English Literature MCQs Set 7

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Author: Nasir Iqbal | Assistant Professor of English Literature

English Literature MCQs Set 7
Updated on: November 4, 2025
Estimated Reading Time: 16 min

English Literature MCQs

Set-7

1. Which character is depicted as despicable in The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales?

A. Pardoner
B. Parson
C. Knight
D. Clerk

A. Pardoner
The Pardoner is described as fraudulent, carrying fake relics and selling false pardons, making him one of the most corrupt characters in the play.

2. “My lute, awake! Perform the last / Labour that thou and I shall fight.” Who wrote these lines?

A. Sir Philip Sidney
B. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
C. Edmund Spenser
D. Sir Thomas Wyatt

D. Sir Thomas Wyatt
These lines are from Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poem “My Lute, Awake!”, an important lyric from the early Renaissance period.

3. Which of the following Shakespearean Tragedies has the character named Bianca?

A. Macbeth
B. Othello
C. King Lear
D. Romeo and Juliet

B. Othello
Bianca is Cassio’s Venetian mistress who becomes an unwitting pawn in Iago’s plot when she is given Desdemona’s handkerchief.

4. Name the comic character in Romeo and Juliet.

A. Mercutio
B. Tybalt
C. Paris
D. Friar Laurence

A. Mercutio
Mercutio is known for his wit, puns, and dramatic monologues (like the Queen Mab speech), providing much of the play’s early comedy before his death changes the tone.
5. The morality plays were first performed in England in the:

A. 13th Century
B. Early 14th Century
C. Late 14th Century
D. 16th Century

C. Late 14th Century
The Morality Plays emerged in England around the late 14th century, evolving from earlier forms such as the Mystery Plays.

6. The Cardinal is a character in:

A. The White Devil
B. The Duchess of Malfi
C. Volpone
D. The Changeling

B. The Duchess of Malfi
The Cardinal is one of the two corrupt brothers of the Duchess in John Webster’s tragedy.

7. “My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, / And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest, / Where can we find two better hemispheres / Without sharp North, without declining West ?” These lines are written by:

A. Andrew Marvell
B. George Herbert
C. Henry Vaughan
D. John Donne

D. John Donne
These lines are from John Donne’s metaphysical poem “The Good-Morrow,” using an extended conceit (hemispheres) to describe perfect love.

8. Hudibras was written by:

A. Samuel Butler
B. John Dryden
C. Alexander Pope
D. John Milton

A. Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler’s Hudibras (1663–78) is a famous satirical poem mocking the Puritans and the English Civil War.

9. Name the play, which Dryden wrote as an imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

A. The Indian Queen
B. All for Love
C. Aureng-Zebe
D. The Assignation

B. All for Love
John Dryden’s All for Love (1678) is a rewriting of the tragedy to conform to Neoclassical dramatic rules.
10. The Advancement of Learning is written by:

A. John Locke
B. Thomas Hobbes
C. David Hume
D. Francis Bacon

D. Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning (1605) is a major philosophical work that classifies and advocates for the progress of human knowledge.

11. In which of the following poems, the supernatural machinery is employed?

A. An Essay on Criticism
B. Absalom and Achitophel
C. The Rape of the Lock
D. Dunciad

C. The Rape of the Lock
Alexander Pope employs Supernatural Machinery (Ariel, the sylphs, and gnomes) to elevate the trivial action of cutting Belinda’s hair into a mock-epic battle.

12. The Battle of the Books has the major thematic concern of

A. The conflict between epic and drama
B. The battle between the Whig and Tory parties
C. The conflict between the ancient and the modern
D. The struggle between the rich and the poor

C. The conflict between the ancient and the modern
Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay The Battle of the Books (1704) directly engages with the long-running literary controversy.

13. In which play is Mrs. Malaprop a character?

A. She Stoops to Conquer
B. The Rivals
C. The School for Scandal
D. The Way of the World

B. The Rivals
Mrs. Malaprop is a famous comic character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play (1775), known for her ludicrous misuse of words (malapropisms).

14. Dr. Johnson’s analysis of metaphysical poetry is found in:

A. The Rambler
B. A Dictionary of the English Language
C. Life of Cowley
D. Rasselas

C. Life of Cowley
Dr. Samuel Johnson’s critical definition of the Metaphysical Poets appears in his biography of Abraham Cowley (Lives of the Poets).
15. Songs of Innocence is written by

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

B. William Blake
Songs of Innocence (1789) forms the first part of the dual collection, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, by William Blake.

16. Identify the poet who wrote, “Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? / Think not of them, thou hast thy music too”

A. P. B. Shelley
B. W. B. Yeats
C. William Wordsworth
D. John Keats

D. John Keats
These lines, which shift focus from the past to the beauty of the present season, are from John Keats’s ode “To Autumn.”

17. The dominant note of Wordsworth’s poetry is :

A. Didactic
B. Melancholic
C. Satirical
D. Restorative

D. Restorative
Wordsworth’s poetry is often characterized by its ability to offer solace, spiritual comfort, and a healing restorative connection to nature.

18. Which of the following is considered an autobiographical poem of William Wordsworth?

A. The Excursion
B. Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey
C. The Prelude
D. The Ruined Cottage

C. The Prelude
The Prelude is William Wordsworth’s vast, unfinished autobiographical epic subtitled Growth of a Poet’s Mind.

19. “We look before and after / Pine for what is not.” These lines are from:

A. Keats
B. Byron
C. Wordsworth
D. Shelley

D. Shelley
These lines, emphasizing human restlessness and dissatisfaction, are from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark.”
20. Who is the author of Manfred and Cain?

A. Byron
B. Shelley
C. Keats
D. Scott

A. Byron
Lord Byron wrote the closet dramas Manfred (1817) and Cain (1821), both featuring the archetype of the rebellious Byronic Hero.

21. Who has written ‘Indian Jugglers’?

A. S.T. Coleridge
B. Charles Lamb
C. W. B. Yeats
D. William Hazlitt

D. William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt’s essay “The Indian Jugglers” is a commentary on human genius and the pursuit of perfection.

22. “Ah, love, let us be true / To one another! For the world, which seems / To lie before us, like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new” These lines are written by:

A. Tennyson
B. Arnold
C. Swinburne
D. Browning

B. Arnold
These famous lines are from Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” a reflection on the loss of religious faith and the need for human commitment.

23. “Sunset and evening star / And one clear call for me” These lines occur in this poem:

A. In Memoriam
B. Ulysses
C. Crossing the Bar
D. The Charge of the Light Brigade

C. Crossing the Bar
These opening lines are from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, a calm contemplation of his own approaching death.

24. Charles Dickens’ Hard Times centrally deals with:

A. Childhood poverty
B. The legal system
C. The French Revolution
D. Social and industrial problems

D. Social and industrial problems
Hard Times (1854) is Dickens’s major critique of industrialism and Utilitarianism as embodied by the character Thomas Gradgrind.
25. The young man that Dorothea falls in love with is :

A. Will Ladislaw
B. Mr. Casaubon
C. Tertius Lydgate
D. Fred Vincy

A. Will Ladislaw
Dorothea Brooke eventually marries Will Ladislaw after the death of her first husband, Casaubon, in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

26. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a fictional work of

A. Robert Stevenson
B. Bram Stoker
C. Edgar Allan Poe
D. Henry James

A. Robert Stevenson
The author is Robert Louis Stevenson, and this novella (1886) explores the duality of human nature.

27. Who had coined the phrase ‘stream of consciousness’?

A. Carl Jung
B. William James
C. Sigmund Freud
D. Virginia Woolf

B. William James
The term was first used by the American philosopher and psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890).

28. Seven Types of Ambiguity is written by:

A. F. R. Leavis
B. Cleanth Brooks
C. William Empson
D. I. A. Richards

C. William Empson
William Empson’s 1930 work is a foundational text of the New Criticism movement, analyzing the different forms of ambiguity in poetry.

29. Choose the option that states the correct chronological order of the publication of the novels mentioned.

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

D. Sons and Lovers (1913)-The Rainbow (1915)-Women in Love (1920)-Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)
This is the correct chronological sequence of D. H. Lawrence’s major novels.
30. “God is in heaven and all is right with the world.” This line is from:

A. Pippa Passes
B. Rabbi Ben Ezra
C. The Ring and the Book
D. My Last Duchess

A. Pippa Passes
This famous line, often used to satirize Victorian optimism, is from Robert Browning’s dramatic poem Pippa Passes (1841).

31. Lady Bracknell is a character in:

A. The Importance of Being Earnest
B. Lady Windermere’s Fan
C. An Ideal Husband
D. A Woman of No Importance

A. The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell is the formidable aristocratic figure in Oscar Wilde’s farcical comedy, famous for her one-liners (e.g., the hand-bag line).

32. Who among the following did not belong to the Bloomsbury Group ?

A. E. M. Forster
B. Virginia Woolf
C. Lytton Strachey
D. D. H. Lawrence

D. D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence was a contemporary of the Bloomsbury Group (Woolf, Forster, Strachey, etc.) but was not a member and was often hostile to their ideas.

33. Time Passes’ is the title of a part of the novel:

A. Ulysses
B. Jacob’s Room
C. To the Lighthouse
D. Mrs. Dalloway

C. To the Lighthouse
“Time Passes” is the famous second, highly experimental section of Virginia Woolf’s novel, spanning ten years in a few pages.

34. The Playboy of the Western World has the setting of:

A. a Mayo inn
B. a Dublin city pub
C. the Mayo coast
D. a remote Aran island

C. the Mayo coast
The play is set in a small pub/shebeen in a remote, rural area on the coast of County Mayo, Ireland.
35. Which of the following is not a novel by Doris Lessing?

A. The Grass is Singing
B. The Golden Notebook
C. Under the Net
D. Shikasta

C. Under the Net
Under the Net (1954) is the debut novel of Iris Murdoch.

36. “The Mirror and the Sea’ is a poem by:

A. Philip Larkin
B. Seamus Heaney
C. Ted Hughes
D. R.S. Thomas

A. Philip Larkin
“The Mirror and the Sea” is a famous later poem by Philip Larkin, reflecting on aging and self-perception.

37. Identify an Absurd play from the following:

A. The Birthday Party
B. Waiting for Lefty
C. Look Back in Anger
D. Juno and the Paycock

A. The Birthday Party
Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1958) is a classic example of the Theatre of the Absurd, featuring menace and ambiguity.

38. Who is the exponent of the ‘epic theatre’?

A. Antonin Artaud
B. Brecht
C. Stanislavski
D. Ionesco

B. Brecht
Bertolt Brecht is the German playwright and theorist famous for developing the concept and techniques of Epic Theatre.

39. The Duke and the Dauphin are characters in:

A. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
B. Moby Dick
C. The Scarlet Letter
D. The Last of the Mohicans

A. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
These two con artists pose as exiled European royalty in Mark Twain’s novel.
40. What does Emily Dickinson write about in her poems?

A. Nature
B. Science
C. Christianity
D. Death and Immortality

D. Death and Immortality
Themes of Death, Immortality, the Self, and perception dominate Emily Dickinson’s poetry. (Christianity is also a core subject, but death and immortality are inseparable from her philosophical questioning).

41. Wole Soyinka hails from:

A. Europe
B. Africa
C. Asia
D. The Caribbean

B. Africa
Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, poet, and Nobel Laureate.

42. Mahesh Dattani won the Sahitya Akademi Award for:

A. Fiction
B. Drama
C. Poetry
D. Criticism

B. Drama
Mahesh Dattani is a leading contemporary Indian English playwright who won the award for his play Final Solutions.

43. Recognition and Peripeteia are the features of a good plot of tragedy according to:

A. Plato
B. Aristotle
C. Longinus
D. Sidney

B. Aristotle
Anagnorisis (Recognition) and Peripeteia (Reversal) are the two key components of a complex plot in Aristotle’s Poetics.

44. Which English critic strongly defended Shakespeare’s violation of classical unities?

A. Dr. Johnson
B. John Dryden
C. Alexander Pope
D. Matthew Arnold

A. Dr. Johnson
Dr. Samuel Johnson, despite being a Neoclassicist, famously defended Shakespeare’s abandonment of the Unities of Time and Place in his Preface to Shakespeare.
45. The Second Sex is a book by:

A. Virginia Woolf
B. Julia Kristeva
C. Betty Friedan
D. Simone de Beauvoir

D. Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex (1949) is a seminal work of existentialist philosophy and feminist theory by Simone de Beauvoir.

46. ‘Hybridity’ is the term associated with:

A. Post-colonialism
B. Post-modernism
C. New Historicism
D. Psychoanalysis

A. Post-colonialism
Hybridity (often associated with Homi K. Bhabha) describes the new cultural forms, identities, and languages that arise from the mixing of colonizer and colonized cultures.

47. ‘Aporia’ is a term associated with:

A. Derrida
B. Foucault
C. Barthes
D. Lacan

A. Derrida
Aporia (a point of irresolvable contradiction or undecidability in a text) is a key concept in Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstruction.

48. The role of reader in the generation of meaning of a text is emphasized by:

A. Matthew Arnold
B. T. S. Eliot
C. Cleanth Brooks
D. I. A. Richards

D. I. A. Richards
I. A. Richards’ work, especially Practical Criticism, demonstrated the reader’s active role and varied interpretations, laying the groundwork for Reader-Response Theory.

49. “He is a tiger a tiger of the team” is an example of:

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

B. Metaphor
The line asserts a direct identification (is a tiger) without using a word of comparison (like/as), making it a Metaphor.
50. The scheme of the Petrarchan Sonnet is:

A. abba cddc effe gg
B. abba abba cde cde
C. abab cdcd efef gg
D. abba cdecde

B. abba abba cde cde
The Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet is divided into an octave (abba abba) and a sestet (cde cde, or variations like cdd cee).

Overview

This set of 50 multiple-choice questions tests English Literature in historical order. It begins with early writers like Chaucer, Wyatt, and Shakespeare. The quiz then moves to the 17th century, covering authors such as John Donne, Dryden, and Francis Bacon.

The 18th century is represented by figures such as Pope, Swift, and Dr. Johnson. A large section focuses on the Romantic poets, including Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley. The Victorian era is also covered with questions on Arnold, Tennyson, and Dickens.

The 20th century includes Modernists such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, as well as post-war figures such as Harold Pinter. The list also includes American literature, such as that of Mark Twain. The final questions cover literary theory from Aristotle to Derrida, as well as poetic terms such as ‘metaphor’ and ‘sonnet’.

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