Critical Commentary On The Rape of the Lock By Pope

 Alexander Pope's *The Rape of the Lock* (1712, revised 1714) is a mock-epic that satirizes the trivialities of upper-class society, particularly their preoccupation with appearances and superficial matters. Here’s a critical commentary on some of the poem’s themes, techniques, and its social context:

### **Mock Epic Form**

Pope's *The Rape of the Lock* is written in the form of a mock epic, a literary form that uses the grand, elevated style of classical epics to describe a trivial or absurd subject. In this case, the poem recounts the cutting of a lock of hair from the protagonist, Belinda, by the Baron, an event treated with the same reverence as great battles in *The Iliad* or *The Aeneid*. The mock epic is used here to highlight the absurdity of how the aristocracy overvalues minor events while remaining indifferent to significant societal issues.

Pope’s imitation of epic conventions—such as the invocation to the muse, the use of supernatural forces (sylphs), and the description of "heroic" battles (the card game Ombre)—underscores the emptiness of the concerns of fashionable society. This structural parody exposes the misplaced priorities of the people he criticizes.

### **Satire of 18th Century Society**

Pope's poem critiques the vanity, materialism, and triviality of the 18th-century aristocracy. Belinda, for example, is more concerned with her appearance and social standing than with anything of substance. The Baron, too, covets Belinda’s lock of hair not out of love but for the sake of possessing something rare and beautiful, highlighting the objectification of women.

The poem ridicules a culture where personal slights, such as the theft of a lock of hair, are blown out of proportion, while larger moral and societal issues are neglected. It mirrors a world where outward beauty and reputation are prized above intelligence or integrity, reflecting Pope's critique of a society deeply invested in superficial social rituals.

### **Supernatural Elements**

The sylphs and other supernatural beings in the poem are Pope’s playful nod to the classical epic tradition, but they also serve a satirical purpose. These spirits, led by Ariel, are tasked with protecting Belinda's honor, which is reduced to ensuring the perfection of her beauty. Their involvement elevates the trivial matter of the stolen lock to the level of divine intervention, further mocking the values of the society Pope is critiquing. The sylphs' concern with preserving Belinda’s beauty rather than her virtue hints at the hollow preoccupations of the time.

### **Treatment of Gender and Sexual Politics**

Pope’s portrayal of women in *The Rape of the Lock* reflects both satire and critique. While Belinda is vain and frivolous, the social environment she inhabits pressures women to define their worth based on appearance and desirability. Through Belinda, Pope critiques how women’s power in 18th-century society was largely constrained to physical beauty and social influence. The Baron’s theft of the lock can also be read as a metaphor for how men often took liberties with women’s autonomy.

Though the poem’s tone is light and playful, Pope's mock-heroic treatment of the event subtly critiques how women’s honor and virtue were tied disproportionately to their outward appearance and social reputation, while their agency in serious matters was limited.

### **Language and Wit**

Pope’s masterful use of heroic couplets is one of the defining features of *The Rape of the Lock*. His tight control of form and his playful yet biting wit enhance the satirical nature of the poem. Pope’s ability to combine high-flown, grandiose language with trivial subject matter creates an amusing and ironic contrast, underscoring the absurdity of the social mores he critiques.

His famous lines, such as "What mighty contests rise from trivial things," encapsulate the core irony of the poem—the significant consequences placed on the trivial actions of the aristocracy, mocking the disproportionate attention given to superficial issues.

### **Social Commentary**

The poem provides a critical lens through which Pope observes the values of his contemporary society. He targets both the aristocracy's obsession with material wealth and the artificial nature of their lives, which is filled with meaningless rituals and concerns. Through Belinda and the Baron's conflict, Pope reveals a society where individuals are caught in cycles of vanity, self-importance, and idle pleasure.

### Conclusion

*The Rape of the Lock* is a brilliant example of satire in the mock-epic genre, using humor, parody, and wit to highlight the absurdities of 18th-century aristocratic society. Pope’s careful blend of classical allusion, satire, and elegant poetic form enables him to critique the trivial preoccupations of the wealthy and the way they disregard more substantial moral and social concerns. Despite its lighthearted tone, the poem remains a pointed commentary on the values and behaviors of the time.

Crack the NTA NET English Literature Exam with Our Mock Test: Prepare for Success!

Mock test on English literature for NTA NET:

1. Who is considered the father of English literature?

a) William Shakespeare

b) Geoffrey Chaucer

c) John Milton

d) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

2. Which novel is considered a key work of the Victorian era and explores themes of social class and gender roles?

a) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

b) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

c) Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

d) Middlemarch by George Eliot

3. Who is the author of the play "The Importance of Being Earnest"?

a) Oscar Wilde

b) George Bernard Shaw

c) Samuel Beckett

d) T.S. Eliot

4. Which poet is associated with the Romantic movement and wrote "Ode to a Nightingale"?

a) John Keats

b) Lord Byron

c) William Wordsworth

d) Percy Bysshe Shelley

5. Who is the author of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

a) Harper Lee

b) F. Scott Fitzgerald

c) Ernest Hemingway

d) Mark Twain

6. Which poet is known for his metaphysical poetry and wrote "The Flea" and "To His Coy Mistress"?

a) John Donne

b) Andrew Marvell

c) John Milton

d) Alexander Pope

7. Who is the author of the play "Hamlet"?

a) William Shakespeare

b) Christopher Marlowe

c) Ben Jonson

d) Thomas Middleton

8. Which American author wrote the novel "Moby-Dick"?

a) Nathaniel Hawthorne

b) Mark Twain

c) Herman Melville

d) Emily Dickinson

9. Who is the author of the poem "The Waste Land"?

a) T.S. Eliot

b) W.B. Yeats

c) Robert Frost

d) Langston Hughes

10. Which literary movement emerged in the 20th century and focused on the inner thoughts and experiences of characters?

a) Modernism

b) Romanticism

c) Realism

d) Postmodernism

Answers:

1. b) Geoffrey Chaucer

2. a) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

3. a) Oscar Wilde

4. a) John Keats

5. a) Harper Lee

6. b) Andrew Marvell

7. a) William Shakespeare

8. c) Herman Melville

9. a) T.S. Eliot

10. a) Modernism

Introduction to Lucy Poems by Wordsworth and Analysis of SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS

 Introduction to Lucy Poems by Wordsworth and Analysis of SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS

Introduction on Lucy Poems

The five short poems known as 'lucy poems' were written by Wordsworth during his brief stay in

Germany or shortly thereafter. "Three years she grew in sun and shower" was composed in the

Hartz Forest in 1798."A slumber did my spirit seal" was also written in Germany sometime in

1798 it was this poem which Wordsworth sent to Coleridge and Coleridge remarked on this

poem--"some months ago Wordsworth transmitted to me a most sublime epitaph".

The sequence of Lucy poem according to the the date of composition

1. Strange fits of passion I have known. 2. She dwelt among the untrodden ways. 3. Three years she grew in the sun and shower. 4. A slumber did my spirit seal. 5. I travelled among unknown men.

Who is lucy

The real identity of Lucy has never been unraveled in Lucy series. Lucy may or may not

be based off a real life inspiration. No body knows who Lucy was. Although there has

been controversy among many critics that Dorothy maybe Lucy or perhaps his wife, Mary but it seems more probable to us that Lucy is just a product of his poetic

imagination , she is likely a fictional, idealised English girl, a literary device used to

convey his themes of Lucy poems. She is fantasy and dream, an imagined ideal who

cannot exit in the real world. The name 'Lucy' works as poetic muse to Wordsworth's Lucy series.

                              She dwelt among the untrodden ways

This poem was a three stanza poem written by English romantic port

William Wordsworth in 1798 when he was 28 years old. The verse was first

printed in Lyrical Ballads, in 1800. It was described about women feelings

of loneliness and loss, and describe the beauty and dignity of an idealised

women who lived unnoticed by all others. She dwelt among the untrodden ways --> Line 1 a

 She-->Lucy, Lucy lived such a place which is never visited by

someone. Untrodden means untouched and that signifies Lucy is

virgin, no body touched her.

Beside the spring of dove--> line 2 b

 Springs-->origin, Lucy lived decide the prince of dove or hear the place

in the English countryside (Specifically, the Midlands, a rural area

south of Manchester) where the Dove river rises from the earth and

begins its flow. 

A maid whome there were none to praise--> line 3 a

A maid is an an unmarried woman. It also means that woman is a a virgin, youth and innocent. The poet laments for Lucy because she is living

unvisited place, there were none to praise her.

 And very few to love -- line 4 (V.V.I) b

Lucy is practically ignored by others. No one praised her and hardly

anyone loved her. But the "very few" implies that the poet or the speaker

was one of those few. It also denotes that Lucy was loving one to the

speaker, poet. 

A Violet by a mossy stone -->line 5 (V.V.I) c

The word 'violet' in that line is comparison between Lucy and violet. A

'violet' is a beautiful flower and when compared to Lucy, and

automatically it described that her beauty was blocked by moss or by the

luck of freedom to show hard beauties. 

Half hidden from the eye! -->line 6 d

The word half hidden means that Lucy was unexplored women. Because

no one was interested in her. She was unnoticed, untouched, and

overlooked. However, not just in a a physical sense but also in an

emotional one as well. Lucy was depressed in herself because of that.

Fair as star, when only one -->line 7 c

Is shining in the sky-->line 8(V.V.I) d

Her fairness looks like a star, here the poet apparently denotes that he

used the word 'star' as a smile, which is actually "Venus" . Because we

know Venus appears and shines in the sky alone. And we also know

Venus is the brightest star in the sky. And Venus is compared to Lucy's

fairness.

She lived unknown, and few could know--> line 9 e

When Lucy ceased to be ; line 10 f

Line 9--> begins with the phrase "she lived unknown" that simply repeated

the message to the readers deepen the speaker's portrait of Lucy as a

young woman who lived alone and unappreciated. Ceased to be-->died, Lucy " lived unknown" and the reason the speaker says there is few had the

capacity to know the news about Lucy's death, hardly anyone knew the

news "few could know" the speaker was one of those few. Poet used

"ceased to be" to avoid painful language.

But she is in her grave, and, oh --> line 11e

The difference to me! -->line 12 (V.V.I) f

In the poem's final line, keeping aside all hesitations from the reader's

mind, the poet firmly acknowledges Lucy's death by using the line "she is

in her grave". The effect of Lucy's death is different one to the poet

because Lucy was the loving one to him here the employment of the

exclamation at the end of poem the signifies the melancholy of the poet's

heart. (Whereas line 10 evades the fact of lucy's death the poet used "ceased to

be" to avoid death's painful languages but line11 acknowledges it firmly

"she is in her grave".)

                    Figure of speech from the poem

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways" 1. "Beside the spring of Dove" (Allusion)

2. A violet by a mossy stone (Metaphor

Explanation--> here Lucy is compared to a violet flower and also

Lucy compared to a mossy stone. 3. Fair as a star (smile)

4. Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky (Allusion)

Explanation-->this line implicitly refers to "Venus" , the Roman

goddess of love, beauty, fertility and sex. 5. She lived unknown and few could know (Polyptoton)

Important Works with subtitle

WORKS AND SUBTITLES

Decameron:Prince Galahout (Boccacio)
[ ] The Female Quixote: or, The Adventures of Arabella  - Charlotte Lennox - 1752
[ ] Don Quixote of La Mancha (Cervantes)
[ ] Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School - 1872 Thomas Hardy
[ ] Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character - (1886) Thomas Hardy
[ ] Animal Farm: A Fair Story (George Orwell)
[ ] Michael: A Pastoral Poem- (1800 Wordsworth)
[ ] The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling (1749 Henry Fielding)
[ ] Istanbul: A Memories and the City - Orhan Pamuk
[ ] The Ascent F6: A Tragedy in Two Acts - 1936- WH Auden
[ ] Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts - Samuel Beckett
[ ] Sons and Lovers - (original title) Paul Morel
[ ] Way of the World: A comedy(Congreve 1700)
[ ] All For Love, The World Well Lost (Dryden 1677)
[ ] She Stoops to Conquer: Mistakes of a night (Goldsmith)
[ ] Oliver Twist; The Parish Boy's Progress (pub by Richard Bently) by Dickens
[ ] Vanity Fair: A Novel Without Hero (Thackery)
[ ] The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale Supposed to be Written by Himself 1766 (Goldsmith)
[ ] Middlemarch, A provincial Life 1784 ( George Eliot)
[ ] Bingo: Scenes of Money and Death (1973 Edward Bond) [Shakespeare comes as a character]
[ ] Hardbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes (1919 G.BShaw)
[ ] Silas Marner: The Weaver of the Raveloe (1861 George Eliot)
[ ] Felix Holt: The Radical (1866 George Eliot )
[ ] Importance of Being Earnest: a trivial comedy for Serious People - Oscar Wild
[ ] The Wheel of Fire; The Interpretation of Shakespearean tragedy. Wilson Knight
[ ] Pamela: Virtue Rewarded - Samuel Richardson
[ ] Joseph Andrews, or The History of Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr Abraham Adams - Henry Fielding
[ ] Andrea del Sarto: The Faultless Painter - Robert Browning
[ ] Tess of the D'Urbervilles:A Pure Woman - Hardy
Tess of D'URBERVILLES - The Daughter of the D'Urbervilles (original intended title)
[ ] Gorboduc or The Ferrex and Porrex - Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville
[ ] Holy Sonnets, or The Divine Meditations, or Divine Sonnets --John Done (1633)
[ ] Tottel's Micellany, Songs and Sonnets
[ ] Mac Flecknoe; A Satyr upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet, T.S. - (Dryden)
[ ] The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearean Tragedy (Wilson Knight)
[ ] Endymion: The Man in the Moon (John Lyly)
[ ] The Mistress: Several Copies of Love Versus - Abraham Cowley
[ ] Hespiredes: The Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick (Robert Herrick-1648)
[ ] Elegy for John Donne - "An Elegy Upon the Death of St Paul's Dr John Donne"
[ ] Troilus and Cressida: Truth Found Too Late (opera) - Dryden
[ ] Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music (1697) - Dryden
[ ] Histeriomastix: The Players Scourge or Actors Tragedy (1633) - William Prynne
[ ] The Pilgrim's Progress - The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream - John Bunyan
[ ] Candide: All for the Best; or The Optimist; or Optimism
[ ] Roughing it in the Bush, Or, Forest Life in Canada (1852) - Susanna Strickland Moodie

English literature all periods Short overview

English literature all periods Short overview

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Similar works title in literature with different authors

Works of Similar title in literature with different authors

Important mcq questions on literature for Net Exam

Important mcq questions on literature for Net Exam

1 D.H.Lawrence called one of his novels Kangaroo as “Thought Adventure".

2 The phrase ‘religion of the blood' is associated with D.H.Lawrence.

3 A character in Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando changes his sex. Charles II is characterised in this novel.

4 A woman's search for a fittinOkOkg mate is the central theme of Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.

5 ‘Chocolate cream hero' appears in Shaw’s Arms and the Man.

6 The phrase 'Don Juan in Hell' occurs in Shaw’s Man and Superman.

7 Prostitution is the central theme of Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession.

8 Labour and Capital conflict is the central theme of Galsworthy’s Strife.

9 "The law is what it is -a majestic edifice sheltering all of us, each stone of which rests on another." These lines occur in Galsworthy’s Justice.

10 Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.

11 Joseph Conrad's novels are generally set in the background of the sea.

12 .Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem “ If”

13 .The term 'Stream of consciousness' was first used by William James.

14 .The terms 'Inscape' and 'Instress' are associated with Hopkins.

15 .Sprung Rhythm' was originated by Hopkins.

16 .T .S. Eliot called 'Hamlet' an artistic failure.

17. World Within World is an autobiography of Stephen Spender.

18 .G. B. Shaw said, "For art's sake alone I would not face the toil of writing a single sentence”.

19 .Aldous Huxley borrowed the title ‘Brave New World’ from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

20 .William Morris is the author of The Earthly Paradise.

21 .T S Eliot was believed to be "a classicist in literature, royalist in politics and anglo-catholic in religion”.

22 .Virginia Woolf was the founder of the Bloomsbury Group, a literary club of England.

23 .George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty – Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are prophetic novels.

Important mcq questions on literature for Net Exam


24 .Plato said, ‘Art is twice removed from reality'.

25 .Plato proposed in his Republic that poets should be banished from the ideal Republic.

26 .Five principal sources of Sublimity are there according to Longinus.

27 .In Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy there are four speakers representing four different ideologies. Neander expresses Dryden's own views.

28 .Dr. Johnson called Dryden 'the father of English criticism'

29 .Shelley said, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”.

30 . Dr. Johnson preferred Shakespeare's comedies to his Tragedies.

31 .Coleridge said, "I write in metre because I am about to use a language different from that of prose."

32 .Heroic Couplet is a two-line stanza having two rhyming lines in Iambic Pentameter.

33 .Alexandrine is a line of six iambic feet occasionally used in a Heroic couplet.

34 .Terza Rima is a run-on three-line stanza with a fixed rhyme-scheme.

35 .Rhyme Royal stanza is a seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter.

36 .Ottawa Rima is an eight-line stanza in iambic pentameter with a fixed rhyme-scheme.

37 .Spenserian stanza is a nine-line stanza consisting of two quatrains in iambic pentameter, rounded off with an Alexandrine.

38 .Blank verse has a metre but no rhyme.

39 .Simile is a comparison between two things which have at least one point common.

40 .Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement for the sake of emphasis.

41 .The poem by Chaucer known to be the first attempt in English to use the Heroic Couplet is The Legend of Good Women.

42 .Chaucer introduced the Heroic couplet in English verse and invented Rhyme Royal.

43 .The invention of the genre, the Eclogues (pastoral poetry) is attributed to Alexander Barclay.

44 .Mort D' Arthur is the first book in English in poetic prose.

45 .First to use blank verse in English drama Thomas Sackville.

46 .The first English play house called The Theatre was founded in London, 1576.

47 .Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet form to England.

Important mcq questions on literature for Net Exam.

48 .Thomas Nash was the creator of the picaresque novel. ( The Unfortunate Traveler)

49 .Francis Bacon is the first great stylist in English prose.

50 .Marlowe wrote only tragedies.

51 .Sir Walter Raleigh wrote the introductory Sonnet

Important mcq questions on literature for Net Exam...


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English literature for all..

Important Literature mcq for Net exam

IMPORTANT MCQ SERIES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR NET


1. The epigraph of The Waste Land is borrowed from?
(A) Virgil
(B) Fetronius
(C) Seneca
(D) Homer✔

2. Who called ‘The Waste Land ‘a music of ideas’?
(A) Allen Tate✔
(B) J. C. Ransom
(C) I. A. Richards
(D) F. R Leavis

3. T. S. Eliot has borrowed the term ‘Unreal City’ in the first and third
sections from?
(A) Baudelaire
(B) Irving Babbit
(C) Dante✔
(D) Laforgue

4. Which of the following myths does not figure in The Waste
Land?
(A) Oedipus
(B) Grail Legend of Fisher King
(C) Philomela
(D) Sysyphus✔

5. Joe Gargery is Pip’s?
(A) brother
(B) brother-in-Jaw
(C) guardian✔
(D) cousin

6. Estella is the daughter of?
(A) Joe Gargery✔
(B) Abel Magwitch .
(C) Miss Havisham
(D) Bentley Drumnile

7. Which book of John Ruskin influenced Mahatma Gandhi?
(A) Sesame and Lilies
(B) The Seven Lamps of Architecture
(C) Unto This Last✔
(D) Fors Clavigera

8. Graham Greene’s novels are marked by?
(A) Catholicism✔
(B) Protestantism
(C) Paganism
(D) Buddhism

9. One important feature of Jane Austen’s style is?
(A) boisterous humour
(B) humour and pathos✔
(C) subtlety of irony
(D) stream of consciousness

10. The title of the poem ‘The Second Coming’ is taken from?
(A) The Bible✔
(B) The Irish mythology
(C) The German mythology
(D) The Greek mythology

11. The main character in Paradise Lost Book I and Book II is?
(A God
(B) Satan✔
(C) Adam
(D) Eve

12. In Sons and Lovers, Paul Morel’s mother’s name is?
(A)Susan
(B)Jane
(C)Gertrude✔
(D) Emily

13. The twins in Lord of the Flies are?
(A)Ralph and Jack✔
(B) Simon and Eric
(C) Ralph and Eric
(D) Simon and Jack

14.Mr. Jaggers, in Great Expectations, is a
(A) lawyer✔
(B) postman
(C)Judge
(D) School teacher

15. What does ‘I’ stand for in the following line?
‘To Carthage then I came’
(A) Buddha
(B) Tiresias
(C) Smyrna Merchant
(D) Augustine✔

IMPORTANT MCQ SERIES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR NET




16. The following lines are an example……… of image.
‘The river sweats
Oil and tar’
(A) visual
(B) kinetic
(C) erotic✔
(D) sensual

17. Which of the following novels has the sub-title ‘A Novel Without a Hero’?
(A) Vanity Fair✔
(B) Middlemarch
(C) Wuthering Heights
(D) Oliver Twist

18. In ‘Leda and the Swan’, who wooes Leda in guise of a swan?
(A) Mars
(B) Hercules
(C) Zeus
(D) Bacchus✔

19. Who invented the term ‘Sprung rhythm’?
(A)Hopkins✔
(B)Tennyson
(C)Browning
(D)Wordsworth

20.Who wrote the poem ‘Defence of Lucknow’?
(A) Browning
(B) Tennyson
(C) Swinburne✔
(D) Rossetti

21.Which of the following plays of Shakespeare has an epilogue?
(A) The Tempest✔
(B) Henry IV, Pt I
(C) Hamlet
(D) Twelfth Night

22. Hamlet’s famous speech ‘To be,or not to be; that is the question’
occurs in?
(A) Act II, Scene I
(B) Act III, Scene III
(C) Act IV, Scene III
(D) Act III, Scene I✔

23. Identify the character in The Tempest who is referred to as an honest old counselor
(A) Alonso
(B) Ariel
(C) Gonzalo✔
(D) Stephano

24. What is the sub-title of the play Twelfth Night?
(A) Or, What is you Will
(B) Or, What you Will✔
(C) Or, What you Like It
(D) Or, What you Think

25. Which of the following plays of Shakespeare, according to T. S.
Eliot, is ‘artistic failure’?
(A) The Tempest
(B) Hamlet✔
(C) Henry IV, Pt I
(D) Twelfth Night

26. Who is Thomas Percy in Henry IV, Pt I?
(A) Earl of Northumberland✔
(B) Earl of March
(C) Earl of Douglas
(D) Earl of Worcester

27. Paradise Lost was originally written in?
(A) ten books
(B) eleven books
(C) nine books
(D) eight books✔

28. In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia elopes with?
(A) Darcy
(B) Wickham✔
(C) William Collins
(D) Charles Bingley

29. Who coined the phrase ‘Egotistical Sublime’?
(A) William Wordsworth
(B) P.B.Shelley
(C) S. T. Coleridge✔
(D) John Keats

30. Who is commonly known as ‘Pip’ in Great Expectations?
(A) Philip Pirrip
(B) Filip Pirip
(C)Philip Pip✔
(D) Philips Pirip



31. The novel The Power and the Glory is set in?
(A)Mexico✔
(B) Italy
(C)France
(D) Germany

32. Which of the following is Golding’s first novel?
(A) The Inheritors
(B) Lord of the Flies✔
(C) Pincher Martin
(D) Pyramid

33.Identify the character who is a supporter of Women’s Rights in Sons and Lovers?
(A) Mrs. Morel✔
(B) Annie
(C) Miriam
(D) Clara Dawes

34. Vanity Fair is a novel by?
(A) Jane Austen
(B) Charles Dickens
(C) W. M. Thackeray✔
(D) Thomas Hardy

35. Shelley’s Adonais is an elegy on the death of?
(A) Milton
(B) Coleridge
(C) Keats✔
(D) Johnson

36. Which of the following is the first novel of D. H. Lawrence?
(A) The White Peacock✔
(B) The Trespasser
(C) Sons and Lovers
(D) Women in Love

37. In the poem ‘Tintern Abbey’, ‘dearest friend’ refers to?
(A) Nature
(B) Dorothy✔
(C) Coleridge
(D) Wye

38. Who, among the following, is not the second generation of British
Romantics?
(A) Keats
(B) Wordsworth✔
(C) Shelley
(D) Byron

39. Which of the following poems of Coleridge is a ballad?
(A) Work Without Hope
(B) Frost at Midnight
(C) The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner✔
(D) Youth and Age

40. Identify the writer who was expelled from Oxford for circulating a pamphlet—
(A) P. B. Shelley✔
(B) Charles Lamb
(C) Hazlitt
(D) Coleridge

IMPORTANT MCQ SERIES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR NET



41. Keats’s Endymion is dedicated to?
(A) Leigh Hunt✔
(B) Milton
(C) Shakespeare
(D) Thomas Chatterton


42. The second series of Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb was published in?
(A) 1823
(B) 1826
(C) 1834
(D) 1833✔

43. Which of the following poets does not belong to the ‘Lake School’?
(A) Keats✔
(B) Coleridge
(C) Southey
(D) Wordsworth

44.Who, among the following writers, was not educated at Christ’s Hospital School,
London?
(A) Charles Lamb✔
(B) William Wordsworth
(C) Leigh Hunt
(D) S. T. Coleridge

45. Who derided Hazlitt as one of the members of the ‘Cockney School of Poetry’?
(A) Tennyson
(8) Charles Lamb
(C) Lockhart
(D) T. S. Eliot✔

46. Tennyson’s poem ‘In Memoriam’was written in memory of?
(A) A. H. Hallam✔
(B) Edward King
(C) Wellington
(D) P. B. Shelley


47. Who, among the following, is not connected with the Oxford Movement?
(A) Robert Browning✔
(B) John Keble
(C) E. B. Pusey
(D) J. H. Newman

48. Identify the work by Swinburne which begins “when the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces..”?
(A) Chastelard
(B) A Song of Italy
(C) Atalanta in Calydon✔
(D) Songs before Sunrise

49. Carlyle’s work On Heroes, HeroWorship and the Heroic in History is a course of?
(A) six lectures
(B) five lectures✔
(C) four lectures
(D) seven lectures

50. Who is praised as a hero by Carlyle in his lecture on the ‘Hero as King’?
(A) Johnson
(B) Cromwell✔
(C) Shakespeare
(D) Luther



51. Identify the work by Ruskin which began as a defence of contemporary landscape artist especially Turner?
(A) The Stones of Venice
(B) The Two Paths
(C) The Seven Lamps of Architecture
(D) Modem Painters✔

52. The term ‘the Palliser Novels’ is used to describe the political novels of?
(A) Charles Dickens
(B) Anthony Trollope
(C) W. H. White
(D) B. Disraeli✔

53.✳✳ Identify the poet, whom Queen Victoria, regarded as the perfect poet of ‘love and loss’—
(A) Tennyson
(B) Browning
(C) Swinburne
(D) D. G. Rossetti✔

54. A verse form using stanza of eight lines, each with eleven syllables, is known as?
(A) Spenserian Stanza
(B) Ballad
(C) OttavaRima✔
(D) Rhyme Royal

55. ✳✴Identify the writer who first used blank verse in English poetry?
(A) Sir Thomas Wyatt
(B) William Shakespeare
(C) Earl of Surrey✔
(D) Milton

56. The Aesthetic Movement which blossomed during the 1880s was not influenced by?
(A) The Pre-Raphaelites
(B) Ruskin
(C) Pater
(D) Matthew Arnold✔

57. Identify the rhetorical figure used in the following line of Tennyson “Faith un-faithful kept him falsely true.”
(A) Oxymoron✔
(B) Metaphor
(C) Simile
(D) Synecdoche

58. ✴✴W. B. Yeats used the phrase ‘the artifice of eternity’ in his poem?
(A) Sailing to Byzantium✔
(B) Byzantium
(C) The Second Coming
(D) Leda and the Swan

59. Who is Pip’s friend in London?
(A) Pumblechook
(B) Herbert Pocket
(C) Bentley Drummle
(D) Jaggers✔

60. Who is Mr. Tench in The Power and the Glory?
(A) A teacher
(B) A clerk
(C) A thief✔
(D) A dentist


IMPORTANT MCQ SERIES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR NET



Stay tuned for more mcqs on literature...

English Net exam paper of June 2010

English Net exam paper of June 2010

1. The epithet “a comic epic in prose” is best applied to

(A) Richardson’s Pamela

(B) Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey
(C) Fielding’s Tom Jones
(D) Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe


2. Muriel Spark has written a dystopian novel called

(A) Memento Mori

(B) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

(C) Robinson

(D) The Ballad of Peckham Rye

3. Samuel Butler’s Erewhon is an example of

(A) Feminist Literature
(B) Utopian Literature
(C) War Literature
(D) Famine Literature


4. The line “moments of unageing intellect” occurs in Yeats’s

(A) Byzantium
(B) Among School Children
(C) Sailing to Byzantium
(D) The Circus Animals’ Desertion


5. In his 1817 review of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Francis Jeffrey grouped the following poets together as the ‘Lake School of Poets’:

(A) Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge
(B) Wordsworth, Byron and Coleridge
(C) Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge
(D) Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey


6. Which of the following novels is not by Patrick White?

(A) The Vivisector
(B) The Tree of Man
(C) Voss
(D) Oscar and Lucienda


7. The famous line “……. where ignorant armies clash by night” is taken from a poem by

(A) Wilfred Owen
(B) W.H. Auden
(C) Siegfried Sassoon
(D) Matthew Arnold


8. Which among the following novels is not written by Margaret Atwood?

(A) Surfacing
(B) The Blind Assassin
(C) The Handmaid’s Tale
(D) The Stone Angel


9. The term ‘theatre of cruelty’ was coined by 

(A) Robert Brustein
(B) Antonin Artaud
(C) Augusto Boal
(D) Luigi Pirandello


10. The verse form of Byron’s Childe Haroldwas influenced by

(A) Milton
(B) Spenser
(C) Shakespeare
(D) Pope


11. Tennyson’s Ulysses is

(I) a poem expressing the need for going forward and braving the struggles of life
(II) a dramatic monologue
(III) a morbid poem
(IV) a poem making extensive use of satire 

The right combination for the above statement, according to the code, is

(A) I & IV
(B) II and III
(C) III and IV
(D) I and II


12. Which post-war British poet was involved in a disastrous marriage with Sylvia Plath?

(A) Philip Larkin
(B) Ted Hughes
(C) Stevie Smith
(D) Geoffrey Hill


13. Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowles is in part

(I) a puzzle
(II) a debate
(III) a threnody
(IV) a beast fable

The correct combination for the above statement, according to the code, is

(A) I, II & IV
(B) II, III & IV
(C) I & IV
(D) II & IV


14. Who among the following wrote a book with the title The Age of Reason ?

(A) William Godwin
(B) Edmund Burke
(C) Thomas Paine
(D) Edward Gibbon


15. The Restoration comedy has been criticized mainly for its

(A) excessive wit and humour
(B) bitter satire and cynicism
(C) indecency and permissiveness
(D) superficial reflection of society


16. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses is an essay by

(A) Terry Eagleton
(B) Karl Marx
(C) Raymond Williams
(D) Louis Althusser


17. Sexual possessiveness is a theme of Shakespeare’s

(A) Coriolanus
(B) Julius Caesar
(C) Henry IV Part – I
(D) A Midsummer Night’s Dream


18. The term ‘Cultural Materialism’ is associated with

(A) Stephen Greenblatt
(B) Raymond Williams
(C) Matthew Arnold
(D) Richard Hoggart


19. Which of the following author book pair is correctly matched ?

(A) Muriel Spark – Under the Net
(B) William – Girls of Golding Slender Means
(C) Angus Wilson – Lucky Jim
(D) Doris Lessing – The Grass is Singing


20. Who among the following is a Canadian critic?

(A) I.A. Richards
(B) F.R. Leavis
(C) Cleanth Brooks
(D) Northrop Frye


21. Sethe is a character in

(A) The Colour Purple
(B) The Women of Brewster Place
(C) Beloved
(D) Lucy


22. Imagined Communities is a book by

(A) Aijaz Ahmad
(B) Edward Said
(C) Perry Anderson
(D) Benedict Anderson


23. Who among the following is a Cavalier poet?

(A) Henry Vaughan
(B) Richard Crashaw
(C) John Suckling
(D) Anne Finch


24. Which play of Wilde has the subtitle, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People ?

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


25. Which of the following plays is not written by Wole Soyinka ?

(A) The Lion and the Jewel
(B) The Dance of the Forests
(C) Master Harold and the Boys
(D) Kongi’s Harvest

26. Which of the following plays by William Wycherley is in part an adaptation of Moliere’s The Misanthrope ?

(A) The Plain Dealer
(B) The Country Wife
(C) Love in a Wood
(D) The Gentleman Dancing Master


27. ‘Inversion’ is the change in the word order for creating rhetorical effect, e.g. this book I like. Another term for inversion is 

(A) Hypallage
(B) Hubris
(C) Haiku
(D) Hyperbaton


28. The phrase ‘the willing suspension of disbelief ’ occurs in 

(A) Biographia Literaria
(B) Preface to Lyrical Ballads
(C) In Defence of Poetry
(D) Poetics


29. The religious movement ‘Methodism’ in the 18th century England was founded by

(A) John Tillotson
(B) Bishop Butler
(C) Bernard Mandeville
(D) John Welsey


30. My First Acquaintance with Poets, an unforgettable account of meeting with literary heroes, is written by

(A) Charles Lamb
(B) Thomas de Quincey
(C) Leigh Hunt
(D) William Hazlitt

31. The figure of the Warrior Virgin in Spenser’s Faerie Queene is represented by the character

(A) Britomart
(B) Gloriana
(C) Cynthia
(D) Duessa


32. The book Speech Acts is written by

(A) John Austin
(B) John Searle
(C) Jacques Derrida
(D) Ferdinand de Saussure


33. Which among the following is not a sonnet sequence ?

(A) Philip Sydney – Astrophel and Stella
(B) Samuel Daniel – Delia
(C) Derek Walcott – Omeroos
(D) D.G. Rossetti – The House of Life


34. ‘Incunabula’ refers to 

(A) books censured by the Roman Emperor
(B) books published before the year 1501
(C) books containing an account of myths and rituals
(D) books wrongly attributed to an author


35. The most notable achievement in Jacobean prose was

(A) Bacon’s Essays
(B) King James’ translation of the Bible
(C) Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
(D) None of the above


36. The Court of Chancery is a setting in Dickens’

(A) Little Dorrit
(B) Hard Times
(C) Dombey and Son
(D) Bleak House


37. Which romantic poet coined the famous phrase ‘spots of time’?

(A) John Keats
(B) William Wordsworth
(C) S.T. Coleridge
(D) Lord Byron


38. The statement ‘I think, therefore, I am’ is by

(A) Schopenhauer
(B) Plato
(C) Descartes
(D) Sartre


39. Verse that has no set theme – no regular meter, rhyme or stanzaic pattern is

(I) open form
(II) flexible form
(III) free verse
(IV) blank verse

The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is

(A) I, II and III are correct
(B) III and IV are correct
(C) II, III and IV are correct
(D) I and III are correct


40. Which is the correct sequence of publication of Pinter’s plays?

(A) The Room, One for the Road, No Man’s Land, The Homecoming
(B) The Homecoming, No Man’s Land, The Room, One for the Road
(C) The Room, The Homecoming, No Man’s Land, One for the Road
(D) One for the Road, The Room, The Home coming, No Man’s Land


41. Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language was published in the year

(A) 1710
(B) 1755
(C) 1739
(D) 1759


42. The literary prize, Booker of Bookers, was awarded to

(A) J.M. Coetzee
(B) Nadine Gordimer
(C) Martin Amis
(D) Salman Rushdie


43. In Keats’ poetic career, the most productive year was

(A) 1816
(B) 1817
(C) 1820
(D) 1819


44. Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was published in 1712 in

(A) three cantos
(B) four cantos
(C) five cantos
(D) two cantos


45. Stephen Dedalus is a fictional character associated with

I. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
II. Sons and Lovers
III. Ulysses
IV. The Heart of Darkness

The correct combination for the above statement according to the code is

(A) I &; II
(B) I, II &; III
(C) III &; IV
(D) I &; III


46. In Moby Dick Captain Ahab falls for his

(A) ignorance
(B) pride
(C) courage
(D) drunkenness


47. The first complete printed English Bible was produced by

(A) William Tyndale
(B) William Caxton
(C) Miles Coverdale
(D) Roger Ascham


48. Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Mary Barton is sub-titled

(A) The Two Nations
(B) A Tale of Manchester Life
(C) A Story of Provincial Life
(D) The Factory Girl


49. Some of the Jacobean playwrights were prolific. One of them claimed to have written 200 plays. The playwright is

(A) John Ford
(B) Thomas Dekker
(C) Philip Massinger
(D) Thomas Heywood


50. The concept of “Star-equilibrium” in connection with man-woman relationship appears in

(A) Women in Love
(B) Maurice
(C) Mrs. Dalloway
(D) The Old Wives’ Tales