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English Literature ও Comprehension
"Who wrote ‘Paradise Lost’?", "‘To be or not to be’ — কোন নাটকের লাইন?" — নিবন্ধন-বিসিএসে English literature-এর প্রশ্ন মানেই এই চার ছাঁচ: কে লিখেছেন, কোন যুগের, কার উক্তি, কার উপাধি। বাংলা সাহিত্যের মতোই এটিও কালানুক্রমিক গল্প হিসেবে পড়লে সবচেয়ে ভালো মনে থাকে — Beowulf থেকে Rushdie পর্যন্ত এক যাত্রা। সঙ্গে আছে Reading Comprehension-এর কৌশল — যেখানে মুখস্থ নয়, পদ্ধতিই নম্বর আনে।
English literature has a rich history spanning more than 1400 years — from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present.
Literary Periods (Major)
| Period | Time | Key Figures |
|---|---|---|
| Old English / Anglo-Saxon | 449–1066 | Beowulf (anonymous), Caedmon, Bede |
| Middle English | 1066–1500 | Geoffrey Chaucer (Father of English Poetry) |
| Renaissance (Elizabethan) | 1500–1660 | Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Donne |
| Restoration / Neoclassical | 1660–1798 | Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Milton (late), Johnson |
| Romantic Period | 1798–1832 | Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Blake |
| Victorian Period | 1832–1901 | Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, Eliot, Arnold |
| Modern Period | 1901–1939 | T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Shaw |
| Post-Modern / Contemporary | 1939–present | Beckett, Auden, Larkin, Heaney, Pinter, Rushdie |
Important ‘Firsts’ and Titles
- Father of English Poetry: Geoffrey Chaucer (‘The Canterbury Tales’)
- Father of English Drama: Christopher Marlowe
- Father of English Novel: Henry Fielding (also Daniel Defoe — argued)
- Father of English Tragedy: Christopher Marlowe
- Father of English Essay: Francis Bacon
- Father of English Detective Fiction: Edgar Allan Poe (American)
- Father of English Dictionary: Samuel Johnson
- Father of English Criticism: John Dryden
- Father of Modern English Poetry: T.S. Eliot
- First English Novel: ‘Pamela’ by Samuel Richardson (1740)
- First English Tragedy: ‘Gorboduc’ (1561)
- First English Comedy: ‘Ralph Roister Doister’ by Nicholas Udall
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
The Bard of Avon. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Wrote 37/38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long narrative poems.
Major Tragedies
- Hamlet — “To be, or not to be: that is the question.”
- Macbeth — “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”
- Othello — about jealousy; the Moor of Venice
- King Lear — about filial ingratitude
- Romeo and Juliet — “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose…”
- Julius Caesar — “Et tu, Brute?”
- Antony and Cleopatra; Coriolanus; Timon of Athens
Major Comedies
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The Merchant of Venice — “The quality of mercy is not strain’d…”
- As You Like It — “All the world’s a stage…”
- Twelfth Night — “If music be the food of love, play on.”
- Much Ado About Nothing
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Comedy of Errors
- Love’s Labour’s Lost
- The Tempest — “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Major Histories
- Richard II, Richard III
- Henry IV (Parts 1 & 2), Henry V, Henry VI (1, 2, 3), Henry VIII
- King John
Sonnets
154 sonnets — “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (Sonnet 18). Shakespearean sonnet — 14 lines, abab cdcd efef gg, iambic pentameter.
Major English Writers & Their Works
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
- The Canterbury Tales (1387–1400) — 24 tales, Middle English
- Troilus and Criseyde; The House of Fame
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
- Doctor Faustus; Tamburlaine the Great; The Jew of Malta; Edward II
- “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” — Doctor Faustus
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
- Essays (1597) — “Of Studies”, “Of Truth”, “Of Marriage and Single Life”
- The Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum; New Atlantis
- “Knowledge is power.”
John Milton (1608–1674)
- Paradise Lost (1667) — epic in 12 books
- Paradise Regained; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica (free press)
- “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
John Donne (1572–1631)
- Metaphysical poet; ‘The Sun Rising’, ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’, ‘Holy Sonnets’
- “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful…”
- “No man is an island.”
Daniel Defoe (1660–1731)
- Robinson Crusoe (1719); Moll Flanders; A Journal of the Plague Year
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
- Gulliver’s Travels (1726); A Modest Proposal; A Tale of a Tub
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
- The Rape of the Lock; An Essay on Criticism; The Dunciad; An Essay on Man
- “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
- A Dictionary of the English Language (1755); Lives of the English Poets
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
- Lyrical Ballads (1798) — with Coleridge; ‘Daffodils’; ‘Tintern Abbey’; ‘The Prelude’
- ‘Daffodils’ — “I wandered lonely as a cloud…”
- Poet Laureate (1843–50)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
- ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’; ‘Kubla Khan’; ‘Christabel’
- “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824)
- ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’; ‘Don Juan’; ‘She Walks in Beauty’
P.B. Shelley (1792–1822)
- ‘Ode to the West Wind’; ‘To a Skylark’; ‘Prometheus Unbound’; ‘Adonais’
- “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
John Keats (1795–1821)
- ‘Ode to a Nightingale’; ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’; ‘Endymion’; ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’
- “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” — Endymion
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
- Oliver Twist (1838); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); David Copperfield (1850); Great Expectations (1861); Bleak House; Hard Times; Nicholas Nickleby; The Pickwick Papers; A Christmas Carol
- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” — A Tale of Two Cities
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
- ‘In Memoriam’; ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’; ‘Idylls of the King’; ‘Ulysses’
- Poet Laureate after Wordsworth
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
- Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Far from the Madding Crowd; Jude the Obscure; The Mayor of Casterbridge
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, 1819–1880)
- Middlemarch; Silas Marner; The Mill on the Floss; Adam Bede
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray; The Importance of Being Earnest; An Ideal Husband; Lady Windermere’s Fan
G.B. Shaw (1856–1950)
- Pygmalion (1913) → ‘My Fair Lady’; Arms and the Man; Man and Superman; Saint Joan; Major Barbara
- Nobel Prize (1925)
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965)
- The Waste Land (1922); The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; Four Quartets; Murder in the Cathedral
- Nobel Prize (1948)
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree; Easter, 1916; The Second Coming; Sailing to Byzantium
- Nobel Prize (1923)
James Joyce (1882–1941)
- Ulysses (1922); A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Dubliners; Finnegans Wake
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
- Mrs Dalloway; To the Lighthouse; A Room of One’s Own; Orlando; The Waves
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930)
- Sons and Lovers; Women in Love; The Rainbow; Lady Chatterley’s Lover
George Orwell (1903–1950)
- Animal Farm (1945); 1984 (1949); Burmese Days; Homage to Catalonia
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
- Waiting for Godot (1953); Endgame; Krapp’s Last Tape; Molloy
- Nobel Prize (1969)
American Writers (commonly tested)
- Mark Twain — Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Ernest Hemingway — The Old Man and the Sea; A Farewell to Arms; The Sun Also Rises (Nobel 1954)
- F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Great Gatsby
- John Steinbeck — The Grapes of Wrath; Of Mice and Men (Nobel 1962)
- Robert Frost — ‘The Road Not Taken’; ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’
- Edgar Allan Poe — ‘The Raven’; ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
- Walt Whitman — Leaves of Grass; ‘O Captain! My Captain!’
- Emily Dickinson — Poems of solitude
- Harper Lee — To Kill a Mockingbird
- J.D. Salinger — The Catcher in the Rye
Famous Works, Opening Lines & Quotes
| Quote / Opening | Work | Author |
|---|---|---|
| “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” | Hamlet | Shakespeare |
| “All the world’s a stage…” | As You Like It | Shakespeare |
| “What’s in a name?” | Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare |
| “Et tu, Brute?” | Julius Caesar | Shakespeare |
| “Frailty, thy name is woman!” | Hamlet | Shakespeare |
| “Brevity is the soul of wit.” | Hamlet | Shakespeare |
| “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” | Paradise Lost | Milton |
| “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” | Ode to the West Wind | Shelley |
| “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” | Endymion | Keats |
| “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” | Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Coleridge |
| “I wandered lonely as a cloud…” | Daffodils | Wordsworth |
| “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” | A Tale of Two Cities | Dickens |
| “Call me Ishmael.” | Moby-Dick | Melville |
| “Big Brother is watching you.” | 1984 | Orwell |
| “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” | Animal Farm | Orwell |
| “To err is human, to forgive divine.” | An Essay on Criticism | Pope |
| “Knowledge is power.” | Meditationes Sacrae | Bacon |
| “No man is an island.” | Devotions | Donne |
| “The child is father of the man.” | My Heart Leaps Up | Wordsworth |
| “Look before you leap.” | — | Proverb (attributed Aesop) |
| “The pen is mightier than the sword.” | Richelieu | Bulwer-Lytton |
| “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” | Ode on Eton | Thomas Gray |
| “The proper study of mankind is man.” | An Essay on Man | Pope |
| “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.” | Pippa Passes | Robert Browning |
| “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by…” | The Road Not Taken | Robert Frost |
| “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen |
Reading Comprehension Strategies
শিক্ষক নিবন্ধন ও বিসিএস পরীক্ষায় Reading Comprehension অংশটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। নিচে কার্যকর কৌশলগুলি দেওয়া হলো।
Step-by-Step Approach
- Skim first: দ্রুত পুরো passage দেখে নিন — মূল বিষয় (theme) ও পরিচ্ছেদের গঠন বোঝার জন্য।
- Read the questions: প্রশ্নগুলি পড়ে নিন — কী খুঁজতে হবে স্পষ্ট হবে।
- Scan for specifics: Names, dates, numbers, technical terms খুঁজে underline করুন।
- Read carefully: এবার পুরো passage মনোযোগে পড়ুন।
- Answer in order: সহজ প্রশ্ন আগে; কঠিন পরে।
- Re-check vocabulary: কঠিন word-এর meaning context থেকে অনুমান করুন।
Question Types in Comprehension
- Main Idea: ‘What is the main theme of the passage?’ — Read first & last paragraphs carefully.
- Specific Detail: ‘According to the passage…’ — Scan and find exact information.
- Vocabulary in Context: ‘The word X most nearly means…’ — Use surrounding sentences.
- Inference: ‘It can be inferred that…’ — Read between the lines.
- Tone/Attitude: ‘The tone of the author is…’ — Look for emotional words.
- Title: ‘The best title is…’ — Choose what covers entire passage.
- Reference: ‘In line X, “it” refers to…’ — Trace back the pronoun.
Tone Vocabulary
- Positive: optimistic, enthusiastic, admiring, appreciative, sympathetic
- Negative: critical, pessimistic, sarcastic, ironic, contemptuous, indignant
- Neutral: objective, analytical, informative, descriptive, didactic
Common Pitfalls
- Choosing answer based on outside knowledge — only use the passage.
- Picking extreme option (always/never) — usually wrong.
- Falling for ‘partial truth’ — option mentions one true fact but misses the question.
- Not noticing negation — ‘NOT mentioned’ or ‘EXCEPT’ questions.
সাধারণ ভুল ও সতর্কতা
মনে রাখার কৌশল
তথ্যের সারসংক্ষেপ
- Father of English Poetry — Chaucer
- Father of English Drama/Tragedy — Marlowe
- Father of English Novel — Henry Fielding (also Daniel Defoe)
- Father of English Essay — Francis Bacon
- Father of English Dictionary — Samuel Johnson
- Father of English Criticism — John Dryden
- Father of Modern English Poetry — T.S. Eliot
- Bard of Avon — Shakespeare
- Shakespeare: 37/38 plays, 154 sonnets; 1564–1616
- ‘Paradise Lost’ — John Milton (12 books)
- ‘Robinson Crusoe’ — Daniel Defoe (1719)
- ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ — Jonathan Swift (1726)
- ‘Pride and Prejudice’ — Jane Austen
- ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, ‘Great Expectations’ — Dickens
- ‘The Waste Land’ (1922) — T.S. Eliot
- ‘Ulysses’ — James Joyce
- ‘Animal Farm’ (1945), ‘1984’ (1949) — George Orwell
- ‘Waiting for Godot’ — Samuel Beckett
- Nobel — Shaw (1925), Yeats (1923), Eliot (1948), Faulkner (1949), Hemingway (1954), Beckett (1969), Pinter (2005), Heaney (1995)
- ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ — Harper Lee
- ‘The Great Gatsby’ — F. Scott Fitzgerald
- ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ — Hemingway
- Reading comprehension — skim, scan, infer; avoid extreme options
প্রশ্ন ও উত্তর (১০০+ MCQ)
1. Who is called the ‘Father of English Poetry’?
(a) Shakespeare (b) Chaucer (c) Milton (d) Spenser
Ans: (b) Geoffrey Chaucer
2. ‘The Canterbury Tales’ is written by —
(a) Shakespeare (b) Chaucer (c) Milton (d) Bacon
Ans: (b) Chaucer
3. Shakespeare’s birth and death year?
(a) 1500-1565 (b) 1564-1616 (c) 1600-1650 (d) 1480-1530
Ans: (b)
4. ‘Bard of Avon’ refers to —
(a) Marlowe (b) Shakespeare (c) Milton (d) Spenser
Ans: (b) Shakespeare
5. How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?
(a) 100 (b) 154 (c) 200 (d) 1000
Ans: (b) 154
6. ‘To be, or not to be’ is from —
(a) Othello (b) Hamlet (c) Macbeth (d) King Lear
Ans: (b) Hamlet
7. ‘Et tu, Brute?’ is from —
(a) Hamlet (b) Julius Caesar (c) Macbeth (d) Othello
Ans: (b) Julius Caesar
8. ‘All the world’s a stage’ is from —
(a) Hamlet (b) As You Like It (c) Macbeth (d) Tempest
Ans: (b) As You Like It
9. ‘What’s in a name?’ is from —
(a) Romeo and Juliet (b) Othello (c) Hamlet (d) Macbeth
Ans: (a)
10. ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’ is from —
(a) Hamlet (b) Othello (c) Macbeth (d) Lear
Ans: (a) Hamlet
11. ‘Father of English Drama’?
(a) Shakespeare (b) Marlowe (c) Jonson (d) Webster
Ans: (b) Christopher Marlowe
12. ‘Doctor Faustus’ is by —
(a) Shakespeare (b) Marlowe (c) Jonson (d) Milton
Ans: (b) Marlowe
13. ‘Father of English Essay’?
(a) Bacon (b) Lamb (c) Steele (d) Addison
Ans: (a) Francis Bacon
14. ‘Knowledge is power’ — said by?
(a) Bacon (b) Milton (c) Shakespeare (d) Dryden
Ans: (a) Bacon
15. ‘Paradise Lost’ — written by?
(a) Milton (b) Bacon (c) Spenser (d) Dryden
Ans: (a) John Milton
16. ‘Paradise Lost’ is in how many books?
(a) 6 (b) 10 (c) 12 (d) 24
Ans: (c) 12
17. ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’ — from?
(a) Paradise Regained (b) Paradise Lost (c) Areopagitica (d) Samson Agonistes
Ans: (b) Paradise Lost
18. ‘No man is an island’ — by?
(a) Donne (b) Milton (c) Bacon (d) Pope
Ans: (a) John Donne
19. Metaphysical poet —
(a) Donne (b) Wordsworth (c) Shelley (d) Keats
Ans: (a) Donne
20. ‘Robinson Crusoe’ — by?
(a) Swift (b) Defoe (c) Fielding (d) Richardson
Ans: (b) Daniel Defoe
21. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ — by?
(a) Defoe (b) Swift (c) Sterne (d) Smollett
Ans: (b) Jonathan Swift
22. ‘Father of English Novel’?
(a) Defoe (b) Fielding (c) Richardson (d) Smollett
Ans: (b) Henry Fielding (sometimes Defoe)
23. ‘Pamela’ — first English novel — by?
(a) Defoe (b) Richardson (c) Fielding (d) Sterne
Ans: (b) Samuel Richardson (1740)
24. ‘To err is human, to forgive divine’ — by?
(a) Pope (b) Dryden (c) Swift (d) Johnson
Ans: (a) Pope
25. ‘Father of English Dictionary’?
(a) Johnson (b) Webster (c) Bacon (d) Pope
Ans: (a) Samuel Johnson
26. Romantic age started with —
(a) Wordsworth (b) Coleridge (c) Lyrical Ballads (1798) (d) all
Ans: (c)
27. ‘Lyrical Ballads’ — co-authors?
(a) Wordsworth & Coleridge (b) Byron & Shelley (c) Keats & Wordsworth (d) Shelley & Byron
Ans: (a)
28. ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ — poem?
(a) Daffodils (b) Tintern Abbey (c) Prelude (d) Lucy
Ans: (a) Daffodils
29. ‘Water, water, everywhere…’ — by?
(a) Wordsworth (b) Coleridge (c) Shelley (d) Keats
Ans: (b) Coleridge — Rime of the Ancient Mariner
30. ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ — by?
(a) Wordsworth (b) Shelley (c) Keats (d) Byron
Ans: (b) Shelley — Ode to the West Wind
31. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’ — by?
(a) Wordsworth (b) Shelley (c) Keats (d) Byron
Ans: (c) Keats — Endymion
32. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ — by?
(a) Keats (b) Shelley (c) Wordsworth (d) Coleridge
Ans: (a) Keats
33. ‘Don Juan’ — by?
(a) Shelley (b) Byron (c) Keats (d) Wordsworth
Ans: (b) Byron
34. ‘Oliver Twist’ — by?
(a) Dickens (b) Hardy (c) Eliot (d) Trollope
Ans: (a) Charles Dickens
35. ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ — by?
(a) Dickens (b) Hardy (c) Eliot (d) Austen
Ans: (a) Dickens
36. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ — from?
(a) Oliver Twist (b) A Tale of Two Cities (c) David Copperfield (d) Great Expectations
Ans: (b) A Tale of Two Cities
37. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ — by?
(a) Austen (b) Eliot (c) Brontë (d) Dickens
Ans: (a) Jane Austen
38. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged’ — opening of?
(a) Emma (b) Pride and Prejudice (c) Sense and Sensibility (d) Mansfield Park
Ans: (b) Pride and Prejudice
39. ‘Wuthering Heights’ — by?
(a) Charlotte Brontë (b) Emily Brontë (c) Anne Brontë (d) Austen
Ans: (b) Emily Brontë
40. ‘Jane Eyre’ — by?
(a) Charlotte Brontë (b) Emily Brontë (c) Anne Brontë (d) George Eliot
Ans: (a) Charlotte Brontë
41. ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ — by?
(a) Hardy (b) Dickens (c) Eliot (d) Austen
Ans: (a) Thomas Hardy
42. ‘Middlemarch’ — by?
(a) Dickens (b) George Eliot (c) Hardy (d) Austen
Ans: (b) George Eliot
43. ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ — by?
(a) Wilde (b) Shaw (c) Stoker (d) Stevenson
Ans: (a) Oscar Wilde
44. ‘Pygmalion’ — by?
(a) Shaw (b) Wilde (c) Eliot (d) Joyce
Ans: (a) G.B. Shaw
45. ‘The Waste Land’ — by?
(a) Yeats (b) Eliot (c) Pound (d) Auden
Ans: (b) T.S. Eliot
46. T.S. Eliot got Nobel in —
(a) 1925 (b) 1948 (c) 1923 (d) 1969
Ans: (b) 1948
47. G.B. Shaw got Nobel in —
(a) 1925 (b) 1923 (c) 1948 (d) 1969
Ans: (a) 1925
48. W.B. Yeats got Nobel in —
(a) 1923 (b) 1925 (c) 1948 (d) 1954
Ans: (a) 1923
49. ‘Ulysses’ — by?
(a) Eliot (b) Joyce (c) Lawrence (d) Woolf
Ans: (b) James Joyce
50. ‘Mrs Dalloway’ — by?
(a) Joyce (b) Woolf (c) Lawrence (d) Yeats
Ans: (b) Virginia Woolf
51. ‘Sons and Lovers’ — by?
(a) Lawrence (b) Joyce (c) Woolf (d) Hardy
Ans: (a) D.H. Lawrence
52. ‘Animal Farm’ — by?
(a) Huxley (b) Orwell (c) Wells (d) Conrad
Ans: (b) George Orwell
53. ‘1984’ — by?
(a) Huxley (b) Orwell (c) Conrad (d) Wells
Ans: (b) Orwell
54. ‘Big Brother is watching you’ — from?
(a) Animal Farm (b) 1984 (c) Brave New World (d) Lord of the Flies
Ans: (b) 1984
55. ‘Waiting for Godot’ — by?
(a) Beckett (b) Pinter (c) Stoppard (d) Osborne
Ans: (a) Samuel Beckett
56. ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ — by?
(a) Hemingway (b) Fitzgerald (c) Steinbeck (d) Faulkner
Ans: (a) Ernest Hemingway
57. ‘The Great Gatsby’ — by?
(a) Fitzgerald (b) Hemingway (c) Steinbeck (d) Twain
Ans: (a) F. Scott Fitzgerald
58. ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ — by?
(a) Twain (b) Hemingway (c) Steinbeck (d) Lee
Ans: (a) Mark Twain
59. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ — by?
(a) Harper Lee (b) Steinbeck (c) Twain (d) Lee Child
Ans: (a) Harper Lee
60. ‘The Road Not Taken’ — by?
(a) Frost (b) Whitman (c) Dickinson (d) Poe
Ans: (a) Robert Frost
61. ‘The Raven’ — by?
(a) Frost (b) Poe (c) Dickinson (d) Whitman
Ans: (b) Edgar Allan Poe
62. ‘Leaves of Grass’ — by?
(a) Whitman (b) Frost (c) Dickinson (d) Poe
Ans: (a) Walt Whitman
63. ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ — by?
(a) Whitman (b) Frost (c) Tennyson (d) Browning
Ans: (a) Whitman
64. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ — by?
(a) Steinbeck (b) Hemingway (c) Fitzgerald (d) Faulkner
Ans: (a) Steinbeck
65. Romantic Age (in English literature) ended around —
(a) 1798 (b) 1832 (c) 1850 (d) 1901
Ans: (b) 1832
66. Victorian Age started in —
(a) 1798 (b) 1832 (c) 1837 (d) 1901
Ans: (b)/(c) ~ 1832/1837 (Queen Victoria’s reign 1837–1901)
67. ‘Areopagitica’ — by?
(a) Milton (b) Bacon (c) Dryden (d) Pope
Ans: (a) Milton
68. ‘Father of English Criticism’?
(a) Dryden (b) Johnson (c) Bacon (d) Pope
Ans: (a) Dryden
69. ‘Father of Modern English Poetry’?
(a) Wordsworth (b) Eliot (c) Auden (d) Yeats
Ans: (b) T.S. Eliot
70. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ — by?
(a) Bulwer-Lytton (b) Bacon (c) Pope (d) Milton
Ans: (a) Bulwer-Lytton
71. ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ — from?
(a) Hamlet (b) Macbeth (c) Othello (d) Lear
Ans: (a) Hamlet
72. ‘The Tempest’ — by?
(a) Shakespeare (b) Milton (c) Marlowe (d) Jonson
Ans: (a) Shakespeare
73. ‘Macbeth’ is a —
(a) Comedy (b) Tragedy (c) History (d) Romance
Ans: (b) Tragedy
74. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is a —
(a) Comedy (b) Tragedy (c) History (d) Romance
Ans: (a) Comedy
75. ‘Tamburlaine’ — by?
(a) Marlowe (b) Shakespeare (c) Webster (d) Jonson
Ans: (a) Marlowe
76. ‘The Faerie Queene’ — by?
(a) Spenser (b) Sidney (c) Shakespeare (d) Marlowe
Ans: (a) Edmund Spenser
77. ‘Volpone’ — by?
(a) Ben Jonson (b) Marlowe (c) Webster (d) Donne
Ans: (a) Ben Jonson
78. ‘Lyrical Ballads’ — year?
(a) 1798 (b) 1802 (c) 1820 (d) 1832
Ans: (a) 1798
79. ‘Sense and Sensibility’ — by?
(a) Austen (b) Brontë (c) Eliot (d) Hardy
Ans: (a) Jane Austen
80. ‘Vanity Fair’ — by?
(a) Thackeray (b) Dickens (c) Hardy (d) Austen
Ans: (a) W.M. Thackeray
81. ‘In Memoriam’ — by?
(a) Tennyson (b) Browning (c) Arnold (d) Wordsworth
Ans: (a) Tennyson
82. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ — by?
(a) Tennyson (b) Browning (c) Frost (d) Yeats
Ans: (a) Tennyson
83. ‘My Last Duchess’ — by?
(a) Tennyson (b) Robert Browning (c) Arnold (d) Hopkins
Ans: (b) Robert Browning
84. ‘Dover Beach’ — by?
(a) Matthew Arnold (b) Tennyson (c) Browning (d) Hardy
Ans: (a) Arnold
85. ‘A Doll’s House’ — by?
(a) Ibsen (b) Shaw (c) Chekhov (d) Strindberg
Ans: (a) Henrik Ibsen
86. ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ — by?
(a) Lawrence (b) Joyce (c) Woolf (d) Forster
Ans: (a) D.H. Lawrence
87. ‘A Room of One’s Own’ — by?
(a) Woolf (b) Beauvoir (c) Eliot (d) Lawrence
Ans: (a) Virginia Woolf
88. ‘Things Fall Apart’ — by?
(a) Achebe (b) Soyinka (c) Coetzee (d) Gordimer
Ans: (a) Chinua Achebe (Nigerian)
89. ‘Midnight’s Children’ — by?
(a) Rushdie (b) Naipaul (c) Roy (d) Mistry
Ans: (a) Salman Rushdie
90. ‘The God of Small Things’ — by?
(a) Roy (b) Rushdie (c) Lahiri (d) Mistry
Ans: (a) Arundhati Roy
91. ‘An Essay on Man’ — by?
(a) Pope (b) Dryden (c) Swift (d) Johnson
Ans: (a) Pope
92. ‘The proper study of mankind is man’ — by?
(a) Pope (b) Bacon (c) Milton (d) Donne
Ans: (a) Pope
93. ‘Gray’s Elegy’ — by?
(a) Thomas Gray (b) Pope (c) Goldsmith (d) Cowper
Ans: (a) Thomas Gray
94. ‘The Deserted Village’ — by?
(a) Goldsmith (b) Gray (c) Cowper (d) Crabbe
Ans: (a) Oliver Goldsmith
95. ‘Reading comprehension’ — first step?
(a) Read every word (b) Skim quickly (c) Translate (d) Memorize
Ans: (b) Skim quickly
96. Main idea is usually found in —
(a) Last line (b) First/last paragraph (c) Middle (d) Anywhere
Ans: (b)
97. Vocabulary in context — use?
(a) Dictionary (b) Surrounding sentences (c) Translation (d) Guess
Ans: (b)
98. Extreme words (always/never) usually indicate —
(a) Correct option (b) Wrong option (c) Trick (d) Either
Ans: (b) usually wrong
99. ‘Tone’ in comprehension means —
(a) Pitch (b) Author’s attitude (c) Voice (d) Sound
Ans: (b) Attitude
100. ‘Sarcastic’ tone is —
(a) Positive (b) Negative-ironic (c) Neutral (d) Happy
Ans: (b)
101. ‘Objective’ tone means —
(a) Emotional (b) Without bias (c) Praising (d) Critical
Ans: (b)
102. Inference is —
(a) Direct fact (b) Conclusion drawn (c) Vocabulary (d) Definition
Ans: (b) Conclusion drawn
103. ‘Walden’ — by?
(a) Thoreau (b) Emerson (c) Whitman (d) Hawthorne
Ans: (a) Henry David Thoreau
104. ‘The Scarlet Letter’ — by?
(a) Hawthorne (b) Melville (c) Twain (d) Poe
Ans: (a) Nathaniel Hawthorne
105. ‘Moby-Dick’ — by?
(a) Melville (b) Twain (c) Hawthorne (d) Poe
Ans: (a) Herman Melville