School of Distance Education

UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

M.A. ENGLISH
II SEMESTER (2019 Admn.)
ENG2 CO6 - Literary Criticism and Theory - Part 1 (Up to New Criticism)

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

1. Identify the state festival held every year in honour of the God Dionysus in Greece.
a. Great Dionysia b. Dionysia c. Phaedrus d. Athenia

2. Choose the work from the choices below that is in the form of scholarly exchanges between
Plato and his teacher Socrates.
a. Protogoras b. Gorgias c. Symposium d. Dialogues

3. In which work did Aristotle firmly refute Plato’s pronouncements deriding art, artists and
poetry?
a. De Anima b. Poetics c. Metaphysics d. Physics

4. Which work by Horace is a discussion on poetry, poetic style and drama?

a. Nicomachean Ethics c. Ars Poetica
b. Politics d. On the Sublime

5. In which work does Plato draw a distinction between the poet and the philosopher?
a. Ion c. Phaedrus
b. Republic d. The Education of an Orator

6. The pivotal speaker in Republic, Socrates recalls the visit to Piraeus, the port of Athens to
take part in the festivities to honour which deity?
a. Bendis b. Apollo c. Dionysus d. Cupid

7. Who is the young half-brother of Plato whose name means “owl” or “gleaming eyes”?
a. Cephalus b. Aristotle c. Glaucon d. Thrasymachus

8. Which book in the Republic ends with the Phoenician myth, which Socrates feels would serve
as the effective mythical explanation for their State/
a. First b. Fourth c. Second d. Third

9. Who attempts to define a philosopher and introduces the Theory of Forms?

a. Plato b. Socrates c. Aristotle d. Longinus

10. Which form of government is based primarily on wealth?

a. Timocracy b. Oligarchy c. democracy d. tyranny

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11. The Republic concludes with Socrates’ vibrant description of the tale of which hero?
a. Er b. Ulysses c. Telemachus d. Achilles

12. Who mentions: “God is not the author of all things, but of good only”
a. Plato b. Glaucon c. Socrates d. Adeimantus

13. Whose verses does Socrates criticise because of the uneven blend of narrative, especially the
speeches of the characters in Iliad that also employ mimesis or imitation?
a. Hesiod b. Homer c. Aeschylus d. Sophocles

14. Which genre, according to Aristotle is divided into the epic and the dramatic according to the
manner of its imitation?
a. poetry b. drama c. prose d. fiction

15. Which type of drama, according to Aristotle is considered a representation of characters of a

base type, which means ridiculous?
a. farce b. tragicomedy c. satire d. comedy

16. Which chapter of Aristotle’s Poetics discusses the construction of an ideal plot, which is
fundamental to tragedy?
a. sixth b. seventh c. eighth d. ninth

17. What is the Greek term for “resolution of complication”?

a. perepeteia b. anagnorisis c. denouement d. catharsis

18. Which is the entire part of a tragedy placed between the complete choric songs, in the
divisions of a tragedy when staged?
a. Parode b. Episode c. Exode d. Stasimon

19. Whose misfortunes should an ideal plot depict?

a. hero b. Antagonist c. chorus d. family

20. Which unity has not been mentioned by Aristotle?

a. time b. action c. place d. all these

21.Whose plays are considered the primary models of artistic unity, dramatic construction and
the author’s role in the epic by Aristotle?
a. Aristophanes b. Virgil c. Sophocles d. Homer

22.Which kind of poetry has been ignored because Aristotle considers it more suited to music
than poetry?
a. ode b. lyric c. sonnet d. dramatic monologue

23.What is the structure of Longinus’ “On the Sublime”?

a. epistolary b. narrative c. discussion d. discursive

24.What is the excessive use of verbal ornamentation that obstructs the natural use of language
and hence it should be avoided?
a. grandiloquence b. puerility c. elaboration d. exaggeration

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25.How many sources of sublimity are mentioned by Longinus?

a. Four b. Three c. five d. two

26.Which figure of speech is useful in heightening expression, in the opinion of Longinus?

a. hyperbation b. periphrasis c. asyndeton d. none of these

27. When was the pastoral romance Arcadia was published?

a. 1579 b. 1576 c. 1575 d. 1580

28. An Apology for Poetry is Sidney’s reply to The Schoole of Abuse written by whom?
a. Samuel Coleridge c. Stephen Gosson
b. Percy B.Shelley d. Matthew Arnold

29. What does the word vates mean?

a. building b. a seer c. coward d. disciple

30. Who mentions “as is painting so is poetry”?

a. Virgil b. Homer c. Dante d. Horace

31. Which poet mentions: “If poetry instructs, it does so only through pleasure”.
a. Wordsworth b. Coleridge c. Shelley Keats

32. Which edition of the Preface is considered important because of the explanation of the nature
and characteristics of the poet, and his superiority over the man of science?
a. 1802 b. 1800 c. 1815 d. None of these

33. Who is the author of Defence of Poetry?

a. Coleridge b. Keats c. Shelley d. Mathew Arnold

34. Who wrote the poems Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood;
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey; On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a
Tour; and Ode to Duty
a. Robert Browning c. William Blake
b. John Milton d. William Wordsworth

35.Who mentions: “Every great poet is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as a
nothing”.
a. William Wordsworth b. Lord Byron c. Edmund Spenser d. Robert Herrick

36. Which critic published his classroom lectures and his ideas along with the dictums of the other
critics regularly in Scrutiny?
a. Raman Selden b. F.R.Leavis c. Henry James d. Joseph Conrad

37. Who among the following is recognised one of “the great English novelists”?
a. Charlotte Bronte b. Emily Bronte c. Jane Austen d. Henry Fielding

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38. Which critic is of the opinion that though Charles Dickens possesses the vitality and vision of
art as Conrad does, he cannot be included “in the line of great novelists”?
a. George Santayana b. T.S.Eliot c. D.H. Lawrence d. F.R.Leavis

39. Whose first book of poems Prufrock and Other Observations was published in 1917?
a. Robert Browning b. T.S.Eliot c. Alfred Tennyson d. John Keats

40. Locate T.S. Eliot’s full length book of essays on poetry and criticism.
a. The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism b. The Egoist
c. Tradition and the Individual Talent d. The Art of T.S.Eliot

41. Identify the author of The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry (1947)/
a. William K. Wimsatt b. Cleanth Brooks c. Joel E.Spingarn d. Yvor Winters

42. What is “the error of evaluating a poem by its effects- especially its emotional effects- upon the
reader” termed?
a. intentional fallacy c. method of indirection
b. ambiguity d. affective fallacy

43. What is referred as the analysis of the figurative elements such as images, similes, metaphors,
symbols, and myth that unify a work?
a. contrapuntal reading b. imagery c. close reading d. fallacy

44. From which poem is the title The Well Wrought Urn taken?
a. The Canonization c. Ode on a Grecian Urn
b. Ode to the West Wind d. Ulysses

45. Which essay begins with the title: “Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the
language of poetry is the language of paradox”?
a. Seven Types of Ambiguity c. Tension in Poetry
b. The Language of Paradox d. Tradition and the Individual Talent

46. In which essay does T.S.Eliot comment that “a perpetual slight alteration of language; words
perpetually juxtaposed in new and sudden combinations” in poetry?
a. Tradition and the Individual Talent c. Philip Massinger
b. The Chicago Critics: The Fallacy of the Neoclassic Species d. None of these

47. Who wrote the essay “The Critical Monism of Cleanth Brooks”?
a. R.S.Crane b. Elder Olson c. Robert Penn Warren d. Richard McKeon

48. Which group of critics opposed the propositions of the New Critics on several grounds?
a. Romantic critics c. The Chicago School of Critics
b. Neoclassic critics d. Reader-response critics

49. From which book is the essay “The Archetypes of Literature” taken from?
a. Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology c. Anatomy of Criticism
b. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry d. John Donne: Paradoxes and Problems

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50. Who initiated Archetypal literary criticism?

a. G.Wilson Knight c. Philip Wheelwright
b. Robert Graves d. Maud Bodkin

51. Who mentions that symbols, images, rituals and myths, which originate from primitive myths,
rituals, folk-lore and cultures are employed by writers in works, and the primitive factors lie buried
in the “collective unconscious” which may otherwise be called “racial memory” of the people?
a. Sigmund Freud b. Carl Jung c. Maud Bodkin d. James Frazer

52. Under which method of analysis, does the critic proceed to ascertain the meaning of a work
from the general truth to the particular one?
a. deductive b. inductive c. Formalist d. Archetypal

53. Who defines aesthetics as “philosophy of fine art”?

a. Matthew Arnold c. Karl Marx
b. Robert Browning d. Friedrich Hegel

54. What is referred as the proper knowledge of language that helps to satisfy desires?
a. Rasa b. Natyashastra c. Kamadhenu d. dhwani

55. Which is the earliest systematic work on Indian dramaturgy?

a. Kavyalankara b. Natyashastra c. Kavyadarsha d. Nirupana

56. Who critiqued the sphota doctrine of the grammarians and the Buddhist linguistic doctrine of
apoha?
a. Dandin b. Abhinavagupta c. Udbhata d. Bhamaha

57. Which critic gave great importance to the gunas and doshas (merits and defects) in poetry?
a. Kalidasa b. Anandavardhana c. Dandin d. Rajashekhara

58. Who is the most authoritative exponent of Pratyabhijna philosophy that is centered on Kashmiri
Shaivism?
a. Abhinavagupta b. Anandavardhana c. Kshemendra d. Bhoja

59. Who is the Kashmiri scholar whose Vakroktijivita is famous for the discussion of vakrata
(indirection or obliqueness) in expression in poetry?
a. Anandavardhana b. Rajashekhara c. Abhinavagupta d. Kuntaka

60. Which tailanga scholar who was a prominent poet in the court of the Mughal emperor Shah
Jahan, was conferred the title Panditaraja?
a. Jagannatha b. Mahimabhatta c. Kshemendra d. Bhoja

61. In which work by Vamana was the word sahrudaya used first in the technical sense of a
competent reader of poetry?
a. Agnipurana b. Dwanyaloka c. Kavyaloka d. Kavyalamkara

62. Which category of prathibha refers to the creative ability of the poet?
a. karayitri b. bhavayitri c. abida d. anumana

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63. Who mentions “vakyam rasatmakam kavyam” , which means any composition which gives
tasteful pleasure is poetry?
a. Kshemendra b. Bhattalolatta c. Mammata d. Jagannatha

64. Which Indian critical theory concentrates on emotive expression?

a. Rasa b. abida c. anumana d. kavya

65. Which theory in Indian aesthetics theory connotes indirect or suggestive expression?
a. alamkara b. Dhwani c. kavya d. aswad

66. Who was the first dramatist to recognise the importance of rasa in aesthetics?
a. Kalidasa b. Jagannatha c. Bharatamuni d. Purandaradasa

67.Which term in Indian aesthetics refers to the objective conditions or reasons for producing or
exciting an emotion, which is also the main stimulating cause or the object of the emotion?
a. bhava b. samyoga c. anubhava d. vibhava

68. Who pointed out the major drawbacks in Bhattalolatta’s theory in relation to vibhava and rasa?
a. Mammata b. Shankuka c. Kalidasa d. Bharata

69. Identify the theory by Bhattanayaka that projects the experiential aspect related to emotions,
which is also known as the enjoyment theory?
a. Rasa b. Bhuthivada c. Anumitivada d. Pracya nyaya

70. Which philosopher rejected Bhattalolatta’s argument that rasa is the heightened state of the
basic emotions and mentioned that the emotions like sorrow, anger, and love diminish in
magnitude with the passage of time?
a. Mammata b. Anandavardhana c. Jagannatha d. Shankuka

71. Who propounded that the poetic function, which triggers the aesthetic experience that is
ecstatic in nature and second to the ultimate experience of the realisation of the self is called
bojakatva?
a. Bhattanayaka b. Bhattalolatta c. Abhinavagupta d. Anandavardhana

72. Which term in Indian aesthetics refers to the process of Generalisation?

a. bhavakatva b. tamas c. sattva d. sadharanikarana

73. Which aspect helps the sahrdaya or the aesthetically sensible person to see the characters
presented in a literary work in a generalised manner?
a. denotation b. Imagination c. Inference d. connotation

74. Who among the following validates how the poetic language triggers the aesthetic process
through its suggestiveness?
a. Mammata b. Bhattanayaka c. Anandavardhana d. Abhinavagupta

75. Which term is used by Abhinavagupta to denote “relating”, “narrating” or “describing” emotive
conditions.
a. bhavanukirtanam b. anumana c. bhavaktwa d. bhojakatwa

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76. Which word is used to denote not only the special aesthetic pleasure and the outward
manifestation of artistic experience but also the mental faculty which makes aesthetic experience
possible.
a. rasavaga b. alaukika c. Chamatkara d. charvana

77. Which term used by Bharata means a spectator?

a. rupaka b. prekshaka c. sahrudaya d. bhavana

78. Which term refers to any hindrance to aesthetic relish, the impediment that could be effected
by poetry, the actor, or the reader.
a. rasa b. bhayanaka c. rasavighna d. hasya

79. What is the literal meaning of the word dhwani?

a. sound b. explosion c. phonetics d. phonology

80. What does Lakshana denote?

a. literal meaning c. judgement
b. suggestive meaning d. metaphorical meaning

81. What is the source of dhwani theory?

a. Sphota theory b. Theory of rasa c.Rasadhwani d. Lochana

82. Which Indian grammarian discussed the concept of dhwani in a systematic manner?
a. Mammata b. Shankuka c. Patanjali d. none of these

83. Who opposed the theory of dhwani on the ground there was no meaning in inventing a new
power for words since dhwani was subordinate to anumana?
a. Bhattanayaka b. Mahimabhatta c. Jagannatha d. Abhinavagupta

84. What is the term used to refer to pictorial poetry?

a. chitrakavya b. chitra c. shloka d. kavya

85. Which word refers to the primary power of signification existing in words that is capable of
providing the literal or lexical meaning?
a. lochana b. anugraha c. abida d. pada

86. Which term by Kuntaka is used to include dhwani as a mode of varkroti ?

a. upacharavakrata b. vakrata c. nirupana d. lakshana

87. Which is the variety of dhwani accepted by Kuntaka that includes the employment of words of
double meaning
a. artha b. shabda c. shabdashaktimoola d. rupa

88. In the opinion of Aristotle, whose plays are the primary models of artistic unity, dramatic
construction?
a. Homer b. virgil c. Sophocles d. Dante

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89.What is considered superior to the epic since it contains all the elements that give pleasure
along with music and spectacle?
a. comedy b. tragedy c. tragicomedy d. none of these

90. To whom does Longinus write “On the Sublime”, which is in the form of letters?
a. Aristotle b. Cecilius c. Postumius Terentianus d. Plato

91. Which work by Sir Philip Sidney, written in 1578 is considered an impressive appeal for the
social value of imaginative fiction?
a. Arcadia c. Astrophel and Stella
b. The Lady of May d. The Defence of Poesie

92. Who is the author of The Art of Rhetoric (1553) that could be regarded the first modern
treatise on English composition?
a. Thomas Wilson b. Thomas Hardy c. F.R.Leavis d. T.S.Eliot

93. According to Sir Philip Sidney, which kind of poetry evokes pity because it deals with the
weakness of mankind and the desolation of the world.
a. lyric b.elegiac poetry c. tragedy d. dramatic monologue

94. Dickens, in Hard Times brings out certain crucial aspects of which philosophy through the
characters Gradgrind and Bounderby?
a. Victorian Utilitarianism c. Individualism
b. Romanticism d. Marxism

95. Who considers Hard Times “a moral fable” with a definite intention that exhibits satiric irony
in the first two chapters of his book The Great Tradition?
a. Thomas Hardy b. T.S.Eliot c. F.R.Leavis d. Charles Dickens

96. Who praised the English Metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century, especially John Donne,
and the nineteenth century French symbolist poets that included Baudelaire and Jules Laforgue
because of the radical innovations in poetic technique and subject matter?
a. F.R.Leavis b. T.S.Eliot c. John Crowe Ransom d. I.A.Richards

97. What, according to T.S.Eliot is neither a slavish imitation nor a mere repetition of what has
already been achieved?
a. Impersonality c. Depersonalisation
b. Individuality d. Tradition

98. Who is the author of “Principles of Literary Criticism” (1924) and “Practical Criticism” (1929)?
a. I.A.Richards c. Joel Spingarn
b. Robert Pen Warren d. William K. Wimsatt

99. In the opinion of the New Critics, which are the devices that contribute to multiplicity of
meanings in a work, and render a work complex?
a. irony b. paradox c. ambiguity all these

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100. Which play of Shakespeare does Northrop Frye use to explicate the inductive method of
analysis?
a. Othello b. King Lear c. Hamlet d. Macbeth

ANSWER KEY

1 A 21 D 41 B 61 D 81 A

2 D 22 B 42 D 62 A 82 C

3 B 23 A 43 C 63 D 83 B

4 C 24 A 44 A 64 A 84 A

5 B 25 C 45 B 65 B 85 C

6 A 26 C 46 C 66 C 86 A

7 C 27 A 47 A 67 D 87 C

8 D 28 C 48 C 68 A 88 A

9 B 29 B 49 A 69 B 89 B

10 B 30 D 50 D 70 D 90 C

11 A 31 B 51 B 71 A 91 D

12 C 32 A 52 A 72 D 92 A

13 B 33 C 53 D 73 B 93 B

14 A 34 D 54 C 74 D 94 A

15 D 35 A 55 B 75 A 95 C

16 B 36 B 56 D 76 C 96 B

17 C 37 C 57 C 77 B 97 D

18 B 38 D 58 A 78 C 98 A

19 A 39 B 59 D 79 A 99 D

20 C 40 A 60 A 80 D 100 C

Prepared by : Dr. C.G.Shyamala,

Assistant Professor,
Post-graduate Dept. of English and Research-
Centre for Comparative Studies,
Mercy College, Palakkad.

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