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 36 of 160
- A. What is literature?
- B. Why do people write literature?
- C. What are the effects of literature?
- D. All of these.
Explanation: Literary theory asks what literature is, why it is produced, and how it affects readers and society.
Correct answer: All of these.- A. Plot
- B. Poetic diction
- C. Song composition
- D. Stage design
Explanation: In the Poetics, Aristotle calls plot the soul or organizing principle of tragedy because the arrangement of actions produces the tragic…
Correct answer: Plot- A. How women are portrayed in literary texts
- B. The psychologies of female writers
- C. How women have been socially oppressed in literary texts
- D. All of these
Explanation: Feminist criticism examines the representation and social oppression of women, as well as gender assumptions in literature and the…
Correct answer: All of these- A. Marxist criticism
- B. Reader-response criticism
- C. Psychoanalytic criticism
- D. New Criticism
Explanation: Marxist criticism studies class relations, economic forces, ideology, and the distribution of social power represented in literature.
Correct answer: Marxist criticism- A. passive readers and critics of literary texts.
- B. involved in critical conversations about literary texts.
- C. capable of realizing that the viewpoints of some critics are more important than others.
- D. aware that Hamlet is a remarkable work of literature.
Explanation: They Say, I Say presents academic writing as participation in an ongoing conversation: writers identify existing views and then develop…
Correct answer: involved in critical conversations about literary texts.- A. A hypothesis about how literary texts can be understood
- B. A methodology for applying ideas to literary texts
- C. The practice of interpreting literary texts
- D. A trend in university English departments
Explanation: Paul Fry presents literary theory as a hypothesis or set of ideas about how literary texts may be understood.
Correct answer: A hypothesis about how literary texts can be understood- A. the psychologies of individual authors.
- B. the typographical structures of literary texts.
- C. translation issues.
- D. how children relate to their parents in terms of literary texts.
Explanation: Early psychoanalytic criticism commonly treated literary works as expressions of the author's unconscious motives and psychology.
Correct answer: the psychologies of individual authors.- A. Hamlet is placed in a position that can be conceptualized as feminine.
- B. Hamlet despises his mother and suspects she has killed his father.
- C. Hamlet is entirely masculinized throughout the play, and thus, is ultimately unlike his mother in terms of his position in the play.
- D. Hamlet has a personality disorder.
Explanation: Shoaf's argument places Hamlet in a position conventionally associated with the feminine, particularly through his relationship with his…
Correct answer: Hamlet is placed in a position that can be conceptualized as feminine.- A. Formalism focuses on examining how a text exemplifies its writer's psychology.
- B. Formalism focuses on examining the structural dynamics of poems.
- C. Formalism focuses on examining the use of literary devices within a literary text.
- D. Formalism focuses on examining the historical contexts and backgrounds of literary texts.
Explanation: Formalism studies a work's internal construction, including its patterns, devices, and techniques, rather than its author's psychology or…
Correct answer: Formalism focuses on examining the use of literary devices within a literary text.- A. New Historicism was a reaction against New Criticism, which was seen as too narrowly focused on text rather than context.
- B. Both fields of literary study are American in origin.
- C. New Historicism is simply an early form of Cultural Materialism.
- D. Both fields of study are strictly focused on how readers interpret and invent meanings for literary texts.
Explanation: New Historicism developed partly in reaction to New Criticism's emphasis on the self-contained text.
Correct answer: New Historicism was a reaction against New Criticism, which was seen as too narrowly focused on text rather than context.- A. Hamlet is a tragedy focusing on the plight of the early-modern self.
- B. Hamlet is a tragedy that reflects Shakespeare's own political circumstances.
- C. Hamlet is a tragedy that focuses on the Elizabethan era's loss of faith in humanity's ability to govern itself without violence.
- D. Hamlet is a tragedy that reflects upon enlightened and progressive political systems that developed during Shakespeare's time.
Explanation: DiMatteo reads Hamlet through early modern debates about sovereignty and reason of state, showing anxiety about political authority and…
Correct answer: Hamlet is a tragedy that focuses on the Elizabethan era's loss of faith in humanity's ability to govern itself without violence.- A. An understanding of the various conceptions and understandings of gender that have carried throughout various cultures
- B. An understanding of gender as a human construct
- C. An understanding of how standard histories of western societies are presented in terms of heterosexual identity
- D. All of these.
Explanation: Gender theory examines gender as a cultural construct, the different meanings assigned to it across societies, and the way histories often…
Correct answer: All of these.- A. psychoanalytic criticism.
- B. Marxist criticism.
- C. New Criticism.
- D. structuralism.
Explanation: Psychoanalytic criticism applies ideas about the unconscious, childhood experiences, and psychological trauma to literature.
Correct answer: psychoanalytic criticism.- A. Historically, writers have been considered liars or at the very least irrelevant.
- B. Fictionalizing reality is a basic human need.
- C. Every text includes traces from the outside world, including social, historical, and literary remnants.
- D. All of these.
Explanation: Iser presents fictionalizing as a human activity through which reality is selected, rearranged, and represented in texts.
Correct answer: All of these.- A. As a crazed fool
- B. As a profound philosophical genius
- C. As boyish and immature
- D. As a brilliant warrior
Explanation: For Hazlitt, Hamlet’s defining quality is his extraordinary intellectual and philosophical depth.
Correct answer: As a profound philosophical genius- A. readers choose their favorite works of literature.
- B. readers experience a literary work.
- C. readers decide which works of literature to read.
- D. readers develop their own unique and personal critical discourses.
Explanation: Reader-response theory shifts attention from the text alone to the reader’s activity, including how a literary work is perceived, felt…
Correct answer: readers experience a literary work.- A. logical in terms of plot and structure.
- B. complex in terms of plot and structure.
- C. without any sort of moral insight.
- D. sad.
Explanation: Aristotle requires a tragedy to have a coherent, unified plot in which events follow probability or necessity.
Correct answer: logical in terms of plot and structure.- A. Traditional literary criticism is mainly focused on exploring gender issues.
- B. Traditional literary criticism only examines pre-20th-century literary texts.
- C. Traditional literary criticism focused on tracking influences and textual allusions and considering the historical contexts of literary texts.
- D. Traditional literary criticism attempted to consider the psychological aspects of literary texts.
Explanation: Traditional historical and comparative criticism commonly traced literary influences, allusions, and connections with the social and…
Correct answer: Traditional literary criticism focused on tracking influences and textual allusions and considering the historical contexts of literary texts.- A. The political and social meanings of literary texts
- B. Characters who are sympathetic to issues facing the working classes
- C. The relationship between economics and the production of literary texts
- D. All of these
Explanation: Marxist criticism studies literature in relation to class, ideology, politics, and the economic conditions of its production.
Correct answer: All of these- A. Hamlet desires his mother, not Ophelia.
- B. Hamlet desires revenge, not Ophelia.
- C. Hamlet desires Ophelia, but only when she is unattainable.
- D. Hamlet desires attaining the throne of Denmark, of which Ophelia is a symbol.Collect Classic Novels
Explanation: Lacan's reading links Hamlet's desire for Ophelia to the structure of desire itself: what is desired becomes most powerful when it is…
Correct answer: Hamlet desires Ophelia, but only when she is unattainable.