Matthew Arnold MCQs [English Literature & Famous Authors]

By: Prof. Dr. Fazal Rehman Shamil | Last updated: February 7, 2025

Collection of important MCQs on Matthew Arnold

1. For Matthew Arnold, “a poetry of revolt against moral ideas” is:

(A) Pure poetry
(B) A poetry advocating immoral values
(C) A poetry of revolutionary ideas
(D) A poetry of revolt against life

Answer: A poetry of revolt against life

2. In chapter _____ of Culture and Anarchy, does Arnold mention Hebraism and Hellenism?

(A) Chapter IV
(B) Chapter III
(C) Chapter V
(D) Chapter VI

Answer: Chapter IV

3. Hearing of the death of Arnold in an accident, a certain critic remarked __.

(A) There goes our greatest scholar
(B) There goes the greatest poet of our generation
(C) There goes our last Greek
(D) There goes our Scholar-Gipsy

Answer: There goes our last Greek

4. “Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.” In which poem of Arnold’s does this line occur?

(A) Sohrab and Rustum
(B) Scholar-Gypsy
(C) Thyrsis
(D) Rugby Chapel

Answer: Sohrab and Rustum

5. Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy deals with the subject of which of the following?

(A) Religion
(B) Victorian culture
(C) Education
(D) Theology

Answer: Theology

6. Matthew Arnold began his career as _______ .

(A) Inspector of Schools
(B) An Editor of a critical journal
(C) A teacher at Rugby School
(D) An Assistant to a publisher

Answer: Inspector of Schools

7. Matthew Arnold’s Thyrsis is an elegy on the death of which of the following?

(A) Edward Young
(B) Arthur Hallam
(C) John Keats
(D) A.H. Clough

Answer: A.H. Clough

8. What is the basic idea/theme of Arnold’s Literature and Dogma?

(A) Contemporary literary Criticism
(B) Art and Literature as applied in life
(C) Social changes in the Victorian Age
(D) Theology and Religion

Answer: Theology and Religion

9. Philistines in Culture and Anarchy stand for ___.

(A) The English aristocracy
(B) The English Middle class
(C) The English working class
(D) The English Jews

Answer: The English Middle class

10. The story of Sohrab and Rustum is taken from:

(A) Omar Khayyam
(B) Folk Literature
(C) Firdausi
(D) The Arabian Nights

Answer: Firdausi

11. Arnold calls a certain poet “a beautiful but ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.” This line is taken from which of the following poet?

(A) Keats
(B) Shelley
(C) Tennyson
(D) Byron

Answer: Shelley

12. In which university did Matthew Arnold rise to the position of Chairmanship of Poetry?

(A) Edinburgh University
(B) Cambridge University
(C) Oxford University
(D) Leeds University

Answer: Oxford University

13. For which poem did Arnold win a prize at Rugby School?

(A) Poor Matthias
(B) Balder Dead
(C) Kaiser Dead
(D) Alaric at Rome

Answer: Alaric at Rome

14. As said by Arnold, ______ is the next to Shakespeare and Milton?

(A) Coleridge
(B) Dryden
(C) Pope
(D) Wordsworth

Answer: Wordsworth

15. “Poetry is a criticism of life, under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.” Where does Arnold give this definition of poetry?

(A) Essay on The Function of Criticism
(B) Essay on Wordsworth
(C) Essay on The Study of Poetry
(D) Essay on Shelley

Answer: Essay on The Study of Poetry

16. according to Arnold, poetry interprets life in ____ ways.
A. one
B. two
C. three
D. four
Answer: B. two

Matthew Arnold Books names

Matthew Arnold Basic info

MCQs from Some Famous Poems of Matthew Arnold

1. MCQs Thyrsis by Matthew Arnold
2. MCQs – Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
3. MCQs – The Scholar-Gipsy by Matthew Arnold
4. MCQs – Empedocles on Etna by Matthew Arnold
5. MCQs – The Forsaken Merman by Matthew Arnold

Summary of Some Famous poems of Matthew Arnold

1. Summary – Dover Beach 
2. Summary – The Scholar-Gipsy 
3. Summary – Thyrsis 
4. Summary – Empedocles on Etna 
5. Summary – The Forsaken Merman 

Famous English Authors MCQs

1. William Wordsworth MCQs
2. William Shakespeare MCQs
3. Robert Browning MCQs
4. W B Yeats MCQs
5. Edmund Spenser MCQs
6. Chaucer MCQs
7. John Milton MCQs
8. S T Coleridge MCQs
9. Lord Byron MCQs
10. PB Shelley MCQs
11. John Dryden MCQs
12. John Keats MCQs
13. Charles Dicken MCQs
14. Alfred Lord Tennyson MCQs
15. Charles Lamb MCQs
16. D.H Lawrence MCQs
17. Thomas Hardy MCQs
18. Matthew Arnold MCQs
19. John Galsworthy MCQs
20. George Bernard Shaw MCQs
21. T.S Eliot MCQs
22. Ben Jonson MCQs
23. Francis Bacon MCQs
24. Alexander Pope MCQs
25. Oliver Goldsmith MCQs
26. Joseph Addison MCQs
27. Dr Samuel Johnson MCQs
28. Henry Fielding MCQs
29. Sir Walter Scott MCQs
30. Jane Austen MCQs
31. English MCQs Homepage