GRE Literature in English (REA) (47 page)

There was something in his physiognomy extremely singular, and that cannot easily be defined. It bore the traces of many passions, which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance; and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts; few persons could support their scrutiny or even endure to meet them twice.

This is a classic description of

1. the existential hero.
   
2. the anti-hero.
   
3. the Byronic hero.
   
4. the satanic hero.
   
5. the psalmic hero.
   

The passage quoted above was written by

1. Samuel Coleridge.
   
2. Ann Radcliffe.
   
3. Matthew Arnold.
   
4. Lord Byron.
   
5. Albert Camus.
   

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country: there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,

 

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.

“Thorpes” (line 3) might best be interpreted as meaning

1. corrals.
   
2. stagnant pools.
   
3. mountainsides.
   
4. villages.
   
5. citadels.
   

The tone of this poem is characterized by a contrast between

1. the life of the corpse bearers and the lifelessness of the corpse.
   
2. the low nature of the “common crofts” and the loftiness of the mountain tops.
   
3. the night of death and the dawning with the cock-crow.
   
4. intense idealistic thought and the realities of the earth.
   
5. the sleeping crofts and the outbreak of singing.
   

This excerpt was written by

1. Tennyson.
   
2. Coleridge.
   
3. Browning.
   
4. Christina Rossetti.
   
5. Shelley.
   

PRINCE

FALSTAFF

PRINCE

FALSTAFF

POINS

“Baffle” in the second speech can best be interpreted as meaning

1. confound.
   
2. command.
   
3. reprimand.
   
4. disgrace.
   
5. beat.
   

The characters are planning

1. to enter a monastery.
   
2. to change their lives dramatically.
   
3. to call a meeting of their fellows.
   
4. to commit a robbery.
   
5. to appoint a new leader.
   

“Zounds” can best be interpreted as meaning

1. Go!
   
2. By God!
   
3. A swoon take me!
   
4. Jesus' wounds!
   
5. I am astonished!
   

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought there was no need of ice to freeze them.

The reference to “ices” (line 4) refers to

1. the lack of hospitality and the indifference to truth.
   
2. the dessert and the ice needed to keep it cold.
   
3. the lack of hospitality, the dessert, and the ice needed to keep it cold.
   
4. the cold pursuit of truth and the lack of hospitality.
   
5. the weather from which the author is escaping and the lack of hospitality.
   

This passage was written by

1. Emerson.
   
2. Melville.
   
3. Whitman.
   
4. Thoreau.
   
5. Channing.
   

To conclude, then, there is no occupation concerned with the management of social affairs which belongs either to woman or to man, as such. Natural gifts are to be found here and there in both creatures alike; and every occupation is open to both, so far as their natures are concerned, though woman is for all purposes the weaker.

 

The writer is arguing here for

1. the equality of women.
   
2. the inequality of women to men.
   
3. the equality of women in occupations.
   
4. the equality of women in the management of social affairs.
   
5. the inequality of the nature of women to that of men.
   

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy long, withdrawing roar, 5
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

The reference to the “folds of a bright girdle furled” (line 3) compares the sea to

1. folds of bright clothing.
   
2. a pennant.
   
3. an undergarment.
   
4. loose flesh.
   
5. an encompassing shore.
   

The poet's tone and imagery attempts to imitate

1. the ebbing of the tide.
   
2. the lapping of the waves at high tide.
   
3. a full, pounding tide.
   
4. a neap tide.
   
5. a red tide.
   

The author of this poem is

1. Charles Swinburne.
   
2. John Keats.
   
3. Percy Shelley.
   
4. Matthew Arnold.
   
5. Alfred Tennyson.
   

____

LOUKA

The unidentified speaker is

1. Volpone.
   
2. Candide.
   
3. Mercutio.
   
4. Sergius.
   
5. Hyperion.
   

The comic force of this interchange hinges on the use of the word

1. “gentleman.”
   
2. “particular.”
   
3. “maid.”
   
4. “right.”
   
5. “conduct.”
   

The play from which this excerpt is taken is

1. She Stoops to Conquer.
   
2. Measure for Measure.
   
3. Arms and the Man.
   
4. The Comedy of Errors.
   
5. Sunday in The Park With George.
   

_____ had a syncophantish, but a sincere admiration of the genius, erudition and virtue of Ursa-Major, and in recording the noble growlings of the Great Bear, thought not of his own Scotch snivel.

 

The quote above concerns a biography written by

1. Ben Johnson.
   
2. Ben Franklin.
   
3. John Milton.
   
4. James Boswell.
   
5. Edward Fitzgerald.
   

It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason and he would be incapable of understanding anything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read even in a book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How then is it that those people pretend to reject reason?

1. John Locke
   
2. Bertrand Russell
   
3. Benjamin Franklin
   
4. Thomas Paine
   
5. John Stuart Mill
   

Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of those days—his dress, which served for both morning and evening, street and drawing-room, was a linsey-woolsey coat, made, perhaps, by the fair hands of the mistress of his affections...

1. Washington Irving
   
2. Samuel Clemens
   
3. Stephen Crane
   
4. Bret Harte
   
5. Hart Crane
   

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',

Let him follow me!

 

By Oppression's woes and pains,
By your sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free!

 

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fal in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!

Let us do or die!

The poet imagines that these words were spoken by

1. Robert Emmett.
   
2. Macduff.
   
3. Edward II.
   
4. Robert Bruce.
   
5. Athelred.
   

The excerpt might best be termed

1. a rallying cry to the speaker's troops.
   
2. a response in defiance of a challenge.
   
3. a soliloquy by a doomed soldier.
   
4. a rebel leader's appeal to desert.
   
5. an appeal to the populace for soldiers.
   

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For___ is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young___, and hath not left his peer.

This excerpt might best be described as a(n)

1. dramatic dialogue.
   
2. elegy.
   
3. monody.
   
4. epic.
   
5. colloquy.
   

The use of the word “crude” in the third line indicates that

1. the speaker will be rough as he harvests the berries.
   
2. the berries are of low quality.
   
3. the words which the poet sings are primitive ones.
   
4. the berries are not yet ripe.
   
5. there are bitter truths he will reveal.
   

The repeated name which best completes this excerpt is

1. Angelica.
   
2. Valentine.
   
3. Lysistrata.
   
4. Lycidas.
   
5. Prometheus.
   

The author of this poem is

1. William Shakespeare.
   
2. John Donne.
   
3. John Dryden.
   
4. John Milton.
   
5. Alexander Pope.
   

Hear me recreant!
On thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,
Which we durst never yet, and with strained pride
To come between our sentence and our power,
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee, or provision.
To shield thee from diseases of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.

The most appropriate contextual interpretation of the word “recreant” (line 1) is

1. one who commits evil deeds.
   
2. one who does not do his duty.
   
3. one who has recreated the truth to his own liking.
   
4. a blackguard.
   
5. a traitor.
   

This excerpt is from

1. Julius Caesar.
   
2. Romeo and Juliet.
   
3. Richard II
   .
   
4. King Lear.
   
5. Much Ado About Nothing.