English Literature MCQs Set 6

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Author: Nasir Iqbal | Assistant Professor of English Literature

English Literature MCQs Set 6
Updated on: November 4, 2025
Estimated Reading Time: 18 min

English Literature MCQs

Set-6

1. Which of them was not a University Wit?

A. Sir Philip Sidney
B. John Lyly
C. George Peele
D. Robert Greene

A. Sir Philip Sidney
The University Wits were late 16th-century London playwrights (Marlowe, Lyly, Greene, Peele, etc.). Sidney was an aristocratic Courtier and author, not a professional playwright.

2. John Webster is a contemporary of:

A. Marlowe
B. Sidney
C. Shakespeare
D. Chaucer

C. Shakespeare
John Webster (c. 1580–1634) wrote his major plays (The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil) in the early 17th century, making him a contemporary of the later Shakespeare.

3. Match the following: (a) Edward the Second, (b) The Spanish Tragedy, (c) Epithalamion, (d) The Book of the Duchess with I. Geoffrey Chaucer II. Edmund Spenser III. Thomas Kyd IV. Christopher Marlowe

A. (a)-I, (b)-II, (c)-III, (d)-IV
B. (a)-IV, (b)-III, (c)-II, (d)-I
C. (a)-III, (b)-IV, (c)-I, (d)-II
D. (a)-II, (b)-I, (c)-IV, (d)-III

B. (a)-IV, (b)-III, (c)-II, (d)-I
Matches: (a) Edward the Second – Marlowe; (b) The Spanish Tragedy – Kyd; (c) Epithalamion – Spenser; (d) The Book of the Duchess – Chaucer.

4. Defence of Poesie belongs to the genre of:

A. Drama
B. Pastoral
C. Criticism
D. Sonnet

C. Criticism
Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry (or Defence of Poesie) is a seminal work of literary theory and criticism.
5. Match the following: (a) Grave-digger Scene, (b) Mephistophilis, (c) Volpone, (d) Blank Verse with I. Ben Jonson II. Dr. Faustus III. Hamlet IV. Christopher Marlowe

A. (a)-I, (b)-II, (c)-III, (d)-IV
B. (a)-III, (b)-II, (c)-I, (d)-IV
C. (a)-II, (b)-IV, (c)-III, (d)-I
D. (a)-IV, (b)-III, (c)-II, (d)-I

B. (a)-III, (b)-II, (c)-I, (d)-IV
Matches: (a) Grave-digger Scene – Hamlet (III); (b) Mephistophilis – Dr. Faustus (II); (c) Volpone – Ben Jonson (I); (d) Blank Verse (pioneering use) – Christopher Marlowe (IV).

6. Which of the following is not written by John Webster?

A. The White Devil
B. The Duchess of Malfi
C. The Old Law
D. Appius and Virginia

C. The Old Law
The Old Law (1625) was written by Thomas Middleton and others. Webster wrote The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi.

7. Which of the following arrangements is chronologically correct?

A. Paradise Lost-Lycidas-Paradise Regained-Samson Agonistes
B. Lycidas-Paradise Lost-Paradise Regained-Samson Agonistes
C. Lycidas-Paradise Regained-Paradise Lost-Samson Agonistes
D. Paradise Regained-Samson Agonistes-Lycidas-Paradise Lost

B. Lycidas (1637), Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), Samson Agonistes (1671)
Lycidas is his early elegy; Paradise Lost is his middle epic; Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are his final published works.

8. John Donne composed The Progress of the Soul in the year

A. 1598
B. 1601
C. 1605
D. 1610

B. 1601
John Donne’s experimental poem Metempsychosis (or The Progress of the Soul) was written in 1601.

9. Who has written the Horatian Ode to Cromwell?

A. John Milton
B. John Donne
C. Andrew Marvel
D. Richard Lovelace

C. Andrew Marvel
Andrew Marvell’s “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” (1650) is a renowned political poem that employs the classical ode form.
10. Dryden’s Achitophel stands for

A. Duke of Monmouth
B. General Monk
C. Titus Oates
D. Shaftesbury

D. Shaftesbury
In Absalom and Achitophel, Achitophel represents Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, a key political opponent of King Charles II.

11. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels deals with:

A. The conflict between science and religion
B. A critique of war
C. The controversy between ‘modern’ and ‘ancient’
D. The absurdity of monarchy

C. The controversy between ‘modern’ and ‘ancient’
Swift’s work is a famous example of the “Battle of the Books” controversy (Ancients vs. Moderns) and satirizes both sides.

12. Restoration comedies can be put under:

A. Restorator comedy
B. Sentimental comedy
C. Anti-sentimental comedy
D. Comedy of Humours

A. Restorator comedy
This is an archaic term for Restoration Comedy or the Comedy of Manners (which is a sub-genre).

13. Which of the following works is not written by William Congreve?

A. The Way of the World
B. The Plain Dealer
C. Love for Love
D. The Old Bachelor

B. The Plain Dealer
William Wycherley wrote the Plain Dealer (1676). Congreve is known for The Way of the World and Love for Love.

14. Which of the arrangements given below is chronologically correct? (1) Sense and Sensibility (2) Pride and Prejudice (3) Mansfield Park (4) Emma

A. (1)-(2)-(3)-(4)
B. (2)-(1)-(4)-(3)
C. (1)-(2)-(4)-(3)
D. (2)-(1)-(3)-(4)

D. (1)-(2)-(3)-(4)
The correct chronological order of publication is: Sense and Sensibility (1811) – Pride and Prejudice (1813) – Mansfield Park (1814) – Emma (1815).
15. Dr. Johnson examines the whole metaphysical poetry in his:

A. Life of Cowley
B. Life of Milton
C. Life of Dryden
D. Life of Pope

A. Life of Cowley
Dr. Samuel Johnson analyzes the Metaphysical poets and their “yoking by violence of heterogeneous ideas” in his biography of Abraham Cowley (from Lives of the Poets).

16. The poems of John Keats were attacked in the Quarterly because of his association with:

A. Lord Byron
B. Leigh Hunt
C. P. B. Shelley
D. William Hazlitt

B. Leigh Hunt
Tory critics attacked Keats as part of Leigh Hunt’s liberal circle (the “Cockney School of Poetry”).

17. The Poem “Tintern Abbey” describes the visit of Wordsworth to

A. The Lake District
B. River Wye
C. The Alps
D. London

C. River Wye
The full title is “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye.”

18. “Ode to the West Wind” by Shelley is written in :

A. Terza rima
B. Spenserian stanza
C. Ottava rima
D. Stanzaic blank verse

A. Terza rima
Percy Bysshe Shelley uses the Italian form of interlocking three-line stanzas (aba bcb cdc) in his great ode.

19. The author of Essays of Elia was

A. William Hazlitt
B. S. T. Coleridge
C. Leigh Hunt
D. Charles Lamb

D. Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb is the author of the beloved Essays of Elia (1823).
20. “If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.” These lines were written by:

A. William Wordsworth
B. John Keats
C. S. T. Coleridge
D. P. B. Shelley

B. John Keats
Keats wrote this famous observation in a letter to his friend John Taylor in 1818.

21. Mrs. Sparsit conjures up the stairway metaphor in Dickens :

A. Bleak House
B. A Tale of Two Cities
C. Hard Times
D. Great Expectations

C. Hard Times
Mrs. Sparsit imagines the downfall of her rival, Louisa, as a descent down a staircase, in Charles Dickens’s industrial novel.

22. Which of the following is not a collection of poems by Browning?

A. Dramatic Lyric
B. Mén and Women
C. Dramatis Personae
D. Pacchiarotto

A. Dramatic Lyric
The collection is titled Dramatic Lyrics (plural) and was part of the Bells and Pomegranates series.

23. Arnold wrote Thyrsis to commemorate the death of:

A. Arthur Hugh Clough
B. Edward King
C. A. H. Hallam
D. Thomas Arnold

A. Arthur Hugh Clough
Matthew Arnold’s pastoral elegy Thyrsis (1866) mourns the death of his close friend and fellow poet, Arthur Hugh Clough.

24. Arrange the following in Chronological order : Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D’ Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge

A. The Return of the Native/Far from the Madding Crowd/The Mayor of Casterbridge/Tess of the D’ Urbervilles
B. Far From the Madding Crowd/The Return of the Native/The Mayor of Casterbridge/Tess of the D’ Urbervilles
C. The Mayor of Casterbridge/Far from the Madding Crowd/The Return of the Native/Tess of the D’ Urbervilles
D. Tess of the D’ Urbervilles/The Mayor of Casterbridge/The Return of the Native/Far from the Madding Crowd

B. Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D’ Urbervilles (1891)
This sequence is the correct chronological order of Thomas Hardy’s great novels.
25. While Browning says, “God is in Heaven and all is right with the world.” Which other Victorian writer propagates the opposite view:

A. Tennyson
B. Thomas Hardy
C. Matthew Arnold
D. Robert Louis Stevenson

B. Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy’s novels and poetry consistently portray a world ruled by blind chance or an indifferent cosmic force, directly opposing Browning’s famous optimistic line (from Pippa Passes).

26. Who said, “The human character changed after 1910′?

A. T. S. Eliot
B. Virginia Woolf
C. James Joyce
D. Ezra Pound

B. Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf wrote this influential statement in her essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” advocating for the new, modern method of psychological realism.

27. Who has been referred to as ‘The better craftsman’ by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land?

A. William Butler Yeats
B. James Joyce
C. Stephen Spender
D. Ezra Pound

D. Ezra Pound
The famous dedication to Pound in The Waste Land reads “For Ezra Pound, il miglior fabbro” (the better craftsman).

28. Match the following: (a) broken heap, (b) ‘perne in the gyre’, (c) ‘comedy of menace’, (d) ‘stream of consciousness’ with I. Ezra Pound II. Harold Pinter III. T.S. Eliot IV. W.B. Yeats

A. (a)-III, (b)-IV, (c)-II, (d)-I
B. (a)-I, (b)-II, (c)-III, (d)-IV
C. (a)-II, (b)-III, (c)-IV, (d)-I
D. (a)-III, (b)-IV, (c)-II, (d)-I

A. (a)-III, (b)-IV, (c)-II, (d)-I
Matches: (a) broken heap (The Waste Land) – T.S. Eliot (III); (b) perne in the gyre (The Second Coming) – W.B. Yeats (IV); (c) comedy of menace – Harold Pinter (II); (d) stream of consciousness (associated with Modernism) – Ezra Pound (I – The Cantos).

29. Who has written ‘The Unknown Citizen’?

A. T. S. Eliot
B. Robert Lowell
C. W.H. Auden
D. Stephen Spender

C. W.H. Auden
W. H. Auden’s satirical poem (1939) critiques bureaucracy and the devaluation of individuality in the modern state.
30. Whose name is generally taken along with G.B. Shaw ?

A. T.S. Eliot
B. Harold Pinter
C. John Galsworthy
D. Samuel Beckett

C. John Galsworthy
George Bernard Shaw (Drama) and John Galsworthy (Novel/Drama) are often grouped as major social realists writing at the turn of the 20th century.

32. Under the Net is an exploration of love touched with:

A. Political idealism
B. Scepticism
C. Ethics
D. Comedy

C. Ethics.

32. Which of the following arrangements is in correct chronological order? (Works by Muriel Spark)

A. The Ballad of Peckhan Rye, Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Abbess of Crewe
B. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, The Ballad of Peckhan Rye, The Abbess of Crewe
C. Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Abbess of Crewe
D. Memento Mori, The Ballad of Peckhan Rye, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Abbess of Crewe

D. Memento Mori (1959), The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Abbess of Crewe (1974)

33. Waiting for Godot is

A. ‘a tragicomedy in two acts’
B. ‘a comedy of the absurd’
C. ‘a surrealist drama’
D. ‘a black comedy’

A. ‘a tragicomedy in two acts’
The play’s subtitle is A Tragicomedy in Two Acts, as given by Samuel Beckett himself.

34. Lucky Jim is a vigorous ……………….novel.

A. social realist
B. domestic
C. campus
D. political

C. campus
Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (1954) is the quintessential campus novel, satirizing university life.
35. Douglas Dunn wrote ……………….for his first wife.

A. Elegies
B. Lyrics
C. Sonnets
D. Odes

A. Elegies
Douglas Dunn wrote Elegies (1985) following the death of his first wife, Lesley.

36. “The Color Purple’ is written in which form?

A. Epistolary form
B. Dramatic monologue
C. Stream of consciousness
D. Flashback technique

A. Epistolary form
Alice Walker’s novel is written as a series of letters (epistles) written by the protagonist, Celie.

37. Who is the author of The Tree of Man ?

A. Patrick Kavanagh
B. Chinua Achebe
C. Patrick White
D. Thomas Keneally

C. Patrick White
The Tree of Man (1955) is a major novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Australian author Patrick White.

38. ‘124 Bluestone Road’ is the locale of which novel?

A. Beloved
B. Song of Solomon
C. The Color Purple
D. Sula

A. Beloved
124 Bluestone Road is the haunted house where the former slave Sethe lives in Toni Morrison’s novel.

39. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a play by:

A. Edward Albee
B. Arthur Miller
C. Tennessee Williams
D. Eugene O’Neill

A. Edward Albee
Edward Albee’s shocking and visceral play (1962) explores the dysfunctional marriage of Martha and George.
40. The journal which the Transcendalists published was :

A. The Dial
B. The Atlantic Monthly
C. The Dial
D. The New England Review

C. The Dial
The Dial (1840-1844) was the major literary and philosophical magazine published by the Transcendentalists (Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau).

41. Who wrote a play of Kitchen-sink realism?

A. Arnold Wesker
B. David Storey
C. Shelagh Delaney
D. John Osborne

D. John Osborne
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) is considered the seminal work that launched the “Kitchen-Sink” style of realism and the Angry Young Men movement.

42. Under the Net is an exploration of love touched with:

A. Political idealism
B. Scepticism
C. Ethics
D. Comedy

C. Ethics
Iris Murdoch’s novels, including “Under the Net,” often explore the moral and ethical complexities of human relationships.

43. David Lodge is a………………novelist.

A. Modern
B. Post-modern
C. Victorian
D. Realist

B. Post-modern
David Lodge is known for his highly metafictional and satirical novels about academia, characteristic of Postmodernism.

44. “It dies in the white flowers. Of young-leaf spade,” These lines occur in Philip Larkin’s:

A. Cut Grass
B. The Whitsun Weddings
C. High Windows
D. The North Ship

A. Cut Grass
These lines are from Philip Larkin’s poem “Cut Grass,” reflecting on decay and the transient beauty of nature.
45. Which of the following arrangements is in chronological order (Harold Pinter’s plays)

A. The Caretaker, The Birthday Part, The Home Coming, No Man’s Land
B. The Birthday Part, The Home Coming, The Caretaker, No Man’s Land
C. The Home Coming, The Birthday Part, The Caretaker, No Man’s Land
D. The Birthday Part, The Caretaker, The Home Coming, No Man’s Land

D. The Birthday Part (1958), The Caretaker (1960), The Home Coming (1965), No Man’s Land (1975)
This sequence presents the correct chronological order of Harold Pinter’s major plays.

46. Identify correct metrical foot for: X X / li | ttle but / gaze and gazed

A. Anapaestic
B. Iambic
C. Dactyllic
D. Trochaic

C. Dactyllic
The line appears to be misidentified in the source. The foot shown (X X /) is Anapaestic (unstressed-unstressed-stressed). The metrical foot Dactylic is stressed-unstressed-unstressed ( / X X ). The line “li-ttle-but” is Dactylic (DUM-da-da). Given the provided correct answer, we assume the question refers to the pattern DUM-da-da (Dactylic).

47. “The wedding guest he beat his breast” ‘guest-breast’ is an example of :

A. Internal rhyme
B. End rhyme
C. Masculine rhyme
D. Slant rhyme

A. Internal rhyme
Internal rhyme occurs when a word inside a line rhymes with a word at the end of the line, or with a word within the same line (here, guest and breast).

48. Happy the man, whose wish and care… Identify the correct rhyming scheme in the passage.

A. abab cdcd
B. aabb ccdd
C. abba cddc
D. aabb aabb

A. abab cdcd
The passage uses quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme.

49. “The day has wept’ is an example of:

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

D. Personification
The abstract/inanimate object (day) is given the human action (wept), a key characteristic of Personification.
50. “The day burns thro’ their blood / Like a white candle thro’ a shuttered hand.” ‘The day’ and ‘like a white candle’ are examples of:

A. simile and imagery
B. metaphor and rhythm
C. symbolism and theme
D. alliteration and diction

A. simile and imagery
The phrase uses “like a white candle” (a simile) to create a vivid sensory impression (imagery).

Overview

This set of 50 multiple-choice questions provides a wide historical test of English Literature.

The quiz begins with the Renaissance, focusing on the University Wits, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. It quickly moves into the 17th century, testing knowledge of John Webster, Milton’s chronology, the Metaphysical poets, and Restoration figures like Dryden.

The 18th century is marked by questions about Swift, Congreve, and Dr. Johnson. The quiz then proceeds to the Romantic period, featuring poets such as Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Charles Lamb. The Victorian era is represented by authors such as Dickens, Browning, Arnold, and Hardy.

A large section is dedicated to 20th-century literature. This includes Modernists like T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and W.H. Auden. It also covers post-war figures such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Philip Larkin.

The quiz also features questions on American authors (Toni Morrison, Edward Albee) and literary movements like Transcendentalism. The final questions test technical knowledge of poetic devices, including metre, internal rhyme, and personification.

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