All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. French
• B. Greek
• C. Roman
• D. German

Explanation: The elegy developed from the Greek elegiac couplet, a metrical form consisting of alternating hexameter and pentameter lines.

• A. Dalila pays Samson's ransom from prison.
• B. Dalila refuses to pay Samson's ransom in prison.
• C. Never records Dalila's visit to Samson in prison.
• D. Never records Dalila's cutting of Samson's hair.

Explanation: Judges records Delilah's betrayal of Samson before his imprisonment, but it does not describe her visiting him in prison.

• A. both statements end up happening that day.
• B. both statements end up not happening that day.
• C. Samson is echoing the older prediction of the prophet Enoch.
• D. both statements will later be fulfilled by Christ.

Explanation: Samson's prediction has a double fulfilment: he performs the great act of destroying the Philistine temple, and that act also becomes the…

• A. The first sonnet form invented was the
• B. Spenserian
• C. Shakespearean
• D. Wordsworthian
• E. Petrarchan

Explanation: The Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet is the earliest of the standard sonnet forms listed here; the Spenserian and Shakespearean forms…

• A. history play
• B. tragedy
• C. comedy
• D. Morality Play

Explanation: Milton identifies Samson Agonistes as a tragedy in its prefatory introduction and models it on Greek tragic drama.

• A. In "Samson," Samson is blind, but he is not in "Judges."
• B. In "Samson," Manoa is Samson's father, but he is not in "Judges."
• C. In "Samson," Samson is married to Dalila, but he is not in "Judges."
• D. In "Samson," Dalila cuts Samson's hair, but she does not in "Judges."

Explanation: In Judges, Samson has a wife, but Delilah is not identified as his wife.

• A. Invocation of a muse
• B. A cry of lament
• C. Prayer to the Sun
• D. A and B

Explanation: A pastoral elegy conventionally opens with a lament for the dead and often accompanies it with an invocation to a muse or other poetic…

• A. A quest for knowledge of the self
• B. A quest for knowledge of other countries
• C. A quest for knowledge of the future
• D. A quest for Forbidden Knowledge

Explanation: Paradise Regained focuses on Christ's inward testing and his discovery or demonstration of spiritual identity and purpose through…

• A. The Son
• B. Raphael
• C. Michael
• D. Adam

Explanation: Michael narrates the future history of humankind to Adam in Books XI and XII, covering events from the Fall through later biblical…

• A. Bath
• B. Paris
• C. London
• D. Nottingham

Explanation: John Milton was born in London on 9 December 1608. He later studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, before becoming one of the major…

• A. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew
• B. Latin, Sanskrit, and Aramaic
• C. Latin, Arabic, and Spanish
• D. Mandarin, Dutch, and French

Explanation: Milton had a strong classical and biblical education and was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, among other languages.

• A. William Wordsworth
• B. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• C. William Blake
• D. John Keats

Explanation: William Blake illustrated Milton's Paradise Lost in a celebrated series of designs and engravings.

• A. A brief summary of "Paradise Lost"
• B. A detailed description of Satan
• C. A detailed description of Milton himself
• D. A and B

Explanation: Paradise Regained opens by recalling the subject and loss described in Paradise Lost before turning to Christ's temptation and victory.

• A. visible, inaccessible
• B. inaccessible, omnipresent
• C. nonexistent, invisible
• D. invisible, omnipresent

Explanation: Milton's God is invisible because he is spiritual and cannot be represented like a classical deity, yet omnipresent because he exists…

• A. England's first poet
• B. England's first dramatist
• C. England's poet laureate
• D. England's greatest civil engineer

Explanation: Milton believed from youth that he was destined for exceptional poetic achievement and was often described as aspiring to become England's…

• A. Nature is immediately wounded by Eve's transgression.
• B. Satan is immediately wounded by Eve's transgression.
• C. Raphael is immediately wounded by Eve's transgression.
• D. Abdiel immediately flees the Council of Rebel Angels.

Explanation: When Eve eats the fruit, the effect reaches beyond humanity: the Earth feels the wound and Nature gives signs of sorrow.

• A. The Book of "Genesis"
• B. The Book of "Revelations"
• C. "The Odyssey"
• D. "Canterbury Tales"

Explanation: Paradise Lost draws its central account of the Fall from Genesis, especially the story of Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the forbidden tree.

• A. Pastoral elegy
• B. Prose polemic
• C. Blank verse tragedy
• D. Masque

Explanation: Lycidas is a pastoral elegy: Milton mourns Edward King through the conventions of shepherds, classical mythology, and a lament for the…

• A. Transubstantiation
• B. Free will
• C. Predestination
• D. Sufficience

Explanation: The phrase “free to fall” expresses the doctrine of free will: Adam was created upright but had the liberty to choose disobedience.

• A. Greek Olympic Games
• B. A Roman Circus
• C. A Gladiator competition
• D. A and B

Explanation: Samson is asked to become a public spectacle for the Philistines, recalling both Greek athletic contests and Roman circus displays.