syllogism?
a. All dogs and all people have hair; hence, anything with hair is a dog or a person.
b. All men breathe air, and all dogs live air. Hence, all men are dogs.
c. All mammals are warm-blooded, and all dogs are mammals; hence, all dogs are warm-blooded.
d. All dogs have four legs; all creatures do not have four legs. Hence, all creatures with four legs are dogs.
38. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” what does Hamlet mean when he states that “there is more in heaven and earth … than are dreamt of in your philosophy”?
a. Dreams always tell the truth.
b. There is such a thing as an afterlife.
c. some aspects of existence cannot be explained through reason.
d. Heaven exists on earth.
39. Which of the following statements best exemplifies the central idea put forward by John Milton in book 9 of Paradise Lost?
a. Adam and Eve were driven to evil by their children.
b. The fall of Adam and Eve was a tragic event.
c. Satan was ultimately heroic.
d. God abandoned the realm of Eden without reason.
40. Which of the following statements offers the best definition of a novel of manners?
a. A novel set in Europe in the 18th century
b. A novel that attacks the lower classes
c. A novel that explores the behavior and values of a particular class of people
d. A novel that explores class conflict
41. Which of the following offers the best description of logos?
a. Logos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire emotional responses in readers.
b. Logos refers to a writer’s ability to present evidence.
c. Logos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire action in readers.
d. Logos refers to a writer’s presentation of character and image.
42. A postmodern play would most likely not use which of the following theatrical traditions?
a. A minimalist stage and strict adherence to the script
b. A pastiche of different literary and historical sources
c. Nonlinear storytelling and the embracement of popular culture
d. Video clips and the use of popular music
43. Feminist criticism focuses on exploring which of the following aspects of literary texts?
a. How women are portrayed in literary texts
b. How women have been socially oppressed in literary texts
c. The psychologies of female writers
d. All of these
44. Which of the following represents a stage of development in the poetic form of the elegy?
a. Consolation and solace
b. Praise and admiration for the dead
c. Lamentation, in which the speaker demonstrates grief
d. All of these
45. According to Dr. Mark Canada’s “An Introduction to the Novel,” Richard Chase identifies which of the following is the main difference between novels and romances.
a. The way they are structured
b. The way they view reality
c. The language in which they are written
d. The type of people who write the
46. Reader-response theory focuses on considering how.
a. readers decide which works of literature to read.
b. readers experience a literary work.
c. readers choose their favorite works of literature.
d. readers develop their own unique and personal critical discourses.
47. In his “Poetics,” Aristotle suggests what tragic literary works should be.
a. logical in terms of Plot and structure.
b. sad.
c. without any moral insight.
d. complex in terms of Plot and structure.
48. What does a prologue serve to do in a Greek tragedy or comedy?
a. Preview the play’s conclusion
b. Introduce the main characters
c. Provide insight into the play’s mythological background
d. Remind the viewers of what kind of play they are viewing
49. Aristotle felt that a speaker or writer established Ethos by convincing the audience that?
a. the author or speaker was of sound mind and character.
b. the author or speaker was emotionally involved in the topic at hand.
c. the author or speaker maintained the appropriate critical distance from the topic.
d. the author or speaker has provided proper logic and evidence supporting his topic.
50. Lauren Beth Signore’s essay, “Anne of Green Gables: The Transformation from Bildungsroman to Romantic Comedy,” argues that Anne of Green Gables is ultimate what kind of character?
a. A romantic awaiting true love
b. A delusional girl with no grasp on reality
c. A cynic awaiting the world’s destruction
d. A young girl with a particularly dark Mindset
51. Which of the following descriptions of Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey” seems most appropriate?
a. It is a horror novel.
b. It serves to parody gothic novels.
c. It offers a critique of Romantic poetry and ideology.
d. It is a memoir based on Jane Austen’s childhood.
52. What is the difference between traditional literary criticism and post-New Criticism literary theory?
a. Traditional literary criticism only examines pre-20th-century literary texts.
b. Traditional literary criticism is mainly focused on exploring gender issues.
c. Traditional literary criticism focused on tracking influences and textual allusions and considering the historical contexts of literary texts.
d. Traditional literary criticism attempted to consider the psychological aspects of literary texts.
53. A gothic novel will probably not address which of the following themes?
a. The supernatural
b. The sublime
c. Love
d. The manners and traditions of the upper classes
54. According to Dr. Frances Pritchett’s version of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s “The Historical Novel and the Historical Narrative,” what is the difference between a historical narrative and a historical novel?
a. Faruqi argues that historical novels do not exist.
b. A historical narrative tells only part of the story surrounding a historical event; a historical novel tells the whole story.
c. A historical novel focuses on providing the reader with only the central truth of a historical event, while a historical narrative attempts to tell the entire truth of a historical event.
d. A historical narrative and a historical novel are the same thing.
55. Marxist theory focuses on examining which of the following aspects of literary texts?
a. The relationship between economics and the production of literary texts
b. Characters who are sympathetic to issues facing the working classes
c. The political and social meanings of literary texts
d. All of these
56. Which of the following statements best represents Lacan’s view of Ophelia in his essay, “Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in’ Hamlet'”?
a. Hamlet desires revenge, not Ophelia.
b. Hamlet desires his mother, not Ophelia.
c. Hamlet desires Ophelia, but only when she is unattainable.
d. Hamlet desires to attain the throne of Denmark, of which Ophelia is a symbol.
57. Which of the following statements offers the best definition of an epistolary novel?
a. A novel that consists entirely of dialogue
b. A novel set in the past
c. A novel that is set in the countryside of Europe
D. A novel that consists of a series of documents, such as diary entries, letters, and newspaper articles
58. A play that begins in medias res________________?
a. introduces the characters of the play one by one.
b. begins at the apparent end of the story.
c. opens by plunging the viewer into a crucial series of events.
d. begins with a preview of the play’s conclusion.
59. Which of the following statements offers the best definition of Bildungsroman?
a. A story of one person’s success within a capitalistic economic system
b. A story of one person’s growth and development within a particular social order
c. A story of one person’s fall from grace and into destruction
d. A story of one person’s self-realization and attempt to return to innocence
60. What is hermeneutics?
a. The psychological study of authors
b. A system for categorizing books
c. The study of textual interpretation
d. A reader-response test
61. Which of the following offers the best description of literary theory?
a. Literary theory involves considering the history of literary texts that have been published.
b. Literary theory involves measuring the quality of a literary work.
c. Literary theory involves coming to a precise understanding of a writer’s psychology.
d. Literary theory involves describing the und
62. Which of the following best defines a theatrical tragedy?
a. A play that depicts the downfall of a noble person
b. A play in which no form of humor appears
c. A play in which a hero faces likely defeat and overcomes it
d. A play in which someone gets revenge
63. Dr. Allen Shoaf’s essay, “‘ Hamlet’: Like Mother, Like Son,” argues which of the following points?
a. Hamlet is truly insane in the play.
b. Hamlet feels a sense of desire for both his mother and his father.
c. Hamlet’s father’s ghost is not a ghost.
d. Hamlet is an impossible play to understand, honestly.
64. Which of the following lines provides an example of a poetic apostrophe?
a. “Death, that which feels nothing.”
b. “She is a woman of beauty and wonder.”
c. “Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour: / England hath need of thee.”
d. “I wandered lonely as a cloud.”
65. Which of the following best defines a Greek theatrical comedy?
a. A play in which elite members of Society are mocked
b. A play in which characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better
c. A play in which no characters die or suffer
d. A play in which characters make humorous remarks
66. Which of the following offers the best definition of the literary term motif?
a. A recurring element in a story that is symbolically significant
b. A rhyme scheme
c. A character’s fatal flaw
d. A character’s moment of self-realization in a narrative
67. Which of the following offers the best description of the concept of Ethos?
a. Ethos refers to a writer’s presentation of character and image.
b. Ethos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire action in readers.
c. Ethos refers to a writer’s ability to present evidence.
d. Ethos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire emotional responses in readers.
68. As a mode of literary criticism or theory, formalism attempted to bring which of the following to academic studies?
a. Strict criteria for evaluating the quality of a literary text
b. A set of objective criteria for critical analysis
c. An awareness of the economic circumstances surrounding a literary text
d. An awareness of the historical circumstances surrounding a text’s production
69. In his preface to “Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth calls for poetry to be written in what kind of language?
a. Ancient languages
b. Typically poetic and fanciful language
c. Complicated language
d. Common, everyday language
70. Which of the following offers the best description of the concept of Pathos?
a. Pathos refers to a writer’s presentation of character and image.
b. Pathos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire action in readers.
c. Pathos refers to a writer’s ability to present evidence.
d. Pathos refers to a writer’s ability to inspire emotional responses in readers.