GRE Literature in English (REA) (35 page)

indentured long to logic and the gown.
Lean as a rake the horse on which he sat,
And he himself was anything but fat,
But rather wore a hollow look and sad.
Threadbare the little outercoat he had,
For he was still to get a benefice
And thoughts of worldly office were not his.

The character being described by Chaucer is

1. the Monk.
   
2. the Friar.
   
3. the Parson.
   
4. the Student.
   
5. the Pardoner.
   

In line 6, the “benefice” is

1. a position in the church.
   
2. worldly gain.
   
3. scholarly advancement.
   
4. secular employment.
   
5. an inheritance.
   

Chaucer here draws a parallel between

1. the appearance of the subject and his chances for worldly success.
   
2. the appearance of the horse and the subject's ambitions.
   
3. the enslaved nature of both subject and horse.
   
4. the appearance of the subject and the appearance of the horse.
   
5. the quality of the subject's clothes and the quality of his thought.
   

Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these (referring to a brief quoted passage above) un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgement. One can hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe!

 

The writer of this passage criticizes Wordsworth's poetry because of its

1. un-Voltairian lines.
   
2. scientific system of thought.
   
3. overdone lamentations.
   
4. popular appeal.
   
5. provincial quality.
   

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

The tone of this passage may best be described as

1. factual description.
   
2. playful.
   
3. sarcastically outrageous.
   
4. comedically inventive.
   
5. cynical.
   

The reference to “a very knowing American” in this passage

1. reflects the belief that Americans are uncivilized.
   
2. underscores the preposterous nature of the author's proposition.
   
3. points out the paternalistic nature of colonialism.
   
4. is meant to be a statement of fact only.
   
5. offers a citation from someone more experienced in what the author proposes.
   

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, noe e'er shall be.
In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.

 

The poet believes that it is more important for the critic to

1. consider the technical merits of a piece than to criticize its message.
   
2. consider the purpose of the piece than to look for flaws in the execution.
   
3. consider the effect on the readership than to the impression made on the critic.
   
4. consider any “trivial faults” as a natural adjunct of great works.
   
5. consider the limitations of the writer when examining any technical flaws.
   

Let us just for the moment feel the pulses of Ulysses and of Miss Dorothy Richardson and M. Marcel Proust, on the earnest side of Briareus; on the other, the throb of The Shiek and Mr. Zane Grey, and, if you will, Mr. Robert Chambers and the rest. Is Ulysses in his cradle? Oh, dear! What a grey face! And Pointed Roofs, are they a gay little toy for nice little girls? Alas! You can hear the death-rattle in their throats. They can hear it themselves. They are listening to it with acute interest, trying to discover whether the intervals are minor thirds or major fourths. Which is rather infantile, really.

 

The author is criticizing most of all the

1. melodramatic quality of contemporary authors.
   
2. pointless attention to meaningless novelistic detail.
   
3. trivial nature of the popular novel.
   
4. self-consciousness of the serious novel.
   
5. lack of quality in contemporary literature.
   

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far, in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Which of the following is the closest restatement of the poem's central theme?

1. It is not the end that matters, but the means.
   
2. Fame and success are not as important as appreciating beauty.
   
3. It is how you live your life that matters, not whether you succeed.
   
4. The appreciation of nature and the understanding of truth are one and the same.
   
5. Perfection may be found in the small things of nature.
   

This poem is written in

1. the Pindaric mode.
   
2. the Petrarchan spirit.
   
3. the form of an Elizabethan Sonnet.
   
4. Adoration form.
   
5. the spirit of the Grands Rhetoriqueurs.
   

Love Virtue; she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime:
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

 

This poem expresses

1. the Platonic Ideal.
   
2. the Puritan Ideal.
   
3. the Zoroastrian Ideal.
   
4. the Deistic Ideal.
   
5. the Renaissance Ideal.
   

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth—
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

 

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.

The first stanza of this poem is noted for

1. personification.
   
2. its detailed description of living forms.
   
3. its attempt to compare natural objects to those of human use.
   
4. the emergence of “death imagery” from the description of beautiful natural objects.
   
5. its use of color in relating varied natural forms.
   

The answer posed in the last two lines of the second stanza might best be termed

1. conditional.
   
2. facetious.
   
3. a question hidden within an answer.
   
4. rhetorical.
   
5. inquisitory.
   

One of the facts that might come to light in this process is our tendency to insist, when we praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else. In these aspects or parts of his work we pretend to find what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of the man. We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet's difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed.

The “process” (line 1) to which the author of this passage is referring is

1. evaluating the relationship of a writer to the tradition that precedes him/her.
   
2. making an evaluation based on only the material itself.
   
3. criticizing within the limitations of the current literary period.
   
4. evaluating the personal relationship of a poet and the work.
   
5. criticizing the individual parts, not the poem itself as a whole.
   

The author most likely goes on to suggest that

1. looking at the individuality of an author is futile.
   
2. recognizing his individuality as part of a great tradition is beneficial.
   
3. appreciating a writer's spontaneity is what the contemporary reader calls for.
   
4. a mature writer will exhibit true individuality.
   
5. we should take little satisfaction in criticizing the writer.
   

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

 

This may be seen as a statement of

1. the Renaissance.
   
2. the Nonconformist movement.
   
3. the Age of Enlightenment.
   
4. the Golden Age of New England.
   
5. the Beat Era.
   

“When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.”

 

These lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 138 are examples of

1. synecdoche.
   
2. ellipsis.
   
3. pararhyme.
   
4. paradox.
   
5. prosody.
   

Let me not, however, lose the historian in the man, nor suffer the doting recollections of age to overcome me, while dwelling with fond garrulity on the virtuous days of the patriarchs—on those sweet days of simplicity and ease, which never more will dawn on the lovely Island of Manna-hata.

This passage is meant to reinforce the idea that

1. the author is fond of relating past times.
   
2. the author is quick to admit to his prejudices.
   
3. the author dislikes verbosity.
   
4. the author has struggled to retain his subjectivity.
   
5. the author is nostalgic about his lovely island.
   

This passage is from

1. Cooper's
   The Pioneers.
   
2. Irving's
   History of New York.
   
3. Whitman's
   Manna-hata.
   
4. Coleridge's
   Biographia Literaria.
   
5. Hawthorne's
   My Kinsman, Major Molineux.
   

If ever mortal “wreaked his thoughts upon expression,” it was Shelley. If ever poet sang – as a bird sings – earnestly – impulsively – with utter abandonment – to himself – that poet was the author of “The Sensitive Plant.” Of art – beyond that which is instinctive with genius – he either had little or disdained all.

 

The author of this passage is

1. Keats
   
2. Sheridan
   
3. Faulkner
   
4. Poe
   
5. Trilling
   

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at one,
That make ungrateful man!

The speaker is addressing

1. winds.
   
2. Macduff.
   
3. wild nature.
   
4. Caliban.
   
5. King Lear.
   

In context, “germens” (line 8) refers to

1. the disease that afflicts man.
   
2. the seeds of discontent.
   
3. the origin of ingratitude.
   
4. future mankind.
   
5. storm-driven rains.
   

The verbs in this passage can best be characterized as

1. descriptive.
   
2. intransitive.
   
3. Anglo-Saxon.
   
4. action.
   
5. helping.
   

The speaker is

1. Lady Macbeth.
   
2. King Lear.
   
3. Paulina.
   
4. Satan.
   
5. Richard III.