All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers
Every English Literature question in the bank, across all chapters, each with the correct answer and a written explanation. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
3,192 questions · page 152 of 160
- A. Like the novel, it focused on romantic relationships.
- B. Like the novel, it foregrounded abstract reason over experience and emotion.
- C. Like the novel, it emphasized the importance of sympathy and individual feelings.
- D. Like the novel, it demonized the aristocracy.
Explanation: The eighteenth-century cult of sensibility valued sympathy, moral feeling, and the individual's emotional experience.
Correct answer: Like the novel, it emphasized the importance of sympathy and individual feelings.3022. Which of the following novelists was NOT associated with the rise of the novel as a literary form ?
- A. Samuel Richardson
- B. Laurence Sterne
- C. Daniel Defoe
- D. Charles Dickens
Explanation: Defoe, Richardson, and Sterne were central eighteenth-century figures in the rise of the English novel.
Correct answer: Charles Dickens- A. The need for linguistic correctness as exemplified in his Dictionary
- B. The promise of universal knowledge as epitomized by the Encyclopédie
- C. The ultimate impossibility of achieving happiness, as espoused in his poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes"
- D. The need for self-sufficiency as detailed in novels like Robinson Crusoe
Explanation: Rasselas tests the possibility of finding lasting happiness and concludes that worldly choices cannot remove human dissatisfaction.
Correct answer: The ultimate impossibility of achieving happiness, as espoused in his poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes"- A. It provides access to the heroine's innermost reactions.
- B. It does not cloud the novel with authorial intrusion that confuses the emotions.
- C. It provides a sense of immediacy because the letters are written in the thick of the action.
- D. All of these answers
Explanation: Pamela's letters reveal the heroine's private feelings, avoid much authorial filtering, and create immediacy because events are recorded…
Correct answer: All of these answers- A. It focuses on a royal hero.
- B. It denies being imagined in favor of claims of realism.
- C. It focuses on adventures.
- D. It connects to poetry.
Explanation: Behn contrasts a supposedly real history with the invented adventures of a poet's hero, foregrounding the novel's claim to factual or…
Correct answer: It denies being imagined in favor of claims of realism.- A. His relationship to God and Christianity
- B. His understanding of the basis of economics
- C. His ability to identify with the slaves he has sold
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Crusoe's solitude leads him to reassess his relationship with God while also making him practise labour, production, exchange, and…
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. Nature as mirroring the human mind and its imagination
- B. The limits of scientific attempts to understand and control the world
- C. The poet as special interpreter of the world
- D. The centrality of subjective experience to apprehending the world
Explanation: Frankenstein presents scientific ambition as dangerous when it seeks to control life without accepting moral responsibility.
Correct answer: The limits of scientific attempts to understand and control the world- A. Pamela's attempt to seduce her employer
- B. Pamela's parents' attempt to marry her to a wealthy landowner
- C. Pamela's struggle to overcome her poverty through hard-work
- D. Pamela's attempts to protect her chastity from the advances of her employer
Explanation: Pamela is a sentimental novel because it centres moral feeling, virtue, and the heroine’s emotional struggle.
Correct answer: Pamela's attempts to protect her chastity from the advances of her employer- A. Penal reform
- B. Educational reform
- C. The role of the monarchy
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Great Expectations raises concerns about the treatment of criminals and the prison system through Magwitch, while also criticizing the…
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. Nonfiction
- B. Travel memoir
- C. Detective story
- D. Biography
Explanation: Oroonoko combines fictionalized biography, travel writing and the conventions of nonfiction or eyewitness narrative.
Correct answer: Detective story- A. Horror
- B. The sublime
- C. Suspense
- D. PicaresqueRead Classic Poetry
Explanation: Horror, suspense and the sublime are standard features of Gothic fiction, while the picaresque novel follows the episodic adventures of a…
Correct answer: PicaresqueRead Classic Poetry- A. Marxism
- B. Christian Humanism
- C. Feminism
- D. New Historicism
Explanation: Utopia reflects Christian Humanism, which combined classical learning and reason with Christian moral concerns.
Correct answer: Christian Humanism- A. Elizabeth I
- B. Elizabeth II
- C. Mary, Queen of Scots
- D. Catherine of Aragon
Explanation: Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and ruled England from 1558 to 1603.
Correct answer: Elizabeth I- A. A member of the royalty
- B. A lowborn, wandering adventurer
- C. A member of the middle class engaging in self-exploration
- D. A child as he or she develops into an adult
Explanation: A picaresque novel follows a picaro, a lowborn and usually wandering rogue or adventurer who survives through wit and experience.
Correct answer: A lowborn, wandering adventurer- A. A novel that attacks the lower classes
- B. A novel set in Europe in the 18th century
- C. A novel that explores the behavior and values of a particular class of people
- D. A novel that explores class conflict
Explanation: A novel of manners examines the customs, social behavior, values, and expectations of a particular class or social group.
Correct answer: A novel that explores the behavior and values of a particular class of people- A. The language in which they are written
- B. The way they view reality
- C. The way they are structured
- D. The type of people who write them
Explanation: Richard Chase distinguishes the novel from romance chiefly by its attitude toward reality: the novel tends toward ordinary, social, and…
Correct answer: The way they view reality- A. Character
- B. Setting
- C. Plot
- D. All of these
Explanation: Character, setting, and plot are foundational elements used to examine how a novel constructs its fictional world and narrative.
Correct answer: All of these- A. The conflict between marriages based on love and those based on money
- B. The ways in which appearances don't always match realities
- C. The danger in not recognizing the difference between reality and fiction
- D. All of these
Explanation: Northanger Abbey combines all three concerns: Catherine confronts the gap between appearance and reality, Gothic fiction distorts her…
Correct answer: All of these- A. A narrative that emphasizes character development
- B. A narrative with a unified, plausible plot structure
- C. A narrative that conveys the illusion of reality
- D. All of these
Explanation: These features commonly combine in definitions of the novel: it develops characters, presents a coherent and plausible plot, and creates…
Correct answer: All of these- A. wanted to subvert middle class values.
- B. accepted middle class values.
- C. wrote in a hyperrealistic fashion.
- D. had a negative view of human nature.
Explanation: Victorian fiction generally worked within, rather than openly rejecting, the moral and social assumptions of the expanding middle class.
Correct answer: accepted middle class values.