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 4 of 160
- A. The poem contrasts the image of a child in its mother's womb with cruel devaluation of human life in wartime.
- B. The poem praises those technological achievements which protect human life in wartime.
- C. The poem uses images of the apocalypse to criticize the cruelty of war.
- D. The poem presents the war as a natural part of the perennial cycles of human history.
Explanation: The speaker begins as a child in the womb and ends as a disposable body expelled from the gun turret, linking birth imagery with the…
Correct answer: The poem contrasts the image of a child in its mother's womb with cruel devaluation of human life in wartime.- A. American Romanticism
- B. British Neo-Classicism
- C. Kabalistic Judaism
- D. Taoism
Explanation: Zukofsky's poetry was influenced by Kabbalistic Judaism, particularly its traditions of language, mysticism and interpretation.
Correct answer: Kabalistic Judaism- A. These lines evoke Christian imagery to emphasize the dignity of the girl who died.
- B. These lines evoke Christian imagery to suggest that death erases racial divisions.
- C. These lines present the problem of racial prejudice in an ironic mode.
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: The roses, candles, Madonna, and Lord Death draw on Christian devotional imagery, giving the dead girl sacred dignity.
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. Imagism
- B. Classicism
- C. British Romanticism
- D. Vorticism
Explanation: Stevens treats imagination as an active force that reshapes reality rather than as mere escape from it, a view closely related to British…
Correct answer: British Romanticism- A. endorsement of Marxism.
- B. interest in ancient Rome.
- C. anti-capitalism.
- D. interest in Fourier's utopian socialist thought.
Explanation: Pound’s anti-capitalist convictions helped lead him toward fascist economic ideas and an increasingly conspiratorial political outlook…
Correct answer: anti-capitalism.- A. Being overworked in menial jobs having to raise large families
- B. Being a subordinated woman in a male dominated culture and a member of a suppressed minority race in the middle of a dominant white culture
- C. Having little formal education with little access to publishers
- D. Being ignored by a traditional poetry reading public because what they wrote about was the travails of subsistence living
Explanation: The double bind combined two forms of marginalization: these poets were women in a male-dominated culture and African Americans in a…
Correct answer: Being a subordinated woman in a male dominated culture and a member of a suppressed minority race in the middle of a dominant white culture- A. He was a native New Yorker who did not travel much but who was keenly aware of New York's complexity and diversity.
- B. He moved to New York from Alabama and the stark contrast between these places deeply influenced his writing.
- C. He was born in Missouri and traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world before he moved to New York City.
- D. He spent most of his life in Washington, DC, moving to Harlem only after he gained literary fame.
Explanation: Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and travelled widely before publishing The Weary Blues in 1926, including experiences that broadened…
Correct answer: He was born in Missouri and traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world before he moved to New York City.- A. The Great Depression
- B. Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939
- C. The Russian Civil War
- D. World War I
Explanation: The Great Depression discredited capitalism for many intellectuals and made communism appear to offer an alternative based on economic…
Correct answer: The Great Depression- A. It is a meditation on the alienation of the modern person from nature.
- B. It is a meditation on the cultural isolation of African Americans in New England.
- C. It is a meditation on the communal and historical aspects of individual identity.
- D. It is a meditation on the poet's personal experience of assimilation.
Explanation: The poem connects the speaker to ancient rivers and generations, making personal identity part of a shared African and human history.
Correct answer: It is a meditation on the communal and historical aspects of individual identity.- A. Wilfred Owen
- B. Keith Douglas
- C. Randall Jarrell
- D. Karl Shapiro
Explanation: Wilfred Owen wrote about the First World War and died in 1918. Keith Douglas, Randall Jarrell, and Karl Shapiro are associated with…
Correct answer: Wilfred Owen- A. His study of ancient history
- B. His study of law
- C. His study of medicine
- D. His study of Sanskrit
Explanation: Reznikoff’s study and practice of law encouraged a documentary, precise style based on observed facts rather than romantic rhetoric.
Correct answer: His study of law- A. It refers to a group of talented American émigré writers who lived in Europe after World War I.
- B. It refers to the young generation whose coming of age was interrupted by World War I.
- C. It refers to English poets who sought refuge in New York City after World War I ended.
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: The Lost Generation commonly refers to American writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald who lived in Europe after World War I, and more…
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. H.D.
- B. Hart Crane
- C. William Carlos Williams
- D. T.S. Eliot
Explanation: Hart Crane attempted to evoke elements of Black experience and culture, especially through musical and cultural imagery in The Bridge.
Correct answer: Hart Crane- A. It is the racial discrimination endemic in the white community.
- B. It is the racial segregation in the South.
- C. It is a widespread "urge toward whiteness" among African Americans.
- D. It is a widespread "urge to incorporate and neutralize other cultures" among white Americans.
Explanation: Hughes calls the racial mountain the internalized desire of many African Americans to conform to white cultural standards and reject their…
Correct answer: It is a widespread "urge toward whiteness" among African Americans.- A. Edgar Allan Poe
- B. Herman Melville
- C. Thomas Gray
- D. Henry David Thoreau
Explanation: The phrase is spoken by Bartleby, the scrivener, in Herman Melville's short story, where his polite refusal becomes a repeated challenge…
Correct answer: Herman Melville- A. A group of self-imposed American expatriates living in Paris that included Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, and Henry Miller
- B. A group of artists and writers who were deeply marked by the traumas of World War I
- C. Any American in self-exile in Europe to avoid fighting in World War I
- D. A and B only
Explanation: The Lost Generation broadly refers to American writers and artists disillusioned or deeply affected by World War I, including expatriates…
Correct answer: A and B only- A. Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"
- B. James Joyce's "Dubliners"
- C. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
- D. Friedrich Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols"
Explanation: Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises portrays expatriates disillusioned after the First World War, the group known as the Lost Generation.
Correct answer: Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"- A. James Joyce
- B. Vladimir Nabokov
- C. T.S. Eliot
- D. Joseph Conrad
Explanation: Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov were both born in 1899. Joyce was born in 1882, Eliot in 1888, and Conrad in 1857.
Correct answer: Vladimir Nabokov- A. Sir Thomas More
- B. Sir Walter Raleigh
- C. John Foxe
- D. John Lyly
Explanation: Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored the 1585 English colony on Roanoke Island, an early attempt to establish an English settlement in North…
Correct answer: Sir Walter Raleigh- A. An early aspect of ethnic criticism
- B. An understanding of how double experiences create identity
- C. A concept developed by W.E.B Du Bois
- D. All of the above answers are correct.
Explanation: W. E. B. Du Bois developed double consciousness to describe the divided self-awareness produced by seeing oneself through both one's own…
Correct answer: All of the above answers are correct.