SET English PYQs with short explanations are extremely useful for aspirants preparing for UGC NET English, RPSC SET, RPSC Grade 1 & 2, and other competitive exams. This post brings you the complete provisional answer key of the State Eligibility Test (SET) English held on 29 September 2019, featuring all 120 questions along with the correct answers and concise, exam-oriented two-line explanations for quick revision and better conceptual clarity.
Table of Contents
1. Which character in Chaucer’s General Prologue was stout and brawny, with a wart on his nose?
A) The Summoner B) The Monk C) The Miller D) The Pardoner
Answer: C) The Miller
The Miller is portrayed as a strong, red-bearded, brawny man with a wart on his nose. Chaucer highlights his physical strength and crude nature through this vivid description.
2. Whose excellent sonnets were the first to be linked by subject matter and theme?
A) Sir Thomas Wyatt’s B) Sir Philip Sidney’s C) Sir Edmund Spenser’s D) Sir Walter Raleigh’s
Answer: B) Sir Philip Sidney’s
Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella is the first English sonnet sequence with a continuous narrative and emotional progression. It established the model for later Elizabethan sonnet sequences.
3. To whom is Spenser’s sonnet sequence Amoretti addressed?
A) To the Queen B) To his secret lady-love C) To a working class friend D) To his own wife
Answer: D) To his own wife
Amoretti records Spenser’s courtship and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. The sequence ends with their wedding and celebrates married love.
4. In which of Shakespeare does the following line occur: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
A) Julius Caesar B) Henry V C) Henry IV D) Richard II
Answer: C) Henry IV
The line is spoken by King Henry IV in Henry IV, Part 2 (Act 3, Scene 1). It expresses the heavy burden and sleepless anxiety of kingship.
5. What did the mystery plays deal with?
A) Biblical themes B) Moral themes C) Medieval themes D) Philosophical themes
Answer: A) Biblical themes
Mystery plays dramatized stories from the Bible, especially the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. They were performed by craft guilds in medieval England.
6. “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships…” is the celebrated line from:
A) Tamburlaine B) Dr. Faustus C) Edward II D) The Spanish Tragedy
Answer: B) Dr. Faustus
Faustus utters these words while gazing at the spirit of Helen of Troy in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. The line celebrates extreme beauty that caused the Trojan War.
7. From whom did Bacon borrow the general conception of the essay?
A) Seneca B) Montaigne C) Erasmus D) More
Answer: B) Montaigne
Bacon adopted the essay form from Michel de Montaigne’s Essais. He made it more formal, concise, and pragmatic in English.
8. Who coined the phrase “Marlowe’s mighty line”?
A) Dr. Samuel Johnson B) Sir Philip Sidney C) Francis Beaumont D) Ben Jonson
Answer: D) Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson praised Christopher Marlowe’s powerful and resonant blank verse with this famous phrase.
9. Which of the following plays begin with the line: “If music be the food of love, play on?”
A) The Twelfth Night B) As You Like It C) Much Ado About Nothing D) A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Answer: A) Twelfth Night
Duke Orsino opens Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with this romantic and musical line expressing his love-sickness.
10. Who wrote the poem The Retreat?
A) George Herbert B) Richard Crashaw C) Henry Vaughan D) Andrew Marvell
Answer: C) Henry Vaughan
Henry Vaughan’s The Retreat is a metaphysical poem expressing nostalgia for the innocence and divine closeness of childhood.
11. Who said of Shakespeare: “Sweetest Shakespeare, fancy’s child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.”
A) John Dryden B) John Milton C) John Keats D) John Vanbrugh
Answer: B) John Milton
Milton pays this tribute to Shakespeare in his poem L’Allegro, celebrating his natural genius and imagination.
12. Sir Thomas Browne wrote Religio Medici to defend doctors against the charge of
A) Witchcraft B) Magic C) Astrology D) Atheism
Answer: D) Atheism
Religio Medici defends the Christian faith of physicians and counters accusations of atheism often directed at doctors in the 17th century.
13. Milton’s Areopagitica is a great impassioned treatise on
A) the evils of monarchy B) Educational reforms C) Freedom of the press D) The defence of Oliver Cromwell
Answer: C) Freedom of the press
Areopagitica is Milton’s powerful argument against pre-publication censorship and for the liberty of unlicensed printing.
14. Whose Diary provides a fascinating glimpse of London from 1660 to 1669?
A) Daniel Defoe B) Richard Lovelace C) Amelia Lanier D) Samuel Pepys
Answer: D) Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys’ diary offers a vivid, personal record of Restoration London, including the Great Plague and the Great Fire.
15. Which allegorical work traced the life and journey of Christian from the City of Destruction to Salvation
A) Grace Abounding B) Profitable Meditations C) The Twin Rivals D) The Pilgrim’s Progress
Answer: D) The Pilgrim’s Progress
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is a Christian allegory of the soul’s journey from sin to salvation.
16. Which mock-heroic epic was based on a family quarrel between the Petres and Fermors?
A) The Dunciad B) The Rape of the Lock C) Eloisa to Abelard D) Windsor Forest
Answer: B) The Rape of the Lock
Pope’s The Rape of the Lock satirizes a trivial incident (cutting of a lock of hair) using epic machinery.
17. In which city did Thomas Gray live with his mother and aunts?
A) Stoke Poges B) Kilkenny West C) Hertfordshire D) Aldeburgh
Answer: A) Stoke Poges
Thomas Gray spent much of his later life in the quiet Buckinghamshire village of Stoke Poges, the setting of his famous Elegy.
18. Which work of Wordsworth told the story of the growth of his own mind’?
A) The Excursion B) Laodamia C) Peter Bell D) The Prelude
Answer: D) The Prelude
The Prelude is Wordsworth’s autobiographical epic that traces the development of his poetic imagination and mind.
19. Which work of Byron made him an overnight sensation’?
A) The Prisoner of Chillon B) Don Juan C) Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage D) The Dream
Answer: B) Don Juan
Byron’s satirical epic Don Juan brought him massive popularity and notoriety in the later phase of his career.
20. Who described Byron’s mock-epic Don Juan as “something wholly new and relative to the age”?
A) Shelley B) Keats C) Coleridge D) Southey
Answer: A) Shelley
Shelley praised Don Juan for its innovative spirit and relevance to contemporary life.
21. Which play of Shelley predicts humanity’s eventual freedom from tyranny?
A) Hellas B) The Cenci C) Prometheus Unbound D) Adonis
Answer: C) Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound is Shelley’s lyrical drama celebrating the ultimate triumph of love and freedom over tyranny.
22. Which poem of Keats begins with the line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
A) Endymion B) To a Grecian Urn C) To a Nightingale D) The Eve of St Agnes
Answer: A) Endymion
Keats opens his long poem Endymion with this famous line celebrating the enduring power of beauty.
23. In which year did William Wordsworth become the poet laureate?
A) 1843 B) 1839 C) 1848 D) 1850
Answer: A) 1843
Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate in 1843 after the death of Robert Southey.
24. Through which work did Mary Wollstonecraft defend the French Revolution?
A) Thoughts on the Education of Daughters B) A Vindication of the Rights of Man C) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman D) Mary: A Fiction
Answer: C) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft defended the ideals of the French Revolution in her famous work on women’s rights.
25. The Lotus Eaters presented a perfect picture of a life of
A) Dreamful ease B) Harmony C) Splendour D) Fantasy
Answer: D) Fantasy
Tennyson’s The Lotos-Eaters depicts a dreamy, escapist, and fantastical life of indolence and forgetfulness.
26. Which quality of Keats impressed Tennyson the most?
A) Romanticism B) Sensuousness C) Medievalism D) Imagery
Answer: C) Medievalism
Tennyson particularly admired Keats’ medievalism and rich, sensuous medieval atmosphere in his poetry.
27. Which Victorian poet wrote ‘God’s in His Heaven and all’s right with the world’?
A) Arnold B) Tennyson C) Browning D) Ruskin
Answer: C) Browning
The line appears in Robert Browning’s poem Pippa Passes.
28. In poems such as Fra Lippo Lippi and Andrea Del Sarto, Browning reflects his love for
A) Greece B) Italy C) France D) Spain
Answer: B) Italy
Browning’s dramatic monologues set in Renaissance Italy reveal his deep fascination with Italian art and culture.
29. By which name does Lamb refer to his sister in his essays?
A) Mary B) Alice C) Bridget D) Dorothy
Answer: C) Bridget
Charles Lamb refers to his sister Mary as “Bridget Elia” in his Essays of Elia.
30. Which English poet defined poetry as a criticism of life?
A) Shelley B) Arnold C) Tennyson D) Macaulay
Answer: B) Arnold
Matthew Arnold defined poetry as “a criticism of life” in his essay The Study of Poetry.
31. Which novel by Dickens is written against the background of the French Revolution?
A) A Tale of Two Cities B) Hard Times C) Nicholas Nickleby D) Bleak House
Answer: A) A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is set against the backdrop of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
32. Which poet wrote this celebrated line: “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
A) Browning B) Tennyson C) Arnold D) Kipling
Answer: B) Tennyson
The line appears in Tennyson’s poem Locksley Hall.
33. Which is the best known poem of Edgar Allan Poe?
A) Israfel B) The Raven C) The Bells D) Eldorado
Answer: B) The Raven
The Raven is Poe’s most famous and widely anthologized poem, known for its haunting rhythm and refrain.
34. Whom does Arnold’s elegy Thyrsis commemorate?
A) Arthur Hugh Clough B) Arthur Hallam C) Arthur Jeffreys D) Arthur King
Answer: A) Arthur Hugh Clough
Thyrsis is Arnold’s pastoral elegy mourning the death of his friend Arthur Hugh Clough.
35. A Novel without a Hero is the sub-title of
A) Pamela B) Hard Times C) Vanity Fair D) Moll Flanders
Answer: C) Vanity Fair
Thackeray gave Vanity Fair the subtitle “A Novel without a Hero” because it presents a panorama of society without a conventional hero.
36. Which novelist expressed that “happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain?”
A) Thomas Hardy B) Charles Dickens C) Thackeray D) George Eliot
Answer: A) Thomas Hardy
This pessimistic view of life is expressed in Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.
37. The phrase, Waverly Novels is associated with?
A) Henry Fielding B) Walter Scott C) Henry James D) Thomas Hardy
Answer: B) Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott’s series of historical novels is collectively known as the Waverley Novels.
38. William Blake’s later poetry is difficult to understand because it is
A) Metaphysical B) Mystical C) Menacing D) Mental
Answer: B) Mystical
Blake’s later prophetic books are complex due to their highly symbolic, visionary, and mystical nature.
39. The famous line “…where ignorant armies clash by night” is taken from a poem by
A) Wilfred Owen B) Matthew Arnold C) W.H. Auden D) Siegfried Sassoon
Answer: B) Matthew Arnold
The line appears in Arnold’s poem Dover Beach, expressing spiritual uncertainty in the modern age.
40. Which play of Oscar Wilde has the sub-title, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People?
A) Lady Windermere’s Fan B) An Ideal Husband C) The Importance of Being Earnest D) A Woman of No Importance
Answer: C) The Importance of Being Earnest
Wilde subtitled his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest as “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”.
41. Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are together known as
A) War Poets B) Patriotic poets C) Radical poets D) Flower poets
Answer: A) War Poets
They are the major English poets of the First World War, known as the War Poets.
42. Who described himself, “my face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain”?
A) Dylan Thomas B) Ezra Pound C) W.H. Auden D) Thom Gunn
Answer: C) W.H. Auden
Auden used this self-deprecating description of his own face.
43. The phrase “Stream of Consciousness” was used by in his Principles of Psychology (1890)
A) Sigmund Freud B) William James C) C.G. Jung D) D.H. Lawrence
Answer: B) William James
Psychologist William James first used the term “stream of consciousness” in his book The Principles of Psychology.
44. To a great extent whose autobiography is Autumn Journal?
A) Yann Martel B) Louis MacNeice C) Andrew Motion D) Seamus Heaney
Answer: B) Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journal is a long autobiographical poem by Louis MacNeice reflecting on the late 1930s.
45. Which play of Pinter was his first great success?
A) The Lover B) The Caretaker C) The Birthday Party D) The Homecoming
Answer: B) The Caretaker
Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker (1960) was his first major commercial and critical success.
46. Who found biography a depressed industry and transformed it into a fine art?
A) Bertrand Russell B) Lytton Strachey C) John Ruskin D) James Boswell
Answer: B) Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey revolutionized modern biography with his ironic and selective style in Eminent Victorians.
47. Whose play teaches no lesson, has no moral, calls for no reform but depicts truth for its own sake?
A) J.M. Synge B) John Galsworthy C) G.B. Shaw D) Arnold Wesker
Answer: D) Arnold Wesker
Wesker’s plays, especially in his early naturalistic phase, aim to present social truth without didacticism.
48. Which poet used all kinds of symbols like, Rose, Falcon, Horn, Tower, Wind, Lion etc?
A) Ezra Pound B) Arthur Symons C) W.B. Yeats D) Wilfred Owen
Answer: C) W.B. Yeats
Yeats developed a complex personal system of symbols drawn from mythology, occultism, and Irish tradition.
49. Which black preacher, traveller and novelist wrote the story of a 17 year old Harlem boy, John Grimes?
A) Toni Morrison B) James Baldwin C) Ralph Ellison D) Langston Hughes
Answer: B) James Baldwin
James Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain tells the story of John Grimes.
50. What does the term episteme signify?
A) Knowledge B) Archive C) Theology D) History
Answer: A) Knowledge
In Foucault’s theory, episteme refers to the underlying structure of knowledge that defines an era.
51. In Aristotle’s Poetics we read that it is the imitation of an action that is complete and whole, and of a certain magnitude… having a beginning, middle and an end. What is it?
A) Poetry B) Force C) Epic D) Tragedy
Answer: D) Tragedy
Aristotle defines tragedy as the imitation of a complete and serious action with a beginning, middle, and end.
52. Who among the following writers asserted Common Wealth Literature does not exist?
A) Amitav Ghosh B) V.S. Naipaul C) A.K. Ramanujan D) Salman Rushdie
Answer: D) Salman Rushdie
Rushdie famously declared that “Commonwealth Literature does not exist” in his essay of the same name.
53. “There is nothing outside the text,” is a statement by
A) Roland Barthes B) Jacques Derrida C) Mandy Fish D) John Crow Ransom
Answer: B) Jacques Derrida
Derrida’s famous statement emphasizes that meaning is produced within textual systems and there is no transcendental signified.
54. To refer to the unresolvable difficulties a text may open up, Derrida makes use of the term
A) Aporia B) Différance C) Erasure D) Supplement
Answer: A) Aporia
Derrida uses aporia to describe moments of undecidability or impasse in a text.
55. “Heteroglossia” refers to
A) Multiple variations of languages and ideas of a text B) Juxtaposition of multiple voices in text C) The comments at the margins of a text D) The commentary relating to a text
Answer: A) Multiple variations of languages and ideas of a text
Bakhtin’s term heteroglossia refers to the presence of multiple social voices, dialects, and discourses within a single text.
56. Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in the year
A) 1995 B) 1996 C) 1994 D) 1998
Answer: A) 1995
Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth”.
57. Which Indian novelist and short-story writer is often known as the mouthpiece of the underdog?
A) Mulk Raj Anand B) Bhabani Bhattacharya C) Nirad C. Chaudhuri D) Anita Desai
Answer: A) Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand is known for his sympathetic portrayal of the oppressed and marginalized in novels like Untouchable.
58. Which Indian poet was inspired by Edmund Gosse to choose Indian themes and scenery?
A) Chaman Nahal B) Meira Chand C) Jayanta Mahapatra D) Sarojini Naidu
Answer: D) Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu was encouraged by Edmund Gosse to write about Indian life, landscapes, and themes.
59. The method of learning / teaching which is opposed to passively receiving information:
A) The Direct Method B) The Structural Method C) Constructivist Method D) Bi-lingual Method
Answer: C) Constructivist Method
Constructivism emphasizes active construction of knowledge by learners rather than passive reception.
60. _ is the name given to a variety of language distinguished according to its use.
A) Register B) Dialect C) Inflection D) Word order
Answer: A) Register
Register refers to language variation according to use, situation, or social context (field, tenor, mode).
61. The Emperor Jones is a play which can be labelled as
A) Realistic B) Expressionistic C) Symbolistic D) Cubistic
Answer: B) Expressionistic
Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones is a classic example of Expressionist drama with distorted reality and inner psychological states.
62. Laura in the Glass Menagerie is
A) A healthy young woman B) A sick young woman C) A crippled and hypersensitive young woman D) A psychopath
Answer: C) A crippled and hypersensitive young woman
Laura Wingfield is portrayed as physically crippled and emotionally fragile and hypersensitive.
63. Which of the following was replaced by Communicative Language Teaching?
A) Motivational Approach B) Structural Approach C) Natural Language Processing D) Situational Approach
Answer: D) Situational Approach
Communicative Language Teaching largely replaced the Situational Language Teaching approach in the 1970s.
64. The direct French influence on the English language during the Middle English period was in the form of
A) Loss of inflections B) Intake of French words into English C) Addition of inflections D) Force of word combinations
Answer: B) Intake of French words into English
After the Norman Conquest, thousands of French words entered English, especially in law, government, and culture.
65. Which of the following provided theoretical basis for Audio-Lingual Method Language Teaching?
A) Transformative Generative Linguistics B) Cognitive Psychology C) Behaviourist Psychology and Bloomfieldian Structural Linguistics D) Systemic Functional Linguistics
Answer: C) Behaviourist Psychology and Bloomfieldian Structural Linguistics
The Audio-Lingual Method was based on behaviourist psychology and structural linguistics.
66. Which book is often said to inaugurate the subject – cultural studies?
A) Stuart Hall – Introduction B) Raymond Williams – The Politics of Modernism C) E.P. Thompson – The Poverty of Theory D) Richard Hoggart – The Uses of Literacy
Answer: D) Richard Hoggart – The Uses of Literacy
Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy (1957) is widely regarded as the founding text of British Cultural Studies.
67. Which cultural theorist is of the opinion that cultural studies is a tendency across disciplines?
A) Toby Miller B) Paul du Gay C) Janice Radway D) Stuart Hall
Answer: A) Toby Miller
Toby Miller views cultural studies as a transdisciplinary tendency rather than a single discipline.
68. Whose study states that Romances satisfy women’s needs that are not met by patriarchy, all the while paradoxically reinforcing it.
A) Nancy Chodorow B) Janice Radway C) Chandrima Chakraborty D) Marie Leger
Answer: B) Janice Radway
In Reading the Romance, Janice Radway argues that romance reading both fulfills and reinforces patriarchal structures.
69. Which of the following is not true in Dalit aesthetics as given by Sharankumar Limbale?
A) The agony, assertion, resistance and anger of the dalits should be expressed B) Dalits experience should take precedence over speculation C) Sympathy for the dalits should be generated D) Ungrammatical language and different expressions should be used
Answer: C) Sympathy for the dalits should be generated
Limbale emphasizes anger, assertion, and rejection of sympathy; he wants Dalit literature to provoke discomfort rather than pity.
70. Match the following:
List I
a) Claude Levi-Strauss b) Jacques Derrida c) Northrop Frye d) Michel Foucault
List II
1) Of Grammatology 2) The Archaeology of Knowledge 3) Structural Anthropology 4) Anatomy of Criticism
Answer: C) a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2
71. Match the following:
List I
a) Buchi Emecheta b) Ama Ata Aidoo c) Nadine Gordimer d) Ngugi wa Thiong’o
List II
- Burger’s Daughter 2. Joys of Motherhood 3. Devil on the Cross 4. Our Sister Killjoy
Answer: B) a-2, b-4, c-1, d-3
72. Derrida’s American disciples were
A) Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller B) Gertrude Stein, Barbara Johnson, Michael Ryan C) Barbara Johnson, Michael Ryan, Mary Ellman D) Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari
Answer: A) Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller
These critics formed the Yale School of Deconstruction in America.
73. ‘Aphoristic’ is a term associated with the essays of
A) Roger Ascham B) Roger Bacon C) Francis Bacon D) Charles Lamb
Answer: C) Francis Bacon
Bacon’s essays are famous for their concise, epigrammatic, and aphoristic style.
74. “For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love” is a line from
A) Death, be Not Proud B) The Canonization C) To His Coy Mistress D) A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
Answer: B) The Canonization
The line opens John Donne’s poem The Canonization.
75. This person is not a character in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
A) Susannah B) Doctor Slop C) Trim D) Verges
Answer: D) Verges
Verges is a character from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, not from Tristram Shandy.
76. The doctrine of ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ was advocated by
A) Walter Scott B) Walter Pater C) Walter Raleigh D) Walter de la Mare
Answer: B) Walter Pater
Walter Pater was a leading advocate of Aestheticism and “Art for Art’s Sake” in Victorian England.
77. Eminent Victorians is a work by
A) James Tait B) Bertrand Russell C) John Maynard Keynes D) Lytton Strachey
Answer: D) Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians (1918) revolutionized modern biography.
78. The title Arms and the Man is borrowed from
A) Homer B) Virgil C) Chaucer D) Shakespeare
Answer: B) Virgil
Shaw borrowed the title from the opening line of Virgil’s Aeneid (“Arma virumque cano”).
79. ‘Sprung rhythm’ was an innovation from
A) Gerard Manley Hopkins B) Philip Sidney C) Dylan Thomas D) R.S. Thomas
Answer: A) Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hopkins invented “sprung rhythm” to capture the natural rhythm of speech and emotion.
80. “I am the enemy you killed, my friend”. This line is from
A) Strange Meeting B) Insensibility C) Trench Duty D) Dreamers
Answer: A) Strange Meeting
Wilfred Owen’s Strange Meeting contains this powerful anti-war line spoken by a dead German soldier.
81. ‘Doublespeak’ and ‘thoughtcrime’ are concepts found in the work
A) Brave New World B) Fahrenheit 451 C) Nineteen Eighty-Four D) Homage to Catalonia
Answer: C) Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell introduced these terms in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
82. In A Doll’s House, Nora’s husband is
A) Torvald B) Nils C) Krogstad D) Rank
Answer: A) Torvald
Nora’s husband in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is Torvald Helmer.
83. Kazuo Ishiguro writes novels in
A) Spanish B) Japanese C) English D) Korean
Answer: C) English
Although born in Japan, Ishiguro writes his novels in English and is considered a British author.
84. “I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument / while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” These lines are by
A) Sri Aurobindo B) Rabindranath Tagore C) Toru Dutt D) Sarojini Naidu
Answer: B) Rabindranath Tagore
These lines appear in Tagore’s Gitanjali.
85. The first poet to win the Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry was
A) Nissim Ezekiel B) Dom Moraes C) A.K. Ramanujan D) Jayanta Mahapatra
Answer: D) Jayanta Mahapatra
Jayanta Mahapatra was the first English-language poet to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award (in 1981 for Relationship).
86. Girish Karnad wrote plays in
A) English and Hindi B) English and Marathi C) English and Malayalam D) English and Kannada
Answer: D) English and Kannada
Girish Karnad wrote his plays originally in Kannada and later translated many into English.
87. I.P.A. stands for
A) International Phonetic Association B) International Phonetic Alphabet C) International Phonological Association D) International Phonemic Alphabet
Answer: A and B Correct
IPA refers to both the International Phonetic Association and the International Phonetic Alphabet it created.
88. The term which refers to the influence of one sound segment upon the articulation of another, so that the two sounds become more alike, or even identical is
A) Anticipation B) Assimilation C) Amelioration D) Aspiration
Answer: B) Assimilation
Assimilation is a phonological process where one sound becomes more like a neighbouring sound.
89. Languages formed by attempts at communication by two mutually unintelligible speech communities can be called
A) Pidgin B) Register C) Cant D) Dialect
Answer: A) Pidgin
A pidgin is a simplified contact language that develops between groups with no common language.
90. The notion of ‘World Englishes’ was propounded by
A) George Bernard Shaw B) Braj B. Kachru C) Noam Chomsky D) Dwight D. Eisenhower
Answer: B) Braj B. Kachru
Braj B. Kachru popularized the concept of World Englishes and the Three Circles model.
91. The official languages of the country are listed in this ‘Schedule’ to the Constitution of India
A) First B) Fourth C) Sixth D) Eighth
Answer: D) Eighth
The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists the 22 scheduled languages.
92. CALL refers to
A) Computer Assisted Language Learning B) Cyber Assisted Language Learning C) Close Assisted Language Learning D) Classroom Agnostic Language Learning
Answer: A) Computer Assisted Language Learning
CALL stands for Computer Assisted Language Learning, an approach using computers in language teaching.
93. The purgation of pity and terror through art is known as
A) Hamartia B) Catharsis C) Mimesis D) Anagnorisis
Answer: B) Catharsis
Aristotle’s concept of catharsis refers to the purgation or purification of emotions of pity and fear through tragedy.
94. Antonio Gramsci’s ideas on __ can be found in the work _
A) Marxist theory, Prison Notebooks B) Insanity, Madness and Civilization C) Morality, Genealogy of Morals D) Literary theory, The Death of the Author
Answer: A) Marxist Theory, Prison Notebooks
Gramsci developed key Marxist concepts like hegemony in his Prison Notebooks.
95. The Raw and the Cooked is a work by
A) Susan Sontag B) James Frazer C) Franz Boas D) Claude Levi-Strauss
Answer: D) Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss’s The Raw and the Cooked is a foundational structuralist work on mythology.
96. In the work , Elaine Showalter traces the history of women’s literature in Europe in three phases, which are , , and
A) Feminist Manifesto, female, feminist, femme fatale B) Gynocritique, feminine, feminist, femme de guerre C) Feminist Poetics, feminine, feminist, female D) Towards a Feminist Poetics, feminine, feminist, female
Answer: D) Towards a Feminist Poetics, feminine, feminist, female
Showalter outlines the three phases of women’s writing: Feminine, Feminist, and Female.
97. Eurocentric prejudices against Asian and Arab-Islamic people and culture are examined by in _
A) Edward Said, Orientalism B) Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society C) Anuradha Roy, The Folded Earth D) Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks
Answer: A) Edward Said, Orientalism
Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) is the foundational critique of Western representations of the East.
98. Erich Fromm presents a re-interpretation of the story of
A) Adam and Eve B) The Judgement of Paris C) The Hare and the Tortoise D) Noah’s Ark
Answer: A) Adam and Eve
In The Art of Loving and other works, Fromm reinterprets the Adam and Eve myth psychologically.
99. The vakrokti siddhanta was postulated by
A) Bharata B) Kuntaka C) Anandavardhana D) Abhinavagupta
Answer: B) Kuntaka
Kuntaka propounded the Vakrokti Siddhanta (theory of oblique expression) in Indian poetics.
100. Match the names of writers and the names of group/movements associated with them
Writers
a) Cecil Day-Lewis b) Hilda Doolittle c) Stéphane Mallarmé d) Robert Lowell
Group/Movements
- Imagist Poets 2. Symbolist Poets 3. Confessional Poets 4. Pylon Poets
Answer: D) a-4, b-1, c-2, d-3
101. ‘Neoclassic’ writers shared the values of
A) Radical innovation B) Traditionalism C) Individualism D) Rebellion
Answer: B) Traditionalism
Neoclassical writers valued order, tradition, reason, and imitation of classical models.
102. The Battle of the Books takes place in the
A) King James’ Library B) St James’ Library C) James Royal Library D) James Regent Library
Answer: A) King James’ Library
Swift’s The Battle of the Books is set in the King’s Library at St. James’s Palace.
103. The “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” was first published in
A) 1798 B) 1800 C) 1801 D) 1802
Answer: C) 1801
The Preface was added to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800 (published January 1801) and expanded in 1802.
104. Confessions of an English Opium Eater is a work by
A) Rousseau B) De Quincey C) Coleridge D) Pope
Answer: B) De Quincey
Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is a classic of Romantic prose.
105. Rudyard Kipling was born in
A) Birmingham B) Belfast C) Bordeaux D) Bombay
Answer: D) Bombay
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1865.
106. Maud Gonne married
A) John MacBride B) Thomas MacDonagh C) James Connolly D) Padraig Pearse
Answer: A) John MacBride
Maud Gonne married Irish nationalist John MacBride in 1903.
107. Identify the one who is not a “Movement” writer
A) Philip Larkin B) Thom Gunn C) Ted Hughes D) Robert Conquest
Answer: C) Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes belonged to a later generation; the Movement poets were Larkin, Gunn, Conquest, etc.
108. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” This is a quote from
A) Rousseau B) Thoreau C) Emerson D) Dickinson
Answer: C) Emerson
The line appears in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance.
109. The poem at the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy as President of the US was read by
A) Arthur Miller B) Henry Miller C) Robert Frost D) Robert Penn Warren
Answer: C) Robert Frost
Robert Frost read his poem “The Gift Outright” at Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.
110. Hukum Chand, Iqbal Singh and Juggut Singh are characters in a work by
A) Raja Rao B) Mulk Raj Anand C) R.K. Narayan D) Khushwant Singh
Answer: D) Khushwant Singh
These characters appear in Khushwant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan.
111. Azaro, the spirit child, is a character created by
A) Ben Okri B) Ngugi wa Thiong’o C) John Pepper Clark D) Athol Fugard
Answer: A) Ben Okri
Azaro is the spirit child narrator in Ben Okri’s novel The Famished Road.
112. “The Wretched of the Earth” is an influential work by
A) Paulo Freire B) Ivan Illich C) Frantz Fanon D) Franz Kafka
Answer: C) Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a foundational text of postcolonial theory.
113. “Lajja” is a work by
A) Yasmine Gooneratne B) Taslima Nasrin C) Edwin Thumboo D) Romesh Gunesekera
Answer: B) Taslima Nasrin
Taslima Nasrin’s controversial novel Lajja (Shame) deals with the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.
114. The branch of linguistics that is concerned with meaning is known as
A) Semiotics B) Semiology C) Semantics D) Symbology
Answer: C) Semantics
Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning in language.
115. The distinction between ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’ is discussed in
A) Preface to the Lyrical Ballads B) Biographia Literaria C) De Profundis D) Preface to the Fable
Answer: B) Biographia Literaria
Coleridge discusses the difference between fancy and imagination in Biographia Literaria.
116. Match the sub-title/alternate titles with the titles of the works
List I
a. Tess of the D’Urbervilles b. She Stoops to Conquer c. Pamela d. The Importance of Being Earnest
List II
- Mistakes of a Night 2. Virtue Rewarded 3. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People 4. A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
Answer: B) a-4, b-1, c-2, d-3
117. Match the quotes with their authors
Quote
a. I am not Hamlet, nor was meant to be. b. The horror! The horror! c. A terrible beauty is born d. Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
Author
- Dylan Thomas 2. T.S. Eliot 3. Joseph Conrad 4. W.B. Yeats
Answer: B) a-2, b-3, c-4, d-1
118. The theory of the impersonality of the poet was put forward by
A) Samuel T. Coleridge B) Samuel Johnson C) T.S. Eliot D) W.S. Merwin
Answer: C) T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot presented the theory of impersonality in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”.
119. “Akkarmashi” is the autobiography of
A) Baburao Bagul B) Shantabai Kale C) Sharankumar Limbale D) Namdev Dhasal
Answer: C) Sharankumar Limbale
Sharankumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi (The Outcaste) is a powerful Dalit autobiography.
120. The concept of aucitya was discussed by
A) Vamana B) Mammata C) Kshemendra D) Dandin
Answer: C) Kshemendra
Kshemendra elaborated the concept of Aucitya (propriety) in Indian poetics.