GRE Literature in English (REA) (49 page)

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold,
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

The words “fealty” (line 4) and “demesne” (line 6) establish a metaphor derived from

1. Ancient Greek city states.
   
2. Plato's
   Republic
   .
   
3. Aristotle's
   Politics
   .
   
4. medieval feudalism.
   
5. Rousseau's
   The Social Contract.
   

In line 11, Keats apparently misidentifies the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. An error of this sort is an example of

1. the intentional fallacy.
   
2. the pathetic fallacy.
   
3. poetic license.
   
4. poetic justice.
   
5. Romantic irony.
   

Which excerpt is by Robert Frost?

Which excerpt is by Jonathan Edwards?

1. I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
   On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
   Like a white piece of satin cloth—
   Assorted characters of death and blight...
   

2. There is a spider, too, in the bathroom, of uncertain lineage, bulbous at the abdomen and drab, whose six-inch mess of web works, works somehow, works miraculously, to keep her alive and me amazed. The web is in a corner behind the toilet, connecting tile wall to tile wall. The house is new, the bathroom immaculate, save for the spider, her web, and the sixteen or so corpses she's tossed to the floor.
   

3. The person of Pope is well known not to have been formed by the nices model. He has, in his account of the “Little Club,” compared himself to a spider...
   

4. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked...
   

5. Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears, Hither I come to seek the spring,
   And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,
   Receive such balms as else cure everything;
   But oh, self-traitor, I do bring
   The spider love, which transubstantiates all, ...
   

In the plan and cross section of Chartres cathedral the number 3 is all-pervasive. There are the triple entrance portals. The facade rises in three steps from the level of the doorways, through the intermediate story, to the rising towers intended to elevate the thoughts of the worshipers and direct their aspirations heavenward. In the interior there are the three corresponding levels, beginning with the nave arcade, the triforium gallery, and the windowed clerestory.

—William Fleming,
Arts and Ideas

 

Which of the following literary works exhibits a number symbolism in its structure most nearly similar to that described above in the architecture of Chartres cathedral?

1. Dante's
   Divine Comedy
   
2. Chaucer's
   The Canterbury Tales
   
3. Milton's
   Paradise Lost
   
4. Beowulf
   
5. Boccaccio's
   The Decameron
   

The corrupt world is the final clue to the meaning of the Fool. He is not of tragic scope. He affirms the dignity of man neither as animal nor angelic reason. Nor has he the ennobling weakness of compassion. He remains a figure of pathos because he is so helpless—helplessly immobilized by a handy-dandy of opposites neither of which he can choose. Nor will he admit of any third ground, the possibility that knavishness might not be an ultimate, that wisdom might be redeemable, that society might be capable of re-birth. He does not survive his own grim laughter, and disappears for that reason.

—Danby,
The Fool and Handy-Dandy
.

 

The author of the passage discusses a problem of interpretation in

1. Chaucer's “The Miller's Tale.”
   
2. Marlowe's
   The Jew of Malta.
   
3. Jonson's
   Volpone
   .
   
4. Shakespeare's
   King Lear.
   
5. Webster's
   The Duchess of Malfi.
   

In
The Divine Comedy,
Dante is guided through Hell by

1. St. Augustine.
   
2. St. Jerome.
   
3. Beatrice.
   
4. Ovid.
   
5. Virgil.
   

“One of those writers, of whom there are not a great many in any literature, who have discovered a new way of writing, valid not only for themselves but for others. I should place him... as one of those rare writers who have brought their language up to date.”

—T. S. Eliot

 

In the above passage Eliot is referring to

1. Mark Twain.
   
2. James Joyce.
   
3. William Shakespeare.
   
4. Geoffrey Chaucer
   
5. Edmund Spenser.
   

Which of the following poets reported seeing, as a child, a tree full of angels?

1. Geoffrey Chaucer
   
2. William Shakespeare
   
3. John Milton
   
4. William Blake
   
5. William Wordsworth
   

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young.
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

An editor's footnote to line 13 reads: 13
lie with
i.e. lie to (with
double entendre
). The footnote implies

1. that line 13 contains a misprint and that “with” was probably originally “to.”
   
2. that the meaning of “lie with” has changed and that what the poet originally meant is closer to what we would mean today by “lie to.”
   
3. that the poet is using the phrase metaphorically, not literally.
   
4. that “lie with” is a pun with intentional ambiguity.
   
5. that the poet was being intentionally obscure.
   

In order for the rhythm of line 4 to be consistent with the metrical pattern in the rest of the poem

1. “Unlearned” must be read as three syllables.
   
2. the silent “e” at the end of “false” must be pronounced.
   
3. “subtleties” must be pronounced as two syllables.
   
4. “subtleties” must be pronounced as four syllables.
   
5. the words “in the” must be counted as one unstressed syllable.
   

Which of the following features is essential in classifying this poem as a sonnet?

1. It ends with a rhymed couplet.
   
2. It is about erotic love.
   
3. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains.
   
4. The tone of the poem is witty and ironic.
   
5. The poem has fourteen lines.
   

Which of the following is a satire of religious hypocrisy?

1. Molière's
   Tartuffe
   
2. Jonson's
   Volpone
   
3. Wycherley's
   The Country-Wife
   
4. Aristophanes'
   The Clouds
   
5. Sheridan's
   The Rivals
   

For a view of the human condition as totally absurd, one should read

1. Tolstoy.
   
2. Zola.
   
3. Kafka.
   
4. Dante.
   
5. Virgil.
   

Which of the following is an example of a masque?

1. Ben Jonson's
   Volpone
   
2. Everyman
   
3. Milton's
   Comus
   
4. Shakespeare's
   As You Like It
   
5. Congreve's
   The Way of the World
   

“... and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes”

 

The speaker in the above passage is

1. Emma Bovary.
   
2. Anna Karenina.
   
3. Catherine Earnshaw.
   
4. Molly Bloom.
   
5. Becky Sharp.
   

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
Lie sacatter'd on the Alpin mountains cold,
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones,

Forget not: in thy book record their groanes
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd
Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans

The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they
To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O're all th'Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

The “slaughter'd Saints” in line 1 are

1. Protestants massacred by Catholics.
   
2. Catholics massacred by Protestants.
   
3. Christians massacred by Moslems.
   
4. Christians massacred by Romans.
   
5. innocent civilians killed in the Napoleonic Wars.
   

Lines 8-10, “Their moans/ The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they/ To Heav'n,” illustrates

1. irony.
   
2. synesthesia.
   
3. litotes.
   
4. enjambment.
   
5. sprung rhythm.
   

“He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part, that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens.”

 

These two sentences describe

1. Roger Chillingworth in
   The Scarlet Letter.
   
2. Roderick Usher in
   Fall of the House of Usher.
   
3. Natty Bumpo in
   Last of the Mohicans.
   
4. Jack Potter in
   The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.
   
5. Giovanni in
   Rappacini's Daughter.
   

“He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room. In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furnitu re. They were grouped about the fireplace. A pictu re from an illustrated vveekly vuas upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood.”

 

The writing style of this passage is most characteristic of American

1. Naturalism.
   
2. Sentimentalism.
   
3. Rodomontadism.
   
4. Romanticism.
   
5. Modernism.
   

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos; or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose of rhyme.

The governing verb in this opening sentence is

1. “restore.”
   
2. “taught.”
   
3. “delight.”
   
4. “sing.”
   
5. “invoke.”
   

The style of this passage can best be described as

1. blank verse.
   
2. free verse.
   
3. iambic tetrameter.
   
4. Spenserian.
   
5. syncretic.