Free Literary Criticism MCQs with Answers
268 Literary Criticism MCQs from English Literature, each with the correct answer and a written explanation of why it is correct. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
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- A. A picture is worth a thousand words.
- B. Poetry is the supreme artistic form.
- C. Art should hold a mirror up to nature.
- D. Poetry ought to be a visual as well as a verbal art.
Explanation: The Latin phrase ut pictura poesis means “as is painting, so is poetry.” It was understood to suggest that poetry should create vivid…
Correct answer: Poetry ought to be a visual as well as a verbal art.- A. All knowledge is derived from experience.
- B. Human perceptions are constructed and reflect structures of political power.
- C. The search for essential or ultimate principles of reality.
- D. The sensory world is an illusion.
Explanation: Empiricism holds that knowledge is grounded primarily in sense experience and observation.
Correct answer: All knowledge is derived from experience.- A. eugenics
- B. psychoanalysis
- C. phrenology
- D. all of the above
Explanation: Freud founded psychoanalysis, the study of unconscious desires, repression, and mental conflict.
Correct answer: psychoanalysis- A. a magical power whereby poetry plays tricks on the reader
- B. a divine power whereby poetry transmits a message from God to the reader
- C. a moral power whereby poetry encourages the reader to emulate virtuous models
- D. a defensive power whereby poetry and its figurative expressions allow the poet to avoid censorship
Explanation: Sidney argues that poetry teaches by delighting and presents virtuous examples that readers may imitate.
Correct answer: a moral power whereby poetry encourages the reader to emulate virtuous models- A. Sigmund Freud
- B. Edmund Lewis
- C. Edmund Burke
- D. Mary Shelley
Explanation: The concept of the uncanny is most closely associated with Sigmund Freud, whose essay "The Uncanny" examines the disturbing return of what…
Correct answer: Sigmund Freud- A. Romantic literary criticism has been stubbornly limited with regard to queer readings.
- B. Deviant sexuality, including homosexuality, has historically been associated with Romantic literature.
- C. The sexual lives of Romantic-era authors are not relevant to our understanding of queer Romanticism.
- D. The "Queer Gothic" is understudied.
Explanation: O’Rourke and Collings point to the limits of conventional Romantic criticism, which has often neglected or resisted queer interpretations…
Correct answer: Romantic literary criticism has been stubbornly limited with regard to queer readings.- A. Emily ends up happily married.
- B. Emily's sense of decorum seems to falter late in the novel.
- C. Emily is a sensible rather than defenseless woman.
- D. Emily provides a unique example of a weak woman.
Explanation: Ellen Moers presents Radcliffe’s heroine as unusually rational and capable of judgment, not merely a helpless Gothic victim awaiting…
Correct answer: Emily is a sensible rather than defenseless woman.- A. As a plot structure that diminishes the Gothic novel's intensity
- B. As the reader's inward turn to examine his or her own tangled consciousness
- C. As a means for characters to directly confront unconscious problems
- D. As a place for the distressed heroine to hide
Explanation: For Mishra, the labyrinth is not merely a physical hiding place or a conventional plot device; it turns the reader inward toward the…
Correct answer: As the reader's inward turn to examine his or her own tangled consciousness- A. As a version of the Romantic novel
- B. As a set of literary devices developed in the 18th century but applicable to present day
- C. As the antithesis of postmodernism
- D. As the resolution of madness
Explanation: Mishra treats the Gothic novel as a flexible group of literary devices that emerged in the eighteenth century but can still be used to…
Correct answer: As a set of literary devices developed in the 18th century but applicable to present day- A. she objected to the treatment of secularism as evil
- B. she applauded its promotion of female education
- C. she attacked it as misogynistic
- D. she praised the objectification of women
Explanation: Christine de Pizan objected to the poem's repeated attacks and stereotypes against women, especially in Jean de Meun's continuation.
Correct answer: she attacked it as misogynistic- A. the problem of a "man writing as a woman"
- B. the idea that woman cannot be as educated as men
- C. the idea that noble women are more similar to men than peasant women are
- D. the notion that chastity is impossible for men
Explanation: The gender fallacy concerns the difficulty or supposed impossibility of a writer representing a gender other than their own, especially a…
Correct answer: the problem of a "man writing as a woman"- A. they deemphasized the importance of chastity
- B. they redefined women as attainable vs unattainable, rather than virgin vs whore
- C. they indicated that women's sexual conduct should not be classified by men
- D. they rarely explored issues of sexuality, love, or romance
Explanation: Courtly romance often presented women through the contrast between attainable and unattainable love, rather than simply dividing them into…
Correct answer: they redefined women as attainable vs unattainable, rather than virgin vs whore- A. Raymond Williams
- B. Jacques Derrida
- C. Fredric Jameson
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Jacques Derrida developed deconstruction, a critical practice that examines internal contradictions and the instability of meaning in…
Correct answer: Jacques Derrida- A. It destroys notions of high and low culture and replaces it with mass culture.
- B. It is an industry in the sense that its aim is to standardize aesthetic taste and value.
- C. It is a radical rethinking of mass culture in that it promotes the values of high culture and attempts to eradicate more popular forms of expression.
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Adorno argues that the culture industry standardizes cultural products and weakens the distinction between high and low culture by turning…
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. The culture industry is classified by ruthless uniformity of all ideas.
- B. The culture industry is the chief method by which technology brings true democracy to all.
- C. The culture industry is a fundamental way to promote individuality.
- D. The culture industry is chiefly intended to offer consumers the opportunity to classify wants and desires as well as corresponding production.
Explanation: Adorno and Horkheimer argue that the culture industry standardises cultural products and imposes a ruthless uniformity while creating the…
Correct answer: The culture industry is classified by ruthless uniformity of all ideas.- A. An assault on the notion that there is any knowable truth
- B. An assault on the sexual mores of the Victorian Age
- C. A reaffirmation of Romantic notions of the sublime
- D. All of the above
Explanation: Deconstruction questions the stability of meanings, oppositions, and claims to a final, knowable truth in texts.
Correct answer: An assault on the notion that there is any knowable truth- A. Marx
- B. Freud
- C. Darwin
- D. Aristotle
Explanation: Benjamin's critical and historical thinking was strongly shaped by Marx, especially Marxist ideas about capitalism, history, and culture.
Correct answer: Marx- A. There is an undeniable "tension between the death-instinct and the sexual instincts."
- B. Repetition-compulsion does not help to come to terms with one's own mortality.
- C. Most victims of trauma do not exhibit "the compulsion of the human psyche to repeat traumatic events over and over again."
- D. Talk therapy will not help cure one's psychological neuroses concerning past trauma.Poetry
Explanation: Freud connects repetition-compulsion with a deeper tension between the death instinct and the sexual or life instincts.
Correct answer: There is an undeniable "tension between the death-instinct and the sexual instincts."- A. Linda Hutcheon
- B. Jean Baudrillard
- C. Thomas Hobbes
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Linda Hutcheon and Jean Baudrillard are major theorists associated with postmodernism, particularly its interest in parody, simulation…
Correct answer: Both A and B- A. "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be."
- B. "The feeling of strangeness that overcomes the actor before the camera, as Pirandello describes it, is basically of the same kind as the estrangement felt before one's own image in the mirror."
- C. "All art work, even mass produced art, clearly links to an original referent that has a stable and knowable meaning."
- D. Both A and B
Explanation: Benjamin argues that mechanical reproduction removes an artwork’s unique presence or “aura,” and he compares the actor’s experience before…
Correct answer: Both A and B