Free Prose and Essayists MCQs with Answers

• A. Pazzi
• B. Republic
• C. Medici
• D. Inquisition

Explanation: Machiavelli dedicated The Prince to Lorenzo de' Medici, seeking the support and favour of the ruling Medici family after the fall of the…

• A. Of Prelatical Episcopacy
• B. The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings from the Church
• C. Of Practical Exorcisme
• D. Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

Explanation: Of Practical Exorcisme is not a work by Milton. The other three titles belong to his religious and political prose writings, including his…

• A. Thomas Carlyle
• B. Matthew Arnold
• C. Charles Dickens
• D. all of the above

Explanation: Carlyle, Arnold, and Dickens all published regularly in periodicals, which were central to Victorian literary culture.

• A. Contemporary literary criticism
• B. Art and Literature
• C. Theology
• D. Social changes in the Victorian AgeExplore Top Audiobooks

Explanation: Arnold's Literature and Dogma treats Christianity primarily as a system of moral and spiritual ideas rather than as literal dogma, making…

• A. Britain's preeminence as a global power will depend on mastery of foreign languages.
• B. Even a foreign author is better than a homegrown scoundrel.
• C. Abandon the introspection of the Romantics and turn to the higher moral purpose found in Goethe.
• D. In a carefully veiled critique of the monarchy, Byron and Goethe stand in symbolically for Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin respectively.

Explanation: Carlyle contrasts Byron’s Romantic introspection and rebellious self-expression with Goethe’s disciplined, constructive and morally…

• A. Religion
• B. Civilization
• C. Tehology
• D. Education

Explanation: Culture and Anarchy presents culture as a means of developing the whole person and improving society, making education its principal…

• A. a new market position for nonfiction writing and an exalted sense of the didactic function of the writer
• B. a Puritanical distrust of fictions and a thirst for trivia
• C. the forbiddingly high cost of threevolume novels and the difficulty of finding poetry in bookshops outside of London
• D. the deconstruction of the truth-fiction dichotomy and an accompanying relativistic sense that every opinion was of equal value

Explanation: Nonfiction gained popularity through a growing market for prose and the Victorian belief that writing should educate and improve readers.

• A. theoretical science
• B. metaphysics
• C. abstract logical deductions
• D. A, B, and C

Explanation: Swift attacked abstract, impractical systems of thought when they became detached from common sense and human experience.

• A. Henry St. John
• B. Robert Harley
• C. John Churchill
• D. Robert Walpole

Explanation: Robert Walpole is conventionally regarded as Britain's first prime minister, serving during the reign of George II.

• A. abolitionists and enthusiasts for slavery
• B. round-earthers and flat-earthers
• C. the Welsh and the Scots
• D. champions of ancient and modern learning

Explanation: The Battle of the Books was a late-seventeenth-century dispute between supporters of ancient classical learning and advocates of modern…

• A. love."
• B. honor."
• C. money."
• D. his party."

Explanation: Johnson's famous remark means that writing is normally undertaken for financial reward: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for…

• A. William Hogarth
• B. Jonathan Swift
• C. Samuel Johnson
• D. Ben Jonson

Explanation: Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755 and was notable for its extensive definitions supported by more than…

• A. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Wroth, and Elizabeth Cary
• B. Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood
• C. Anne Finch, Anne Killigrew, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
• D. Rachel Speght, Katherine Philips, and Frances Burney

Explanation: Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood were prominent women writers associated with sexually frank or otherwise sensational…

• A. Elephant and Castle
• B. Grub Street
• C. Covent Garden
• D. Cheapside

Explanation: Grub Street in London became associated with poorly paid hack writers, publishers, and journalistic scandal mongers.

• A. the disestablishment of the church and the removal of bishops
• B. the right of the people to dismiss and even execute their rulers
• C. the free circulation of ideas without prior censorship
• D. the restoration of the monarchy

Explanation: Milton defended religious disestablishment, popular resistance to tyrants, and freedom from prior censorship in his political prose.

• A. Izaak Walton
• B. Katherine Philips
• C. John Skelton
• D. Isabella Whitney

Explanation: Izaak Walton wrote Life of Dr John Donne, a biographical work that helped establish Donne’s literary reputation.

• A. the novel
• B. the sermon
• C. the familiar essay
• D. the diary

Explanation: The familiar essay emerged as an important prose form in the Jacobean period, especially through Francis Bacon’s concise reflections on…

• A. The Litany in a Time of Plague
• B. Utopia
• C. Leviathan
• D. The Advancement of Learning

Explanation: Leviathan (1651) defends a powerful sovereign as necessary to prevent disorder after people enter a social contract.

• A. Elizabeth Eisenstein
• B. Johannes Gutenberg
• C. Henry VIII
• D. William Caxton

Explanation: William Caxton established the first English printing press at Westminster in 1476 and printed major English works, including Chaucer's…

• A. Cavalcanti
• B. Castiglione
• C. Pirandello
• D. Boccaccio

Explanation: Il Cortegiano, commonly translated as The Book of the Courtier, was written by Baldassare Castiglione.