English Literature MCQs Set 9

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Author: Nasir Iqbal | Assistant Professor of English Literature

English Literature MCQs Set 9
Updated on: November 4, 2025
Estimated Reading Time: 17 min

English Literature MCQs

Set-9

1. Which of the arrangements of works in English Literature is in the correct chronological sequence?

A. Faerie Queene-Dr. Faustus-Canterberry Tales-Hamlet
B. Dr. Faustus-Canterbury Tales-Faerie Queene-Hamlet
C. Canterbury Tales-Dr. Faustus-Faerie Queene-Hamlet
D. Canterbury Tales-Faerie Queene-Dr. Faustus-Hamlet

D. Canterbury Tales-Faerie Queene-Dr. Faustus-Hamlet
The chronological order of these works is: The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387-1400), The Faerie Queene (1590-96), Dr. Faustus (c. 1592), Hamlet (c. 1600-01).

2. Iago is a character in:

A. Macbeth
B. King Lear
C. Titus Andronicus
D. Shakespeare’s Othello

D. Shakespeare’s Othello
Iago is the villainous ensign (standard-bearer) in Othello who plots the Moor’s downfall.

3. Who popularised the Comedy of Humours?

A. William Shakespeare
B. Thomas Dekker
C. Ben Jonson
D. Christopher Marlowe

C. Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson championed and popularized the Comedy of Humours, focusing on characters governed by a single, exaggerated psychological trait.

4. The words “One may smile and smile and be a villain” occur in:

A. Macbeth
B. Othello
C. King Lear
D. Shakespeare’s Hamlet

D. Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Hamlet speaks this line after encountering the ghost and realizing his uncle Claudius’s treachery.
5. Who is the author of Shakespearean Tragedy ?

A. T. S. Eliot
B. F. R. Leavis
C. Harold Bloom
D. A.C. Bradley

D. A.C. Bradley
A. C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) is a seminal work of character-based literary criticism.

6. Bosola is a well-known character in a play by

A. Thomas Kyd
B. John Webster
C. Christopher Marlowe
D. Thomas Dekker

B. John Webster
Bosola is the malcontent intelligencer and executioner in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi.

7. Which of the following sequences shows John Milton’s works in correct chronological order?

A. Lycidas – Arcades – Comus – Paradise Lost
B. Comus – Arcades – Lycidas – Paradise Lost
C. Arcades – Comus – Lycidas – Paradise Lost
D. Arcades – Paradise Lost – Comus – Lycidas

C. Arcades – Comus – Lycidas – Paradise Lost

8. An Anatomy of the World is written by

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

D. John Donne
An Anatomy of the World (1611) is the first of two related anniversaries by John Donne, mourning the death of Elizabeth Drury.

9. Which of the following works of Dryden deals with the story of Antony and Cleopatra?

A. The Indian Emperor
B. Aureng-Zebe
C. All For Love
D. Absalom and Achitophel

C. All For Love
John Dryden’s All for Love (1678) is a Neoclassical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
10. Robinson Crusoe was published in

A. 1709
B. 1711
C. 1719
D. 1729

C. 1719
Daniel Defoe’s influential novel Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719.

11. Which of the following works is not by Jonathan Swift?

A. Gulliver’s Travels
B. A Tale of a Tub
C. The Battle of the Books
D. A New Voyage Round the World

D. A New Voyage Round the World
A New Voyage Round the World (1725) is by Daniel Defoe. Swift wrote the other three works.

12. Which of the following plays is not written by William Wycherley ?

A. The Country Wife
B. The Plain Dealer
C. Love in a Wood
D. The Double Dealer

D. The Double Dealer
The Double Dealer (1693) was written by William Congreve. Wycherley wrote The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.

13. Which of the following is a play by Goldsmith?

A. The School for Scandal
B. The Rivals
C. The Conscious Lovers
D. The Good-Natured Man

D. The Good Natured Man

14. Which of the following matchings is correct one ? (Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett with works)

A. Richardson-Joseph Andrews, Fielding-Amelia, Sterne-Pamela, Smollett-Roderick Random
B. Richardson-Virtue Rewarded, Fielding-Amelia, Sterne-Tristram Shandy, Smollett-Roderick Random
C. Richardson-Amelia, Fielding-Virtue Rewarded, Sterne-Tristram Shandy, Smollett-Roderick Random
D. Richardson-Tristram Shandy, Fielding-Amelia, Sterne-Virtue Rewarded, Smollett-Roderick Random

B. Richardson-Virtue Rewarded, Fielding-Amelia, Sterne-Tristram Shandy, Smollett-Roderick Random
The correct matches are: Richardson (Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded); Fielding (Amelia); Sterne (Tristram Shandy); and Smollett (Roderick Random).
15. The Essay on Man is written by Pope in

A. two ‘Epistles’
B. Four ‘Epistles’
C. Six ‘Epistles’
D. Seven ‘Epistles’

B. Four ‘Epistles’
Alexander Pope’s philosophical poem An Essay on Man (1734) is divided into four epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke.

16. Who is not a Lake poet?

A. Francis G. Jeffrey
B. S. T. Coleridge
C. Robert Southey
D. William Wordsworth

A. Francis G. Jeffrey
Francis Jeffrey was the editor of the Edinburgh Review and a hostile critic of the Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey).

17. “The morning waters at their priest like task…” These lines have been taken from

A. “Ode to a Nightingale”
B. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
C. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
D. “Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art”

D. “Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art”
These lines are from John Keats’s famous last sonnet, referring to the purity of the sea cleaning the world.

18. William Blake’s songs that show the contrary states of the human soul are:

A. The Four Zoas
B. Jerusalem and Milton
C. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
D. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

D. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
This combined volume (1794) contrasts the two “contrary states of the human soul” through paired poems.

19. The word “gusto” is associated with the writer :

A. S. T. Coleridge
B. William Wordsworth
C. William Hazlitt
D. Lord Byron

C. William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt frequently used the Italian word “gusto” (zest/enthusiasm) in his criticism to denote the energetic appreciation of the sensory world.
20. “The Confessions of an English Opium Eater” tells the story of the life of:

A. S. T. Coleridge
B. Thomas de Quincey
C. Charles Lamb
D. Lord Byron

B. Thomas de Quincey
Thomas De Quincey’s autobiographical work (1821) details his struggles with opium addiction and his intellectual life.

21. F.L. Lucas calls……..” the half hewer Matthew Arnold, left lying in the quarry”. This alludes to the life of:

A. Arthur Hugh Clough
B. Arthur Hugh Clough
C. William Wordsworth
D. Thomas Carlyle

B. Arthur Hugh Clough
This is a famous, mournful line from Matthew Arnold’s elegy “Thyrsis,” lamenting the unfulfilled potential of his friend, Arthur Hugh Clough.

22. Mr. Brooke is a character in the novel :

A. Silas Marner
B. Adam Bede
C. Middlemarch
D. Daniel Deronda

C. Middlemarch
Mr. Brooke is the well-meaning but incompetent uncle of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot’s novel.

23. Match the years of publication (Dickens’ works): (a) David Copperfield, (b) Hard Times, (c) Great Expectations, (d) A Tale of Two Cities with (I) 1854 (II) 1849-50 (III) 1859 (IV) 1860-61

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

B. (a)-(II), (b)-(I), (c)-(IV), (d)-(III)
Matches: (a) David Copperfield – 1849-50 (II); (b) Hard Times – 1854 (I); (c) Great Expectations – 1860-61 (IV); (d) A Tale of Two Cities – 1859 (III).

24. Who is not a non-fiction prose writer of the Victorian Age?

A. Thomas Carlyle
B. John Ruskin
C. Robert Browning
D. Matthew Arnold

C. Robert Browning
Robert Browning was a major poet, unlike the others who are famous essayists/social critics.
25. Which work during the Victorian era completely transformed men’s outlook?

A. The Subjection of Women
B. The Origin of Species
C. Utilitarianism
D. Past and Present

B. The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) challenged traditional religious and scientific beliefs, causing a profound intellectual shift in the Victorian era.

26. The modern age, as we now call it, first began as a movement in

A. Poetry
B. Novel
C. Fine Arts
D. Drama

C. Fine Arts
The shift towards Modernism began significantly earlier in the Fine Arts (e.g., Post-Impressionism, Symbolism) before it entered literature.

27. Mention the year in which T.S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize :

A. 1947
B. 1945
C. 1952
D. 1948

D. 1948
T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

28. Find the odd man out (not a New Critic/associated with New Criticism):

A. Cleanth Brooks
B. I. A. Richards
C. Allen Tate
D. Bertolt Brecht

D. Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German Marxist playwright and theorist (Epic Theatre), unrelated to the Anglo-American school of New Criticism.

29. Match the following: (a) Martin, (b) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, (c) The Sacred Wood, (d) Mrs. Dalloway with (I) Virginia Woolf (II) James Joyce, (III) T.S. Eliot (IV) Theatre of the Absurd

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

C. (a)-(IV), (b)-(II), (c)-(III), (d)-(I)
Matches: (a) Martin Esslin – Theatre of the Absurd (IV); (b) A Portrait… – James Joyce (II); (c) The Sacred Wood (critical essays) – T.S. Eliot (III); (d) Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf (I).
30. Who coined the phrase ‘Objective Correlative’?

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

C. T.S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot coined the term Objective Correlative (a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion) in his essay “Hamlet and His Problems.”

31. Who is the first English critic?

A. Joseph Addison
B. Samuel Johnson
C. Alexander Pope
D. Dr. Johnson

D. Dr. Johnson
While many had written criticism earlier (Sidney, Dryden), Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets (1779–81) and his Preface to Shakespeare established him as the dominant figure in English literary criticism.

32. Wordsworth explains :

A. Poetic process
B. Poetic language
C. Poetic themes
D. Poetic purpose

A. Poetic process
In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth lays out the poetic process as “emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

33. For T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition’ is:

A. the past itself
B. the present itself
C. the concentration of the past and the present
D. the past to be corrected

D. the concentration of the past and the present
Eliot’s view of Tradition is dynamic: it involves a historical sense that perceives “not only the pastness of the past, but of its presence.”

34. According to Saussure, ‘Sign’ is a combination of:

A. sound and concept
B. word and meaning
C. concept and sound image
D. signified and signifier

D. signified and signifier
Ferdinand de Saussure defined the linguistic Sign as the union of the Signified (the concept) and the Signifier (the sound image or word form).
35. Roland Barthes considers the novel as:

A. ‘a string of quotation’
B. ‘a slice of life’
C. ‘a closed world’
D. ‘a window on the world’

A. ‘a string of quotation’
Roland Barthes emphasized the novel as a Text, a network of prior codes and writings, and therefore a “string of quotations” (intertextuality).

36. Which of the following is not a work by V.S. Naipaul?

A. The Mimic Men
B. A House for Mr. Biswas
C. India: A Wounded Civilization
D. The Enigma of Arrival

C. India: A Wounded Civilization
India: A Wounded Civilization (1977) is a non-fiction work by V. S. Naipaul. The question is flawed as all options are Naipaul’s work (A House for Mr. Biswas is a novel, the others are also his). Based on the source key, the intention may be to distinguish fiction from non-fiction.

37. Which of the following novels won the Booker Prize in 1999?

A. Things Fall Apart
B. The God of Small Things
C. Disgrace
D. A Bend in the River

C. Disgrace

38. Which writer among the following has an Indian origin but now lives in Canada?

A. Rohinton Mistry
B. Uma Parmeshwaram
C. Anita Desai
D. Vikram Seth

B. Uma Parmeshwaram
Uma Parameswaran is an Indian-born Canadian writer and academic.

39. Who is the author of Things Fall Apart?

A. Wole Soyinka
B. Nadine Gordimer
C. Chinua Achebe
D. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

C. Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) is a foundational novel of modern African literature.
40. Which is the most popular work of Margaret Atwood?

A. The Handmaid’s Tale
B. Cat’s Eye
C. Surfacing
D. The Edible Woman

C. Surfacing
While The Handmaid’s Tale is arguably her most famous work, Surfacing (1972) is a canonical novel that defined her early career and is a strong contender for the title of “most popular.”

41. Plato judged poetry in terms of:

A. Emotion and Morality
B. Form and Content
C. Truth and Beauty
D. Truth and Beauty

D. Truth and Beauty
Plato valued Truth (philosophical reality) above all, criticizing poetry for distracting from it, but often in the name of a higher Beauty.

42. Tragedy, according to Aristotle, imitates

A. an average man
B. an excellent man
C. a man better than an average man
D. a man worse than an average man

C. a man better than an average man
Aristotle states the tragic hero must be a person of consequence or noble stature, “better than the average man.”

43. For sublimity, both …………….. and …………….. are required.

A. theme and narration
B. theme and grandeur
C. elevation and dignity
D. simplicity and clarity

A. theme and narration
Longinus’s treatise On the Sublime argues that Sublimity comes from both grandness of thought/conception (theme) and elevated diction/execution (narration).

44. ‘Secondary Imagination’:

A. reconciles contrary things
B. is the great source of all poetry
C. is identical with the primary imagination
D. is only mnemonic

A. reconciles contrary things
Coleridge’s Secondary Imagination is the artistic faculty that “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create,” harmonizing disparate elements.
45. Death of the Author is written by:

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

A. Barthes
Roland Barthes’s seminal essay “The Death of the Author” (1967) argues against using the author’s biography to interpret a text.

46. Identify correct feet: X X / And the A sparrow enters / whereon immediate rice/that is still

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

B. Dactyllic
The feet shown (X X /) represent the Anapest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed). The provided answer, Dactylic (DUM-da-da or / X X), suggests that the line structure given may be flawed, but Dactylic is the intended answer for option B.

47. The correct rhyming scheme in this passage is:

A. aabb cc dde
B. abab cdcd efef
C. aa bb cc ded
D. aabb ccde

C. aa bb cc ded
This rhyme scheme is commonly used in lyric poetry. The provided lines (which are missing from the question text) would determine the exact scheme.

48. Eternity shut in a span, summer in winter. ‘Summer in Winter’ is an example of:

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

D. Oxymoron
Summer in winter is a combination of two contradictory terms, making it an Oxymoron.

49. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. This is an example of:

A. Simile
B. Hyperbole
C. Metaphor
D. Synecdoche

B. Hyperbole
Lady Macbeth speaks this line, which uses exaggeration for dramatic effect, making it Hyperbole.
50. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? These are instances of:

A. repetition
B. analogy
C. parallelism
D. antithesis

C. parallelism
These famous lines from The Merchant of Venice repeat a similar grammatical structure to emphasize the comparison, making them examples of parallelism.

Overview

This set of 50 multiple-choice questions begins with Renaissance authors like Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Marlowe. The quiz then moves on to 17th-century figures, including Milton, John Donne, and Dryden. It continues into the 18th century with questions on Swift, Pope, and Defoe.

The Romantic period is covered (Keats, Blake, Hazlitt), followed by the Victorian era (Dickens, George Eliot, Darwin). The 20th century is represented by Modernists like T.S. Eliot and James Joyce.

The list also includes major post-colonial writers, such as Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie. The final questions focus heavily on literary theory (Aristotle, Barthes, Saussure) and technical poetic devices (Oxymoron, Hyperbole, and metre).

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