All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. love."
• B. honor."
• C. money."
• D. his party."

Explanation: Johnson's famous remark means that writing is normally undertaken for financial reward: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for…

• A. William Hogarth
• B. Jonathan Swift
• C. Samuel Johnson
• D. Ben Jonson

Explanation: Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755 and was notable for its extensive definitions supported by more than…

• A. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Wroth, and Elizabeth Cary
• B. Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood
• C. Anne Finch, Anne Killigrew, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
• D. Rachel Speght, Katherine Philips, and Frances Burney

Explanation: Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood were prominent women writers associated with sexually frank or otherwise sensational…

• A. Elephant and Castle
• B. Grub Street
• C. Covent Garden
• D. Cheapside

Explanation: Grub Street in London became associated with poorly paid hack writers, publishers, and journalistic scandal mongers.

• A. the disestablishment of the church and the removal of bishops
• B. the right of the people to dismiss and even execute their rulers
• C. the free circulation of ideas without prior censorship
• D. the restoration of the monarchy

Explanation: Milton defended religious disestablishment, popular resistance to tyrants, and freedom from prior censorship in his political prose.

• A. Izaak Walton
• B. Katherine Philips
• C. John Skelton
• D. Isabella Whitney

Explanation: Izaak Walton wrote Life of Dr John Donne, a biographical work that helped establish Donne’s literary reputation.

• A. the novel
• B. the sermon
• C. the familiar essay
• D. the diary

Explanation: The familiar essay emerged as an important prose form in the Jacobean period, especially through Francis Bacon’s concise reflections on…

• A. The Litany in a Time of Plague
• B. Utopia
• C. Leviathan
• D. The Advancement of Learning

Explanation: Leviathan (1651) defends a powerful sovereign as necessary to prevent disorder after people enter a social contract.

• A. Elizabeth Eisenstein
• B. Johannes Gutenberg
• C. Henry VIII
• D. William Caxton

Explanation: William Caxton established the first English printing press at Westminster in 1476 and printed major English works, including Chaucer's…

• A. Cavalcanti
• B. Castiglione
• C. Pirandello
• D. Boccaccio

Explanation: Il Cortegiano, commonly translated as The Book of the Courtier, was written by Baldassare Castiglione.

• A. Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
• B. William Shakespeare's King Lear
• C. Thomas More's The History of King Richard III
• D. Thomas More's Utopia

Explanation: More's Utopia was first published in Latin in 1516 and was translated into English by Ralph Robinson in 1551.

• A. charity
• B. patronage
• C. censorship
• D. subscription

Explanation: Patronage was the traditional system in which wealthy nobles, monarchs, or institutions financially supported writers in return for…

• A. Castiglione's \The Courtier\
• B. Dante's \Divine Comedy\
• C. Boccaccio's \Decameron\
• D. Machiavelli's \The Prince\

Explanation: Machiavelli's The Prince examines political power, statecraft, intrigue, and the methods by which rulers gain and retain authority.

• A. English travelers were not obliged to learn French, Italian, or Spanish during their explorations of the Continent.
• B. English was fast supplanting Latin as the second language of most European intellectuals.
• C. English travelers often returned from the Continent with foreign fashions, much to the delight of moralists.
• D. Intending his Utopia for an international intellectual community, Thomas More wrote in Latin, since English had no prestige outside of England.

Explanation: More wrote Utopia in Latin because Latin was the international language of educated Europeans, whereas English had little prestige beyond…

• A. Julian of Norwich
• B. Margery Kempe
• C. William Langland
• D. Sir Thomas Malory

Explanation: Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur celebrates the Arthurian world and its code of knightly chivalry, especially through figures such as…

• A. courtiers entering the service of Richard II
• B. translators of French romances
• C. women who have chosen to live as religious recluses
• D. knights preparing for their first tournament

Explanation: The Ancrene Riwle, or Ancrene Wisse, was written as a guide for anchoresses, women who lived as religious recluses.

• A. 1374 to 1385
• B. 1350 to 1360
• C. 1360 to 1400
• D. none of the above

Explanation: Chaucer served as a controller of customs at the London port from 1374 to 1385, in addition to his literary and diplomatic work.

• A. She sought unsuccessfully to restore classical paganism.
• B. She was a virgin martyr.
• C. She is the first known woman writer in the English vernacular.
• D. She made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago.

Explanation: Julian of Norwich is generally regarded as the first known woman writer in English whose work survives, especially through Revelations of…

• A. That it is necessary to contain mad women
• B. That it is an artificial patriarchal tool
• C. That men also are mad
• D. That female madness is a serious obstacle to women's liberation

Explanation: Gilman suggests that the label of female madness can be produced or intensified by patriarchal confinement and medical authority.

• A. People are foolishly superstitious.
• B. A world devoid of supernatural phenomena is a better world.
• C. A belief in ghosts is a belief in imagination.
• D. The personification of nature is regressive.

Explanation: For Mary Shelley, ghosts are closely connected with the imaginative power of the mind: belief in them reveals how imagination gives form…