English Literature Practice Questions – 02

Q16 – Literary divisions are not always exact, but we draw them because they are often convenient. The majority of English literary periods are named after:

A. The leading characteristic of the age

B. Monarchs or political events

C. The primary author of the age

D. The language of the age

Q17 – Which period of literature came first?

A. Regency

B. Victorian

C. Romantic

D. Restoration

Q18 – In what language did Shakespeare write?

A. Middle English

B. German

C. Old English

D. Modern English

Q19 – Which work was published first?

A. Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”

B. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

C. Lord Byron’s “Don Juan”

D. Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”

Q20 – Which of the following works was written before the all-important Battle of Hastings?

A. Beowulf

B. Canterbury Tales

C. The Domesday Book

D. Sons and Lovers

Q21 – Who wrote first?

A. George Eliot

B. Christopher Marlowe

C. Howard, Earl of Surrey

D. William Shakespeare

Q22 – Which work was completed last?

A. John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

B. George Herbert’s “The Temple”

C. William Shakespeare’s “Tempest”

D. Ben Jonson’s “Volpone”

Q23 – Which of the following poets wrote during the Victorian period but was not published until the 20th century?

A. Christina Rossetti

B. Gerard Manley Hopkins

C. Elizabeth Barret Browning

D. Ted Hughes

Q24 – This work was NOT originally published in the 20th Century.

A. Henry James’s “The Ambassadors”

B. Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”

C. E.M. Forster’s “A Room With A View”

D. Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”

Q25 – Which poet did NOT write during the 16th century?

A. John Skelton

B. William Shakespeare

C. Sir Thomas Wyatt

D. Thomas Carew

Q26 – Historical events often influence literature. Which of the following did NOT occur during the Restoration period?

A. Charles II was restored to the throne

B. The French Revolution

C. The Great Fire of London

D. The Exclusion Bill Crisis

Q27 – He was not a Renaissance writer.

A. William Shakespeare

B. Sir Philip Sidney

C. Christopher Marlowe

D. Sir Thomas Malory

Click on the link for William Shakespeare Biography

Q28 – Which of the following literary sub- periods does NOT fall under the Neoclassical Period?

A. The Restoration

B. Jacobean Age

C. The Augustan Age

D. The Age of Sensibility

Q29 – Which of the following periods of English literature came last?

A. The Elizabethan Age

B. The Commonwealth Period

C. The Jacobean Age

D. The Middle English Period

Click on the link for Timeline of British Literature

Q30 – This work was written before the other three choices.

A. Bede’s “An Ecclesiastical History of the English People”

B. Julian of Norwhich’s “Book of Showings”

C. Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”

D. Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia”

Answers:

• 16 – B
• 17 – D
• 18 – D
• 19 – A
• 20 – A
• 21 – C
• 22 – A
• 23 – B
• 24 – B
• 25 – D
• 26 – B
• 27 – D
• 28 – B
• 29 – B
• 30 – A