GRE Literature in English (REA) (27 page)

His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis and Rhymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish Usurper is represented as a drunkard. But our poet always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to shew an usurper and a murderer not only odious but despicable, he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual distinction of country and condition, as a painter, satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.

The writer under discussion is

1. Sophocles.
   
2. Milton.
   
3. Shakespeare.
   
4. Dryden.
   
5. Spencer.
   

“Superinduced and adventitious” means

1. additional and chance, not inherent.
   
2. superficial and hazardous, not certain.
   
3. careless and unnatural, not innate.
   
4. unclear and indefinite, not carefully considered.
   
5. basic and essential, not accidental.
   

Which of the following best describes the writer's use of Dennis, Rhymer, and Voltaire in this passage?

1. He agrees with most of their criticism, but says it derives from narrower principles than he is using in this essay.
   
2. He finds greater merit in Voltaire's criticism than in that of Rhymer and Dennis.
   
3. He admires all three as critics, but respectfully differs with them on these matters.
   
4. He finds greater merit in the criticism of Rhymer and Dennis than in Voltaire's.
   
5. He believes the criticism of all three is trivial and misguided.
   

Which of the following best expresses the critical principle on which the author's specific arguments are based?

1. The poet, like the painter, must not neglect finishing touches, the “drapery” that particularizes the individual.
   
2. The poet must be aware of cultural differences and changing fashions in order to portray them accurately.
   
3. The poet should focus his efforts on the accurate representation of universal truths and characteristics, on general nature common to all ages and places.
   
4. The poet is a product of his own time and place, is best acquainted with it, and must therefore depict its unique characteristics in order to leave an accurate account for future generations.
   
5. Particular manners and eccentricities best define human individuality; hence, the poet should concentrate on a just representation of these.
   

The author of this passage is

1. Sidney.
   
2. Johnson.
   
3. Shelley.
   
4. Poe.
   
5. Ruskin.
   

Which is the “I” of Poe's
The Cask of Amontillado?

Which is the “I” of Eudora Welty's
Why I Live at the P.O
.?

1. My family are naturally the main people in China Grove, and if they prefer to vanish from the face of the earth, for all the mail they get or the mail they write, why, I'm not going to open my mouth. Some of the folks here in town are taking up for me and some turned against me. I know which is which. There are always people who will quit buying stamps just to get on the right side of Pappa-Daddy.
   

   But here I am, and here I'll stay. I want the world to know I'm happy.
   

   And if Stella-Rondo should come to me this minute, on bended knees, and
   attempt
   to explain the incidents of her life with Mr. Whitaker, I'd simply put my fingers in both my ears and refuse to listen.
   

2. In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third checkout slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones, and no eye brows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers for fifty years and probably never seen a mistake before.
   

3. I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
   

   “I've got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!”
   

   Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
   

4. No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half a century no mortal has disturbed them.
   In pace requiescat
   !
   

5. I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.
   

   Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
   

Which is spoken by Jaques?

Which is spoken by Falstaff?

Which is spoken by Caliban?

1. Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.
   

2. All the world's a stage,
   And all the men and women merely players.
   They have their exits and their entrances,
   And one man in his time plays many parts,
   His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
   Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms ...
   

   Last scene of all,
   That ends this strange eventful history,
   Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
   Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
   

3. Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
   As I foretold you, were all spirits and
   Are melted into air, into thin air;
   And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
   The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
   The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
   Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
   And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
   Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
   As dreams are made on, and our little life
   Is rounded with a sleep.
   

4. You taught me language, and my profit on 't
   Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
   For learning me your language!
   

5. I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!
   

All of the following are pastoral elegies EXCEPT

1. Milton's “Lycidas.”
   
2. Johnson's
   The Vanity of Human Wishes
   .
   
3. the November eclogue of Spencer's
   Shepheardes Calendar
   .
   
4. Shelley's “Adonais.”
   
5. Arnold's “Thyrsis.”
   

DORIMANT

HARRIET

DORIMANT

HARRIET

DORIMANT

In this exchange, meaning is conveyed through

1. classical allusions.
   
2. invective.
   
3. an extended metaphor.
   
4. direct statement.
   
5. dramatic irony.
   

Which of the following best captures the meaning of Dorimant's second speech?

1. Although he prefers to gamble for large sums, he can be content playing for lower stakes if the game is sufficiently interesting.
   
2. Although he has been accustomed to sexual conquest, he can settle for less if he likes his partner well enough.
   
3. He is competent at all kinds of games, whether serious or frivolous.
   
4. Although he prefers serious games, he is willing to play less serious ones if he likes his partner well enough.
   
5. He prefers many sexual partners, but can be content with one if she is sufficiently interesting.
   

The dialogue is characteristic of

1. Elizabethan comedy of humours.
   
2. heroic drama.
   
3. Restoration comedy.
   
4. eighteenth-century sentimental comedy.
   
5. theater of the absurd.
   

We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made eternally to weep.

 

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark
White stars is no less lovely being dark,
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

The poem differs in form from the usual pattern of a Petrarchan sonnet in that

1. a shift in the thought process occurs at the beginning of line 9.
   
2. it contains an octave and a sestet rather than three quatrains and a couplet.
   
3. it contains more than five rhymes.
   
4. the sestet contains three couplets.
   
5. the octave contains eight lines.
   

Which of the following most accurately states the burden of the octave?

1. It protests the elevation of inferior men to high public office while more able men go unrecognized.
   
2. It predicts that the oppressed will not forever be oppressed.
   
3. It expresses a desire for the redistribution of wealth.
   
4. It is a plea for violent revolution.
   
5. It predicts that the abolition of slavery will be followed by years of more subtle oppression.
   

Which of the following most accurately expresses the idea contained in lines 9 and 10?

1. The armies of darkness will eventually overwhelm the armies of light.
   
2. The darkness of night threatens to obliterate starlight.
   
3. The night would be lovelier without stars.
   
4. The white stars are lovely in spite of the darkness of night.
   
5. Black is beautiful.
   

Countée Cullen, the author of this poem, was one of the more notable writers of the

1. Harlem Renaissance.
   
2. poetic movement known as Imagism.
   
3. Aesthetic Movement.
   
4. fin de siécle.
   
5. Age of Sensibility.