All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. acatalectic
• B. chiasmus
• C. fantasy
• D. pentameter

Explanation: Chiasmus, which reverses or balances grammatical structures, is identified by critics as a recurring device in The Dubliners.

• A. it is represented in a way that implies collective activity is needed
• B. it reveals the sense of imprisonment that comes from routine
• C. it reveals characters' literal inability to move away from Ireland
• D. All of the Above

Explanation: Paralysis represents the way routine, social forces, and Ireland’s restrictive environment imprison Joyce’s characters and prevent…

• A. The historical evolution of language
• B. The language of different literary genres
• C. The difference between grammar and language
• D. All of the above

Explanation: De Vulgari Eloquentia examines the development of language, the relation between ordinary speech and grammatical Latin, and the vernacular…

• A. Tuscan
• B. Italian
• C. Latin
• D. English

Explanation: Although De Vulgari Eloquentia discusses the Italian vernacular, Dante wrote the treatise itself in Latin, the learned language of…

• A. In written literature
• B. In everyday speech
• C. In essays
• D. In love poetry

Explanation: Dante generally associated Latin with learned, formal prose such as essays and scholarly treatises, while the vernacular was more suitable…

• A. English
• B. Latin
• C. Italian
• D. Tuscan

Explanation: De Monarchia is Dante’s Latin political treatise, written for a learned European audience rather than in the Italian used for much of his…

• A. Thomas More
• B. William Shakespeare
• C. Christopher Marlowe
• D. Philip Sydney

Explanation: Thomas More wrote Utopia, a work of political and social philosophy presented partly as a fictional travel account.

• A. Johnson
• B. Cromwell
• C. Shakespeare
• D. Luther

Explanation: In “The Hero as King,” Carlyle praises Oliver Cromwell as a heroic ruler whose strength and sincerity enabled him to lead during political…

• A. Sesame and Lilies
• B. The Seven Lamps of Architecture
• C. Unto This Last
• D. Fors Clavigera

Explanation: Gandhi was deeply influenced by Ruskin’s Unto This Last, whose ideas about the dignity of labour and social equality helped shape his…

• A. full of didactic sermonising
• B. practically autobiographical fragments
• C. remarkable for their aphoristic style
• D. satirical and critical

Explanation: Lamb’s Essays of Elia draw heavily on memories, personalities, and incidents from his life, making them imaginative autobiographical…

• A. Byron
• B. Shelley
• C. Coleridge
• D. Lamb

Explanation: Biographia Literaria is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s major work of literary criticism and autobiography, published in 1817.

• A. The Stones of Venice
• B. The Two Paths
• C. The Seven Lamps of Architecture
• D. Modem Painters

Explanation: Modern Painters began as Ruskin’s defence of J. M. W. Turner and other contemporary landscape painters against hostile criticism.

• A. six lectures
• B. five lectures
• C. four lectures
• D. seven lectures

Explanation: Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History developed from a series of five lectures delivered in 1840.

• A. 1823
• B. 1826
• C. 1834
• D. 1833

Explanation: The first Essays of Elia appeared in 1823, while the second series, published as The Last Essays of Elia, appeared in 1833.

• A. Graham Greene
• B. D. H. Lawrence
• C. Charles Dickens
• D. Jane Austen

Explanation: The statement reflects D. H. Lawrence’s emphasis on instinct, the body and emotional experience over purely intellectual reasoning.

• A. Kubla Khan
• B. Christabel
• C. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• D. Biographia Literaria

Explanation: Biographia Literaria is Coleridge’s major prose work, combining autobiography, literary criticism, and philosophical discussion.

• A. Charles Lamb
• B. John Keats
• C. Shelley
• D. William Wordsworth

Explanation: Coleridge became a close friend of Charles Lamb while both were pupils at Christ’s Hospital, known as the Bluecoat School.

• A. The Romantic Philosophy
• B. The Spectator
• C. The Explicator
• D. The Watchman

Explanation: The Watchman was Coleridge’s short-lived political and literary journal, published in 1796.

• A. "Christian Doctrines"
• B. "On Regicide"
• C. "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce"
• D. "Paradise Lost"

Explanation: Milton defended the legitimacy of divorce in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce after his separation from Mary Powell and the social…

• A. Samuel Johnson
• B. Edmund Spencer
• C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• D. T. S. Eliot

Explanation: Samuel Johnson wrote “Milton,” one of the biographical essays in his Lives of the Poets.