How much do you know about literature and literary interpretation?
Name:
EMail:
1. Which of the following is an example of fiction?
newspaper article
short story
biography
dictionary
2. Which of the following is a setting?
Abner Snopes
"He did not look back."
A boy makes a difficult decision about what to do about his father, who has been burning other people's barns.
Yoknapatawpha Count, Mississippi, late 1800s
3. Which of the following are types of novels?
mysteries and Harlequin romances
biographies and autobiographies
psychology and sociology text books
do-it-yourself and self-help manuals
4. Which of the following forms of literature are usually intended to be performed?
novels
plays
essays
short stories
5. Which of the following forms is the longest?
epigram
haiku
novel
sonnet
6. Which of the following is a literary device?
capitalism
symbolism
socialism
fascism
7. William Shakespeare primarily wrote
plays
novels
essays
short stories
8. Which of the following writers is known for writing horror stories?
Tennessee Williams
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allan Poe
James Baldwin
9. Which of the following is a plot?
"You can't escape fate."
Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, late 1800s
Abner Snopes
A boy makes a difficult decision about what to do about his father, who has been burning other people's barns.
10. Which of the following is an example of artistic literature?
Webster's New World Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Bible
Time magazine
11. Which of the following are NOT written in prose?
poems
novels
short stories
newspaper articles
12. A story told by one of its characters is told in
first person
second person
third person
fourth person
13. Which of the following titles contains an allusion?
"Saint Judas"
"I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud"
"The splendor falls on castle walls"
"We Real Cool"
14. Which of the following terms refers to a story's primary character, whose progress we follow through one or more conflicts?
protagonist
antagonist
extagonist
intagonist
15. Which of the following phrases contains a metaphor?
"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' / Nothing beside remains."
"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree."
"The tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants."
16. A novel is an extended piece of
fiction
nonfiction
poetry
drama
17. Which of the following usually has a moral?
sonnets
didactic poems
haiku
short stories
18. Which of the following writers is known for writing poetry?
Jack London
Emily Dickinson
Tennessee Williams
William Faulkner
19. Which of the following is known for his prose style and stories about the Southern United States?
William Shakespeare
William Wordsworth
William Faulkner
William Carlos Williams
20. Which of the following phrases contains an example of non-standard dialect?
"No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin' her yistiday."
"I am Gimpel the fool."
"True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?"
"The tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants."
21. When did William Shakespeare live?
1123-1171
1564-1616
1809-1849
1898-1942
22. Which of the following writers is known for writing free verse?
Edgar Allan Poe
William Shakespeare
Walt Whitman
Robert Frost
23. Which of the following determines the rhythm of most English poetry?
stress
alliteration
rhyme
slant rhyme
24. Which of the following phrases contains a simile?
"Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?"
"Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table."
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori."
"I like to see it lap the Miles-- / And lick the Valleys up--"
25. Which of the following statements contains a hyperbole?
"Whoever you are, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."
"O, beware, my lord of jealousy. / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on."
"I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists . . ."
"You do not do, you do not do / Any more, black shoe . . ."
26. Narrative poetry always
rhymes
expresses a character's feelings
is humorous
tells a story
27. Asides and soliloquies are associated with
plays
novels
poems
free verse
28. Free verse is
poetry with regular rhyme, but no regular rhythm
poetry with regular rhythm, but no regular rhyme
poetry without regular rhyme or regular rhythm
poetry you hear on "Open Mic Night"
29. Which of the following lines comes from a story that starts "in media res"?
These events took place at La Colorada ranch, in the southern part of the township of Junin, during the last days of March 1928."
"In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits."
"I am Gimpel the fool."
"A poor man had twelve children and worked night and day just to get enough bread for them to eat."
30. "My Last Duchess" is a famous example of a
novel
short story
sonnet
dramatic monologue
31. Which of the following writers is known for writing plays set in the Southern United States?
Tennessee Williams
William Shakespeare
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
32. Which of the following writers are associated with the Harlem Renaissance?
Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston
William Shakespeare and John Milton
Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill
Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen Crane
33. Which of the following phrases contains the most alliteration?
"I could not love thee, Dear, so much, / Loved I not Honor more."
"In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo."
"Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."
"Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicean barks of yore"
34. How many lines are in a sonnet?
10
12
14
16
35. Sonnets, epigrams, and haiku are all types of
plays
novels
characters
poems
36. Which of the following is the best resource for studying the history of a word?
The Oxford English Dictionary
Webster's New World Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica
World Wide Web
37. Dictionaries primarily give words'
connotations
denotations
annotations
salutations
38. William Shakespeare's plays, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and sonnets are written in
iambic trimeter
trochaic pentameter
iambic pentameter
dactylic hexameter
39. Which of the following pairs of lines contains an example of slant rhyme?
"It is the blight man was born for, / It is Margaret you mourn for."
"Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, / Who after birth did'st by my side remain."
"Being so caught up . . . / Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?"
"The splendor falls on castle walls / And snowy mountains old in story"
40. Label the rhythm of the following line: "A sudden blow: the great wings beating still."
anapestic trimeter
dactylic dimeter
iambic pentameter
trochaic tetrameter
41. Which of the following is the most thorough source of information about literary devices?
Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia
A Handbook to Literature
The Oxford English Dictionary
The Encyclopaedia Britannica
42. A line of iambic pentameter has how many syllables?
10
15
20
43. A narrator
is another name for the author
is a type of poem
is another name for a protagonist
tells the story
44. Which of the following could be the themes of a story?
foreshadowing and flashbacks
exposition, climax, and falling action
race, family, and conscience
a Christmas pageant
45. Which of the following lines contains onomatopoeia?
"Eskimos in Manitoba, / Barracuda off Aruba, / Cock an ear when Roger Bobo / Starts to solo on the tuba."
"Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing."
"Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, / As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."
"Stella! Stella!"
46. Which of the following lines contains imagery?
"I lack iniquity / Sometimes to do me service."
"Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, / As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."
"I could not love thee, Dear, so much, / Loved I not Honor more."
"So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
47. Which of the following usually involves humor?
alliteration
setting
symbolism
satire
48. Which of the following is found in all great poetry?
a moral
rhyme
creative use of language
a happy ending
49. What generally qualifies a poem or story to be studied in a college literature course?
popularity among readers
a good moral or valuable lesson
universal themes and rich language
an exciting plot
50. Interpreting a piece of literature primarily involves
summarizing the plot
learning characters' names
identifying the moral
analyzing language and themes