All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. one who is in agony.
• B. one who inflicts agony.
• C. one who struggles for or champions a cause.
• D. one who predicts the future.

Explanation: The Greek agonistes refers to a person who struggles or fights for a cause, which suits Milton’s title Samson Agonistes.

• A. An Epic Council
• B. An "Arming of the Hero" Scene
• C. A "Tragic Recognition" Speech
• D. An Invocation to the Muse

Explanation: An epic commonly includes a Muse invocation, an arming scene, and a council of divine or supernatural beings.

• A. Shelley
• B. Lord Byron
• C. Wordsworth
• D. Keats

Explanation: The famous statement refers to Lord Byron, who reportedly woke to find himself famous after the publication of the first two cantos of…

• A. Geoffrey Chaucer
• B. William Shakespeare
• C. John Milton
• D. Christopher Marlowe

Explanation: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of linked stories told by pilgrims travelling to Canterbury.

• A. Thomas Carlyle
• B. Alexander Pope
• C. John Dryden
• D. John Ruskin

Explanation: John Dryden became the first officially recognised Poet Laureate of England in 1668.

• A. Thomas Wyatt
• B. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
• C. Sir Thomas more
• D. None of the above

Explanation: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, introduced blank verse into English literature through his translation of parts of Virgil's Aeneid.

• A. Jintishi
• B. Villanelle
• C. Ode
• D. Tanka

Explanation: Tanka is a traditional Japanese five-line poetic form with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic pattern.

• A. Leigh Hunt
• B. Milton
• C. Shakespeare
• D. Thomas Chatterton

Explanation: Keats dedicated Endymion to Thomas Chatterton, the young poet whom Keats admired as a fellow poetic genius.

• A. John Gower
• B. Julian of Norwich
• C. Geoffrey Chaucer
• D. William Langland

Explanation: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a major Middle English work framed as a series of pilgrims’ stories.

• A. Nelson Mandela
• B. Winston Churchill
• C. Alexander Pope
• D. None of these

Explanation: Alexander Pope wrote the mock-heroic poem The Rape of the Lock, the satirical Dunciad, and the philosophical Essay on Man.

• A. 19
• B. 18
• C. 17
• D. 16

Explanation: Thomas Chatterton died in 1770 at the age of seventeen. His short life and the controversy surrounding his Rowley poems helped make him an…

• A. Chinua Achebe
• B. Toni Morrison
• C. Ahmed Sulman Rushdie
• D. Sylvia Plath

Explanation: The Colossus is Sylvia Plath’s first poetry collection, published in 1960. The other writers listed are not its authors.

• A. 7
• B. 8
• C. 9
• D. None of these

Explanation: Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women contains nine completed legends, although the larger work was left unfinished.

• A. M ArnaldB
• B. John Dryden
• C. Dr johson
• D. T S Eliot

Explanation: John Dryden praised Chaucer as the father of English poetry, a title often broadened in examination questions to “father of English…

• A. Willams Shakespeare
• B. Gold Smith
• C. John Keats
• D. Adlof Hatler

Explanation: The line appears at the end of John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” where it links beauty and truth.

• A. Protest poetry
• B. Romantic poetry
• C. Lyric poetry
• D. Jazz poetryRead Classic Poetry

Explanation: Komunyakaa’s poetry often uses syncopation, improvisational rhythms, and musical imagery drawn from jazz.

• A. Cakewalk tunes.
• B. Gospel.
• C. Jazz.
• D. Blues.

Explanation: Malindy is praised for singing gospel hymns with spiritual power, while the speaker admits that his own singing is inferior.

• A. Urge African Americans to fight their oppressors.
• B. Encourage societies strive for equality for all.
• C. Extol the virtues of living in the free North.
• D. Argue that slavery was not so bad for everyone.

Explanation: Protest poetry challenges oppression by calling for social justice and equal rights, making equality its broadest aim.

• A. Slaves are capable of becoming good Christians.
• B. Slaves should rebel against the Christian religion.
• C. Slaves are the children of Cain.
• D. Christians should free their slaves.

Explanation: Wheatley’s poem presents conversion to Christianity as a possible spiritual transformation for enslaved Africans, while also reminding…

• A. The extermination of Native Americans.
• B. That there is a Black America and a White America.
• C. Black on black violence.
• D. The fact that America still has a frontier mentality.

Explanation: Sanchez attacks the continuing frontier mentality of white America, especially its history of conquest, violence, and domination.