British English Critics MCQs

Sir Philip Sidney mention that ‘poetry’ consists in the art of ___ .

(a) Imitation

(b) Imagination

(c) Sublimity

(d) Expression

Question’s Answer: Imitation

 

Sir Philip Sidney had a strong urge for reviving the canons of criticism of  which of the following?

(a) Aristotle

(b) Longinus

(c) DR.Johnson

(d) Bacon

Question’s Answer: Aristotle

 

Sidney say about the observance of the three dramatic unities in drama that ____.

(a) Only the unity of action should be observed

(b) It is not necessary to observe them

(c) They must be observed

(d) Their observance depends upon the nature of the play concerned

Question’s Answer: They must be observed

 

According to ___ , “It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gown maketh an advocate.”

(a) Shakespeare

(b) Sidney

(c) Spenser

(d) Marlowe

Question’s Answer: Sidney

 

Who was Sidney?

(a) A subjective critic

(b) An objective critic

(c) A critic

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: A critic

 

Poetry is defended in Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry against the accusations made against it by

(a) Henry Howard

(b) Stephen Gosson

(c) John Skelton

(d) Roger Ascham

Question’s Answer: Stephen Gosson

 

_____ is not written by Sidney.

(a) Arcadia

(b) Shepherd’s Calendar

(c) Astrophel and Stella

(d) An Apology for Poetry

Question’s Answer: Shepherd’s Calendar

 

_____  classed poets with pipers and jesters and called them caterpillars of the Commonwealth.

(a) Dr. Johnson

(b) Sir Philip Sidney

(c) Ben Jonson

(d) Stephen Gosson

Question’s Answer: Stephen Gosson

 

According to Sidney, poetry can be divided into _______ .

(a) Religious, historical and moral poetry

(b) Moral, dramatic and philosophical poetry

(c) Religious, philosophic and right kind of poetry

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Religious, philosophic and right kind of poetry

 

_____  is the critical work of Ben Jonson.

(a) Discourse of English Poetrie

(b) An Apology for Poetry

(c) Art of English Poesie

(d) Discourses

Question’s Answer: Discourses

 

What does Ben Jonson mean by a humorous’ character?

(a) A character, who is by nature melancholy

(b) A character who is always cheerful and gay

(c) A character whose temper is determined by one of the four liquids in the human body

(d) An eccentric person

Question’s Answer: A character whose temper is determined by one of the four liquids in the human body

 

According to __ , Poetry is an imitation of nature and its function is to teach and delight.

(a) John Dryden

(b) Ben Jonson

(c) Dr. Johnson

(d) Sir Philip Sidney

Question’s Answer: Sir Philip Sidney

 

In Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry the Romans have a word for poets?

(a) Vates

(b) Creator

(c) Maker

(d) Prophets

Question’s Answer: Vates

 

Sidney is not in favour of which kind of writing?

(a) Comedy

(b) Tragi-comedy

(c) Tragedy

(d) All of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Tragi-comedy

 

In Greek literature, what is the meaning of ‘poet’?

(a) Teacher

(b) Prophet

(c) Maker

(d) All of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Maker

 

Dramatic criticism in England began with

(a) Ben Jonson

(b) Sidney

(c) Pope

(d) Dr.Johnson

Question’s Answer: Sidney

 

Who said this? “The judge of poets is only the faculty of poets.”

(a) Sidney

(b) Dryden

(c) Pope

(d) Ben Jonson

Question’s Answer: Ben Jonson

 

The term ‘comedy of humours’ was popularized by Jonson through the titles of his comedies

(a) The Alchemist

(b) Every Man in His Humour

(c) Every Man Out of His Humour

(d) Both (b) and (c)

Question’s Answer: Both (b) and (c)

 

Which comedy of Ben Jonson has a story of quackery as is found in Chaucer’s “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale”?

(a) Volpone

(b) The Alchemist

(c) Every Man in His Humour

(d) The Poetaster

Question’s Answer: The Alchemist

 

In Dryden’s An Essay of Dramatic Poesy there are four speakers representing four different ideologies. Which of them expresses Dryden’s own views?

(a) Neander

(b) Eugenius

(c) Lisidius

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Neander

 

Which play of Ben Jonson constituted an important contribution to the art of comedy in England?

(a) Every Man in His Humour

(b) The Alchemist

(c) Volpone

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Every Man in His Humour

 

___ appreciated the universal appeal of Shakespeare.

(a) Alexander Pope

(b) Ben Jonson

(c) John Dryden

(d) Dr. Johnson

Question’s Answer: Ben Jonson

 

What is the contribution of Jonson to English comedy?

(a) Structure and coherence

(b) A firm plot

(c) Clear characterization

(d) All of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: All of A, B, and C

 

Ben Jonson has talked about humours in the human body, they are

(a) Four

(b) Three

(c) Five

(d) Six

Question’s Answer: Four

 

The Latin meaning of ‘humours’ is

(a) Mood

(b) Character

(c) Comedy

(d) Liquid

Question’s Answer: Liquid

 

Which work of Jonson satirizes the humours of the court?

(a) Every Man in His Humour

(b) The Poctaster

(c) Cynthia’s Revels

(d) The Alchemist

Question’s Answer: Cynthia’s Revels

 

Jonson expounds his theory of ‘Comedy of Humours in the Introduction to his play

(a) Every Man in His Humou

(b) The Alchemist

(c) Volpone

(d) The Silent Woman

Question’s Answer: Every Man in His Humour

 

Which humours is also called ‘yellow bile”?

(a) Blood

(b) Melancholy

(c) Phlegm

(d) Choler

Question’s Answer: Choler

 

What does Dryden say about the observance of the three classical dramatic unities?

(a) He advocates their strict observance

(b) Every dramatist should decide it for himself

(c) He does not advocate their strict observance

(d) He is silent regarding this issue

Question’s Answer: He does not advocate their strict observance

 

Dryden’s An Essay of Dramatic Poesy is a work of

(a) Interpretative criticism

(b) Textual criticism

(c) Comparative criticism

(d) Legislative criticism

Question’s Answer: Legislative criticism

 

Which does not come under four principal humours in the body?

(a) Phlegm

(b) Sweat

(c) Choler

(d) Blood

Question’s Answer: Sweat

 

Who called Dryden the father of English criticism?

(a) Joseph Addison

(b) Coleridge

(c) Dr. Johnson

(d) Matthew Arnold

Question’s Answer: Dr. Johnson

 

“They wholly mistake the nature of criticism who think, its business is I principally to find fault. Criticism as it was first instituted by Aristotle was meant a standard of judging well.” Who said this?

(a) Pope

(b) Ben Jonson

(c) Dr. Johnson

(d) Dryden

Question’s Answer: Dryden

 

Who has defined drama “as a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject for the delight and

instruction of mankind”?

(a) John Dryden

(b) Dr. Johnson

(c) Alexander Pope

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: John Dryden

 

Dryden with all his critical allurement of classical love was unconsciously a forerunner of

(a) Objective criticism

(b) Neo-classicism

(c) Romantic criticism

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Romantic criticism

 

These lines are written by _____ , “What pleases the Greeks, would not satisfy an English audience.”

(a) Sidney

(b) Pope

(c) Ben Jonson

(d) Dryden

Question’s Answer: Dryden

 

One of the most eminent critics of neo-classical school refused to abide by the rules of the classical masters. Who was he?

(a) Dryden

(c) Arnold

(b) Dr. Johnson

(d) Addison

Question’s Answer: Dryden

 

Of the following works, which is not written by John Dryden?

(a) Essay on Criticisin

(b) Discourse on Satire

(c) An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

(d) Of Heroic Plays

Question’s Answer: Essay on Criticisin

 

“Shakespeare was the man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive Who has paid the tribute to

Shakespeare in the above line?

(a) Ben Jonson

(b) John Dryden

(c) S.T. Coleridge

(d) T.S. Eliot

Question’s Answer: John Dryden

 

Dryden as a critic

(a) Synthesized classical and romantic qualities

(b) Fovoured classical qualities

(c) Fovoured romantic qualities

(d) Approved of neither classical nor romantic qualities

Question’s Answer: Synthesized classical and romantic qualities

 

______ is the founder of descriptive criticism in English.

(a) Sidney

(b) Ben Jonson

(c) Dr. Johnson

(d) Dryden

Question’s Answer: Dryden

 

Dryden calls comedy “a representation of human life in inferior persons and low subjects”. In this regard, he followed

(a) Aristotle

(b) Horace

(c) Plato

(d) 1.A. Richards

Question’s Answer: Aristotle

 

Which work of Pope is modelled on Horace’s Ars Poetica?

(a) Preface to the Translation of the Iliad

(b) An Essay on Criticism

(c) Preface to the Works of Shakespeare

(d) The Art of Sinking

Question’s Answer: Preface to the Works of Shakespeare

 

“Be Homer’s works your study and delight. Read them by day and meditate by night.” is the advice given to the poets by __ .

(á) Sidney

(b) Dryden

(c) Ben Jonson

(d) Pope

Question’s Answer: Pope

 

Alexander Pope has an undying craving to conform to the laws of

(a) Nature

(b) Prose and reason

(c) Neo-classical tenacity

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Nature

 

Pope was a great critic of the age of

(a) Prose

(b) Reason

(c) Augustan literature

(d) Prose and reason

Question’s Answer: Prose and reason

 

In whose work did Pope find ‘unequalled fire and rapture”?

(a) Homer

(b) Virgil

(c) Aristotle

(d) Dr. Johnson

Question’s Answer: Homer

 

Which poet has observed “Men not afraid of God, afraid of me”?

(a) Dr. Johnson

(b) Dryden

(c) Addison

(d) Pope

Question’s Answer: Pope

 

Which poet was called in fondness the little Nightingale”?

(a) Dryden

(b) Burns

(c) Gray

(d) Pope

Question’s Answer: Pope

 

Which poet was from his birth constitution tender and delicate? of

(a) Milton

(b) Pope

(c) Dryden

(d) Collins

Question’s Answer: Pope

 

Pope’s Essay on Criticism is divided into how many parts?

(a) 5 parts

(b) 2 parts

(c) 7 parts

(d) 3 parts

Question’s Answer: 3 parts

 

Which critics preferred Shakespeare’s comedies to his tragedies?

(a) Dr.Johnson

(b) Pope

(c) Dryden

(d) Addison

Question’s Answer: Dr. Johnson

 

Dr. Johnson gave a new interpretation to the term of

(a) Imitation

(b) Fancy

(c) Imagination

(d) Photographic reproduction

Question’s Answer: Imitation

 

Which is not written by Dr. Johnson?

(a) Lives of the Poets

(b) Essay on Criticism

(c) Rasselas

(d) Preface to the Plays of Shakespeare

Question’s Answer: Essay on Criticism

 

Regarding the observance of the three classical unities in a play Dr. Johnson observes that

(a) Only the unity of action should be observed

(b) Only the unity of place should be observed

(c) Only the unity of time should be observed

(d) All the three unities should be observed

Question’s Answer: Only the unity of action should be observed

 

Dr. Johnson meticulously looked for the correctness of

(a) Form

(b) Ideas

(c) Poetry

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Form

 

According to ____,  “essay is a loose sally of mind, an irregular undigested piece,not a regular and orderly performance?

(a) Ben Jonson

(b) Dryden

(c) Arnold

(d) Dr. Johnson

Question’s Answer: Dr. Johnson

 

Who is without doubt a neo-classical critic but it does not mean a ‘blind surrender’ to authority of ancient or modern, rather he is for liberty?

(a) Dryden

(b) Pope

(c) Addison

(d) Dr Johnson

Question’s Answer: Dr Johnson

 

Who is the author of the  Dictionary of English Language the first ambitious attempt at an English lexicon?

(a) John Dryden

(b) James Boswell

(c) Joseph Addison

(d) Dr. Johnson

Question’s Answer: Dr. Johnson

 

The end of writing is to instruct, the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing Who has said this?

(a) Wordsworth

(b) Dr.Johnson

(c) Coleridge

(d) Arnold

Question’s Answer: Dr.Johnson

 

Johnson’s Literary Club, which had Burke, Gibbon, Goldsmith and indeed all the great literary men and politicians of the time as members, was formed in the year

(a) 1764

(b) 1762

(c) 1775

(d) 1761

Question’s Answer: 1764

 

Dr. Johnson observes that “Poetry is an imitation of particular, with which it deals, but, through it, the universal”. This definition of poetry occurs in

(a) Preface to Shakespeare

(b) Lives of the Poets

(c) Rambler

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Preface to Shakespeare

 

Which of the unities Dr. Johnson found justified by reason?

(a) Unity of time

(b) Unity of action

(c) Boswell

(d) All of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Unity of action

 

____ is the author of the famous biography Life of Johnson.

(a) Addison

(b) Gibbon

(c) Pope

(d) Boswell

Question’s Answer: Boswell

 

From which king Dr. Johnson received annual pension of three hundred pounds?

(a) George I

(b) George II

(c) George III

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: George III

 

Johnson started the publication of two journals. They are

(a) “The Rambler and The Idler”

(b) “The Tatler and The Rambler”

(c) “The Spectator and’ The Tatler”

(d) “The Idler” and “The Tatler”

Question’s Answer: “The Rambler and The Idler”

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