All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
• B. the Toleration Act
• C. the failed invasion of the Spanish Armada
• D. the Act of Union

Explanation: The Act of Union of 1707 united the kingdoms of England and Scotland under one Parliament, significantly changing their political and…

• A. Goethe's Faust in Faust, who is sinful because he attempts to exceed the bounds of human knowledge by making a pact with the devil but is nonetheless redeemed in his striving to break free of the bounds of mortality
• B. Icarus, who is killed in attempting to fly because only Gods have the power to fly and mortals must be taught the limitations of human existence
• C. Prometheus, who succeeds in stealing fire from the Gods and thereby surpasses the limitations placed on humans by the Gods
• D. A and C only

Explanation: Romantic writers admired figures who challenged human limits, especially Faust's striving and Prometheus's theft of divine fire.

• A. supernatural phenomenon
• B. perversion and sadism, often involving a maiden's persecution
• C. plots of mystery and terror set in inhospitable, sullen landscapes
• D. all of the above

Explanation: Gothic fiction commonly combines supernatural events, terror and mystery, hostile landscapes, and persecution or sadism involving…

• A. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein
• B. William Worsworth's Lyrical Ballads
• C. John Keats's "To Autumn"
• D. all but C

Explanation: Frankenstein presents the Creature as a rejected social outcast, while Lyrical Ballads repeatedly gives dignity and attention to marginal…

• A. a French revolutionary
• B. a Greek or Roman mythological figure
• C. a monster fabricated in a laboratory
• D. All would have been appropriate protagonists for a Romantic literary text.

Explanation: Romantic literature welcomed revolutionary figures, classical or mythological subjects, and beings alienated from ordinary society…

• A. Spenser
• B. John Gower
• C. Geoffrey Chaucer
• D. Langland

Explanation: Geoffrey Chaucer is often called the "Morning Star of the Renaissance" because his human-centred writing anticipates Renaissance literary…

• A. William Beckford's Vathek
• B. Matthew Lewis's The Monk
• C. Tobias Smollett's Roderick Randsom
• D. Ann Radcliffe's The Italian

Explanation: Vathek, The Monk, and The Italian use characteristic Gothic features such as terror, mystery, exotic settings, and supernatural or…

• A. Augustan
• B. Metaphysical
• C. Romantic
• D. Neo-Romantic

Explanation: The Augustan Age consciously modelled English literature on the classical culture associated with Augustus and Roman writers such as…

• A. John Dryden
• B. Henry Vaughan
• C. Alexander Pope
• D. Ben Jonson

Explanation: Henry Vaughan is chiefly associated with the Metaphysical poets, whereas Dryden, Pope, and Jonson are commonly linked with neoclassical…

• A. a field of daffodils
• B. the "Orient"
• C. a graveyard
• D. All of the above would be appropriate settings for Romantic literature.

Explanation: Romantic literature commonly uses all three settings: nature such as daffodil fields, exotic Eastern landscapes, and graveyards associated…

• A. the Behnites
• B. the bluestockings
• C. the coteries of plenty
• D. the Pre-Raphaelites

Explanation: The Bluestockings were an influential circle of educated women associated with Elizabeth Vesey and Elizabeth Montagu.

• A. Commercial and public lending libraries were established in order to provide for an enlarged reading public
• B. Education reform increased literacy, thus creating a demand for commercial and public lending libraries.
• C. A new aesthetics of valuing literature for its own sake emphasized reading for pleasure.
• D. all of the above

Explanation: The expansion of literacy created a larger reading public, while lending libraries and the idea of reading for pleasure made books easier…

• A. William Godwin's Inquiry Concerning Political Justice
• B. Percy Bysshe Shelley's England in 1819
• C. William Godwin's Caleb Williams
• D. all of the above

Explanation: All three works engage with class and inequality: Godwin discusses political and economic systems, Caleb Williams dramatizes class power…

• A. snide indifference
• B. biblical reverence
• C. condemning censure
• D. satirical derision

Explanation: Many Romantic writers initially treated the French Revolution with a hopeful, almost sacred faith in human freedom and renewal, giving…

• A. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• B. William Wordsworth
• C. George Gordon, Lord Byron
• D. all of the above

Explanation: Shelley, Wordsworth, and Byron all wrote poetry as well as other forms such as essays, drama, or prose fiction.

• A. The Way of the World
• B. The Foundational Ladder
• C. The Order of Angels
• D. The Great Chain of Being

Explanation: The Great Chain of Being was the traditional hierarchical scheme that arranged all existence from God and angels through humanity and…

• A. London Magazine
• B. The Spectator
• C. The Edinburgh Review
• D. A and C only

Explanation: The Edinburgh Review began in 1802, and the London Magazine was also active during the Romantic era.

• A. Sir John Denham
• B. Ben Jonson
• C. Thomas Carew
• D. John Dryden

Explanation: Ben Jonson wrote “To Penshurst,” a country-house poem that presents order, hierarchy, and classical restraint associated with neoclassical…

• A. smoking opium
• B. hypnotism
• C. psychoanalysis
• D. dream interpretation

Explanation: Mesmerism was an early term for a practice believed to produce altered states through magnetic or suggestive influence; the modern term is…

• A. formal diplomatic relations with China
• B. the exploitation of colonial resources, labor, and the slave trade
• C. the American and French revolutions
• D. the creation of the bourgeois novel as a commodity

Explanation: Britain's eighteenth-century wealth was strongly supported by colonial exploitation, enslaved labour, and the Atlantic slave trade…