English Literature MCQs Set 2

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Author: Nasir Iqbal | Assistant Professor of English Literature

English Literature MCQs Set 2
Updated on: November 4, 2025
Estimated Reading Time: 16 min

English Literature MCQs

Set-2

1. Troilus and Criseyde is written by:

A. John Gower
B. William Langland
C. Richard Rolle of Hampole
D. Chaucer

D. Chaucer
Troilus and Criseyde is one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s great narrative poems, a tragedy based on the Trojan War.

2. The revenge tragedy was influenced by:

A. Seneca
B. Aristotle
C. Sophocles
D. Aeschylus

A. Seneca
Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedies (like Hamlet) were heavily influenced by the gory themes and rhetorical style of the Roman tragedian Seneca.

3. Arcadia is:

A. a tragedy
B. an epic poem
C. a romance
D. a comedy

C. a romance
Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia is a long pastoral prose romance that combines elements of heroism, love, and political philosophy.

4. Which of the following plays of Shakespeare is not a ‘Roman play’?

A. Julius Caesar
B. Antony and Cleopatra
C. Coriolanus
D. Troilus and Cressida

D. Troilus and Cressida
While set during the Trojan War, which involved Rome’s mythical ancestors, Troilus and Cressida is usually classified as a problem play or tragicomedy, distinct from the strictly historical Roman plays.
5. The following words: “Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither” appear in:

A. Hamlet
B. Othello
C. King Lear
D. Macbeth

A. Hamlet
These lines are spoken by Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, expressing his profound disillusionment and melancholy.

6. The character of Zimri appears in:

A. Absalom and Achitophel
B. The Hind and the Panther
C. Mac Flecknoe
D. Religio Laici

A. Absalom and Achitophel
Zimri is the satirical portrait of George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in Dryden’s political satire.

7. Who wrote the following lines: “But at my back, I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”?

A. John Donne
B. Andrew Marvell
C. George Herbert
D. Edmund Waller

B. Andrew Marvell
These lines are from Marvell’s famous Metaphysical poem, “To His Coy Mistress.”

8. Identify the author of the following: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

A. Francis Bacon
B. Charles Lamb
C. Joseph Addison
D. Samuel Johnson

A. Francis Bacon
This quote on reading habits is from Francis Bacon’s Essays (specifically, “Of Studies”).

9. Identify the play in which ‘China Scene’ appears:

A. The Way of The World
B. The Country Wife
C. The Man of Mode
D. Love for Love

B. The Country Wife
The China Scene is a famous, heavily suggestive scene in William Wycherley’s Restoration Comedy.
10. Milton’s Comus is:

A. a tragedy
B. a masque
C. a sermon
D. an epic poem

B. a masque
Comus (1634) is a short dramatic entertainment, or masque, written by John Milton.

11. Who is the female protagonist of The Rape of the Lock?

A. Clarissa
B. Arabella
C. Belinda
D. Amanda

C. Belinda
Belinda is the aristocratic heroine of Alexander Pope’s mock-epic poem.

12. A house is mistaken for an inn in:

A. The School for Scandal
B. The Rivals
C. She Stoops to Conquer
D. The Conscious Lovers

C. She Stoops to Conquer
The mistaken identity is the central comedic device in Oliver Goldsmith’s play.

13. Which of the following is a Gothic novel?

A. The Castle of Otrento
B. Pamela
C. Tom Jones
D. Robinson Crusoe

A. The Castle of Otrento
The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole is widely considered the first English Gothic novel.

14. The Tatler was edited by:

A. Swift
B. Addison
C. Johnson
D. Steele

D. Steele
Richard Steele founded and primarily edited the popular 18th-century periodical The Tatler. (Joseph Addison contributed heavily but was not the founder/main editor).
15. Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard alludes to:

A. Milton, Hampden and Cromwell
B. Shakespeare, Spenser and Dryden
C. Pope, Swift and Gay
D. Chaucer, Langland and Gower

A. Milton, Hampden and Cromwell
The poem muses that among the common graves may lie figures who could have achieved greatness akin to the poet Milton, the statesman Hampden, or the military leader Cromwell.

16. Which of the following is not written by Wordsworth?

A. The Prelude
B. Tintern Abbey
C. A Vision of Judgement
D. The Excursion

C. A Vision of Judgement
A Vision of Judgement (1822) is a satirical poem by Lord Byron attacking Robert Southey.

17. ‘Adonais’ is an elegy written on the death of:

A. John Keats
B. Lord Byron
C. P. B. Shelley
D. S. T. Coleridge

A. John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Adonais (1821) to mourn the death of his fellow Romantic poet John Keats.

18. Which of the following is a parody of a Gothic novel?

A. Frankenstein
B. Caleb Williams
C. Northanger Abbey
D. The Monk

C. Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey satirizes the excessive melodrama and sensationalism found in popular Gothic fiction of the era.

19. Who is the author of The Bride of Lammermoor?

A. Walter Scott
B. Jane Austen
C. Charles Dickens
D. Robert Louis Stevenson

A. Walter Scott
This historical novel (1819) is part of Scott’s popular Waverley Novels series.
20. Essays of Elia was published in:

A. 1823
B. 1833
C. 1820
D. 1830

A. 1823
The first series of Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb was published in 1823.

21. Name the poem which is not a dramatic monologue?

A. Andrea del Sarto
B. My Last Duchess
C. Thyrsis
D. Fra Lippo Lippi

C. Thyrsis
Thyrsis (1866) by Matthew Arnold is a pastoral elegy, not a dramatic monologue (unlike the others, which are by Robert Browning).

22. “All policy should be judged by the criterion of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’.” Who proclaimed so?

A. John Stuart Mill
B. Immanuel Kant
C. John Locke
D. Jeremy Bentham

D. Jeremy Bentham
This is the central tenet of the Utilitarianism philosophy founded by Jeremy Bentham.

23. Which of the following novels has multiple narrators?

A. Jane Eyre
B. Wuthering Heights
C. Pride and Prejudice
D. Vanity Fair

B. Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s novel is primarily narrated by Mr. Lockwood and the housekeeper Nelly Dean, employing nested narratives.

24. In which of the following works does the character Old Father Time appear?

A. Jude the Obscure
B. Tess of the d’Urbervilles
C. The Mayor of Casterbridge
D. The Return of the Native

A. Jude the Obscure
Old Father Time is Jude and Sue’s despairing son in Thomas Hardy’s tragic novel.
25. An Ideal Husband is:

A. a Tragedy
B. an Epic Drama
C. a Melodrama
D. a Comedy of Manners

D. a Comedy of Manners
Oscar Wilde’s play (1895) is a satirical Comedy of Manners, focused on social morality, wit, and appearance in high society.

26. Tiresias appears in:

A. The Odyssey
B. Ulysses
C. A Passage to India
D. The Wasteland

D. The Wasteland
Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes, appears in T. S. Eliot’s poem as a unifying mythical figure who has “foresuffered all.”

27. Which of the following works is related to the Irish Literary Revival?

A. Riders to the Sea
B. Dubliners
C. Ulysses
D. The Playboy of the Western World

D. The Playboy of the Western World
J.M. Synge’s play was a major, controversial contribution to the Irish Literary Revival associated with the Abbey Theatre.

28. The Ascent of F6 is written by:

A. W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood
B. Stephen Spender and Louis MacNeice
C. T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
D. Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster

A. W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood
This experimental verse drama (1936) was a collaboration between the two writers.

29. Which of the following novels has been described as a study in Oedipus Complex?

A. The Rainbow
B. Women in Love
C. Lady Chatterley’s Lover
D. Sons and Lovers

D. Sons and Lovers
D. H. Lawrence’s novel (1913) is a powerful exploration of the protagonist’s (Paul Morel) intense and destructive attachment to his mother.
30. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is about:

A. the modern novel
B. women’s liberation
C. the Bloomsbury Group
D. war and censorship

B. women’s liberation
Woolf’s seminal essay (1929) advocates for women’s financial and physical independence as necessary for artistic freedom.

31. The Heart of the Matter published in:

A. 1951
B. 1945
C. 1948
D. 1955

C. 1948
Graham Greene’s novel, set in West Africa, was published in 1948.

32. Under the Net is a novel by:

A. Doris Lessing
B. Iris Murdoch
C. Penelope Lively
D. V.S. Naipaul

B. Iris Murdoch
Under the Net (1954) is Iris Murdoch’s first published novel, featuring a highly verbal philosophical picaresque hero.

33. The bear and the squirrel are used as symbols in:

A. Look Back in Anger
B. The Caretaker
C. A Taste of Honey
D. Waiting for Godot

A. Look Back in Anger
Jimmy Porter and Alison Porter use the bear/squirrel game as a symbolic way to escape their unhappy reality in the play.

34. ‘Digging’ is a poem written by:

A. Seamus Heaney
B. Ted Hughes
C. Philip Larkin
D. T.S. Eliot

A. Seamus Heaney
Digging (1966) is Seamus Heaney’s famous poem reflecting on his identity as a poet rather than a farm labourer.
35. The New Morality Movement flourished in:

A. the 1970s
B. the 1960s
C. the 1980s
D. the 1990s

B. the 1960s
The New Morality Movement (also called the Sexual Revolution) challenged traditional social and sexual norms, peaking in the 1960s.

36. The Bluest Eye is written by:

A. Toni Morrison
B. Alice Walker
C. Maya Angelou
D. James Baldwin

A. Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye (1970) is Toni Morrison’s debut novel.

37. The Edible Woman is written by:

A. Penelope Lively
B. Doris Lessing
C. Iris Murdoch
D. M. Atwood (Margaret Atwood)

D. M. Atwood (Margaret Atwood)
The Edible Woman (1969) is Margaret Atwood’s first novel.

38. Half a Life is a novel by:

A. Salman Rushdie
B. Amitav Ghosh
C. V.S. Naipaul
D. Shashi Tharoor

C. V.S. Naipaul
Half a Life (2001) is a novel by V. S. Naipaul, focused on the theme of displacement.

39. Identify the novel which deals with the partition of India?

A. Midnight’s Children
B. Train to Pakistan
C. A Suitable Boy
D. Clear Light of Day

B. Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh’s novel (1956) powerfully depicts the violence and chaos of the 1947 Partition of India.
40. Hori appears as a character in:

A. Coolie
B. Godan
C. Kanthapura
D. Untouchable

B. Godan
Hori is the central peasant protagonist in Premchand’s masterpiece, Godan (The Gift of a Cow).

41. Peripeteia, according to Aristotle, stands for:

A. Tragic flaw (Hamartia)
B. ‘Reversal’ in hero’s fortunes
C. Purification of emotion (Catharsis)
D. Recognition (Anagnorisis)

B. ‘Reversal’ in hero’s fortunes
In Aristotle’s Poetics, Peripeteia is a sudden reversal of circumstances or turning point in a tragic plot.

42. Neander in Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesie speaks for:

A. French drama
B. Classical drama
C. Sir Robert Howard
D. British drama

D. British drama
The character Neander (John Dryden himself) argues for the superiority of English drama over French and classical models.

43. “It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create………” In the above statement ‘It’ refers to:

A. Primary Imagination
B. Reason
C. Fancy
D. Secondary imagination

D. Secondary imagination
This famous quote from Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria describes the active, transformative, and synthesising power of the Secondary Imagination.

44. The term ‘Tension’ is associated with:

A. Cleanth Brooks
B. I. A. Richards
C. William Empson
D. A. Tate

D. A. Tate
The term Tension (referring to the pull between a word’s denotation and connotation) was coined by Allen Tate, a key figure in the New Criticism movement.
45. The terms ‘textuality of history’ and ‘historicity of text’ refer to:

A. The Textual Approach
B. Historicism
C. Post-structuralism
D. New historicism

D. New historicism
These terms are the fundamental concepts of New Historicism, emphasizing that history is always interpreted (textuality) and that literature is historically embedded (historicity).

46. Which of the following is not written by D. H. Lawrence?

A. Sons and Lovers
B. Women in Love
C. The Rainbow
D. The Golden Gate

D. The Golden Gate
The Golden Gate (1986), a novel in verse, was written by Vikram Seth.
47. Identify the figure of speech used in the above lines: “You, of course, are a rose / But were always a rose”

A. Simile
B. Personification
C. Paradox
D. Metaphor

D. Metaphor
The statement “You… are a rose” is a direct Metaphor, asserting that the subject (you) is the object (rose) for comparison.

48. A figure of speech in which a part is used to describe the whole of something or vice versa is:

A. Synecdoche
B. Metonymy
C. Pun
D. Transferred Epithet

A. Synecdoche
Synecdoche uses a part to represent the whole (“all hands on deck”) or the whole to represent a part (calling a police officer “The Law”).

49. Match the following groups: (i) Spondee (ii) Dactyl (iii) Anapaest (iv) Iamb with their descriptions.

A. (i) Stressed + Stressed, (ii) Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed, (iii) Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed, (iv) Unstressed + Stressed
B. (i) Unstressed + Stressed, (ii) Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed, (iii) Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed, (iv) Stressed + Stressed
C. (i) Stressed + Stressed, (ii) Unstressed + Stressed + Unstressed, (iii) Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed, (iv) Unstressed + Stressed
D. (i) Unstressed + Stressed, (ii) Stressed + Unstressed, (iii) Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed, (iv) Stressed + Stressed

A. (i) Stressed + Stressed, (ii) Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed, (iii) Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed, (iv) Unstressed + Stressed
The definitions of the major metrical feet are: (i) Spondee (DUM-DUM); (ii) Dactyl (DUM-da-da); (iii) Anapaest (da-da-DUM); (iv) Iamb (da-DUM).
50. The Spenserian stanza has the following rhyme scheme:

A. ababbcbcc
B. ababccdd
C. ababcdcdee
D. ababacdc

A. ababbcbcc
The Spenserian stanza, invented by Edmund Spenser for The Faerie Queene, consists of nine lines of iambic pentameter, with the final line being an Alexandrine (iambic hexameter).

Overview

This set of 50 multiple-choice questions tests English Literature and proceeds in a clear, chronological order.

It begins with foundational authors like Chaucer, Sidney, and Shakespeare. The quiz then moves to the 17th century, covering Milton, Dryden, and Andrew Marvell. It continues with 18th-century writers such as Pope and Goldsmith, as well as the rise of the Gothic novel.

The Romantic period is tested with questions on Wordsworth, Shelley, and Jane Austen. The Victorian era is represented by authors such as Hardy, Brontë, and Oscar Wilde.

The 20th century includes Modernists such as T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence, as well as post-war writers such as Seamus Heaney.

The list also features major international and post-colonial authors, such as Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and V.S. Naipaul. The final questions shift to literary theory (Aristotle, Coleridge, New Historicism) and the technical definitions of poetic metre and stanzas.

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