Free Literary Movements and Periods MCQs with Answers

• 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…

• A. the Republicans and the Royalists
• B. the Royalists and the Whigs
• C. the Tories and the Whigs
• D. the Royalists and the Tories

Explanation: The Exclusion Bill controversy in the reign of Charles II produced the political labels Whigs, who opposed exclusion, and Tories, who…

• A. automatic writing
• B. confused daze
• C. total recall
• D. stream of consciousness

Explanation: Stream of consciousness presents the continuous, often unstructured movement of a character’s thoughts and perceptions.

• A. art for intellect's sake
• B. art for God's sake
• C. art for the masses
• D. art for art's sake

Explanation: The aesthetic movement is identified by the slogan “art for art’s sake,” which treats artistic beauty as independent of moral, political…