Collection of important MCQs on T S Eliot
1. T.S. Eliot calls “Byron so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, and Wordsworth so wanting in completeness and variety.” Where does he say so?
(A) In the Preface to The Sacred Wood
(B) In the Introduction to The Sacred Wood
(C) In Tradition and the Individual Talent
(D) In The Perfect Critic
Question’s Answer: (D) In The Perfect Critic.

2. To ____ , T.S. Eliot dedicated The Waste Land?
(A) John Ruskin
(B) Bernard Shaw
(C) Rudyard Kipling
(D) Ezra Pound
Question’s Answer: (D) Ezra Pound.
3. To ____ , T.S. Eliot dedicated Prufrock and Other Observations?
(A) W.B. Yeats
(B) Ezra Pound
(C) Jean Verdenal
(D) F.R. Leavis
Question’s Answer: (C) Jean Verdenal.
4. In which type of verse-form is the play The Family Reunion written?
(A) Blank Verse
(B) Free Verse
(C) Sprung Rhythm
(D) Prose-Verse
Question’s Answer: (A) Blank Verse.
5. According to T.S. Eliot, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.” Why?
(A) Because he is a part of society
(B) Because no man is complete in himself
(C) Because he is connected with a tradition from which he cannot break away
(D) Because a work of art must be universal
Question’s Answer: (C) Because he is connected with a tradition from which he cannot break away.

6. According to T.S. Eliot, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion: it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.” Where does Eliot make this observation?
(A) In The Perfect Critic
(B) In Imperfect Critic
(C) In Tradition and the Individual Talent
(D) In The Possibility of a Poetic Drama
Question’s Answer: (C) In Tradition and the Individual Talent.
7. In which verse-form is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land written?
(A) Free Verse
(B) Blank Verse
(C) Sprung Rhythm
(D) Prose-Verse
Question’s Answer: (A) Free Verse.
8. T.S. Eliot has not written a critical article on one of the following. Locate him:
(A) Blake
(B) Dante
(C) Swinburne
(D) Shelley
Question’s Answer: (D) Shelley.
9. Which play of Shakespeare has been regarded as “One of Shakespeare’s most assured artistic successes” by T.S. Eliot?
(A) Coriolanus
(B) Hamlet
(C) The Tempest
(D) The Comedy of Errors
Question’s Answer: (A) Coriolanus.
10. What is, according to T.S. Eliot, the most powerful tool in the hands of a critic?
(A) Evaluation of the central thought of the work under review
(B) Comparison and analysis
(C) Language and style of the author under review
(D) Evaluation of the structural unity of the work under review
Question’s Answer: (B) Comparison and analysis.
11. T.S. Eliot calls Arnold “a propagandist of literature, and an over-worked school inspector.” Where does he make this observation?
(A) In The Perfect Critic
(B) In Imperfect Critic
(C) In A Romantic Aristocrat
(D) In The Local Flavour
Question’s Answer: (B) In Imperfect Critic.
**12. Which poem ends with the following lines?
“Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.”
(A) The Hollow Men
(B) Ash-Wednesday
(C) The Waste Land
(D) Gerontion
Question’s Answer: (C) The Waste Land.
13. T.S. Eliot’s The Sacred Wood is:
(A) A Collection of poems
(B) A poetic play
(C) A Collection of Critical articles
(D) A Classical drama
Question’s Answer: (C) A Collection of Critical articles.
14. Shakespeare’s plays, which one?
(A) Cymbeline
(B) The Tempest
(C) Antony and Cleopatra
(D) Romeo and Juliet
Question’s Answer: (C) Antony and Cleopatra.
15. “When lovely woman stoops to folly and paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand
And puts a record on the gramophone.”
This line is taken from which poem of Eliot?
(A) The Burial of the Dead
(B) What the Thunder Said
(C) The Fire Sermon
(D) Death by Water
Question’s Answer: (C) The Fire Sermon.
16. Which of Eliot’s poems ends with these lines?
“This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
(A) The Hollow Men
(B) Ash-Wednesday
(C) A Song for Simeon
(D) Gerontion
Question’s Answer: (A) The Hollow Men.
17. Into how many parts is The Waste Land divided?
(A) Two Parts
(B) Three Parts
(C) Four Parts
(D) Five Parts
Question’s Answer: (D) Five Parts.
18. Which poem of Eliot begins with these lines?
“Because I do not hope to turn again, Because I do not hope,
Because I do not hope to turn,
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope.”
(A) The Hollow Men
(B) Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service
(C) Ash-Wednesday
(D) Portrait of a Lady
Question’s Answer: (C) Ash-Wednesday.
19. On what basis does Eliot call Hamlet an artistic failure?
(A) Because Hamlet broods too much
(B) Because Hamlet feigns madness
(C) Because the plot of Hamlet is disjointed
(D) Because Hamlet lacks in objective correlative
Answer: (D) Because Hamlet lacks in objective correlative.
20. Which type of play is Murder in the Cathedral?
(A) A stage play written for Canterbury
(B) A Romantic tragedy
(C) A Literary play
(D) A Revenge play
Answer: (A) A stage play written for Canterbury.
21. “…….is the most carefully worked, and the most deeply flawed of all Eliot’s plays.” Which play of Eliot is so assessed?
(A) Murder in the Cathedral
(B) The Family Reunion
(C) The Cocktail Party
(D) The Confidential Clerk
Answer: (B) The Family Reunion.
22. What is Eliot’s The Cocktail Party?
(A) A collection of essays
(B) A drama
(C) A collection of poems
(D) A critical work
Answer: (B) A drama.
23. T.S. Eliot’s line:
“Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song” is quoted from a poem by:
(A) Shakespeare
(B) Donne
(C) Wordsworth
(D) Spenser
Answer: (D) Spenser.
24. The phrase “dissociation of sensibility” was used by Eliot in:
(A) Tradition and the Individual Talent
(B) The Metaphysical Poets
(C) Dante
(D) Baudelaire
Answer: (B) The Metaphysical Poets.
25. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” This line is taken from which of the following poems by Eliot?
(A) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(B) Gerontion
(C) Sweeney Erect
(D) The Burial of the Dead
Answer: (A) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
26. “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.” This line is taken from which of the following poems by Eliot?
(A) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(B) A Cooking Egg
(C) Gerontion
(D) Portrait of a Lady
Answer: (A) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
27. T.S. Eliot uses the term “Objective Correlative” in:
(A) The Function of Criticism
(B) Tradition and the Individual Talent
(C) The Frontiers of Criticism
(D) Hamlet and His Problems
Answer: (D) Hamlet and His Problems.
28. What is Eliot’s The Confidential Clerk?
(A) A Play
(B) A Novel
(C) A Long Narrative Poem
(D) A Critical Treatise
Answer: (A) A Play.
29. How many parts are there in Eliot’s play The Family Reunion?
(A) Two Parts
(B) Three Parts
(C) Four Parts
(D) Five Parts
Answer: (A) Two Parts.
30. The Waste Land is a series of which of the following?
(A) Three Poems
(B) Four Poems
(C) Five Poems
(D) Six Poems
Answer: (C) Five Poems.
T.S Eliot Basic info
Full Name | Thomas Stearns Eliot |
Birthdate | September 26, 1888 |
Birthplace | St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
Nationality | American (later became British subject) |
Occupation | Poet, essayist, publisher |
Notable Works | “The Waste Land,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Four Quartets” |
Literary Style | Modernist, fragmented, allusive |
Nobel Prize | Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1948) |
Education | Harvard University (B.A., M.A.); University of Oxford (Ph.D.) |
Religion | Converted to Anglicanism |
Death Date | January 4, 1965 |
Death Place | London, England |
T.S Eliot books names
Prufrock and Other Observations | 1917 |
The Waste Land | 1922 |
The Hollow Men | 1925 |
Ash Wednesday | 1930 |
Four Quartets | 1935-1942 |
Murder in the Cathedral | 1935 |
The Cocktail Party | 1949 |
The Confidential Clerk | 1954 |
The Elder Statesman | 1959 |
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock | 1915 |
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats | 1939 |
MCQs from famous poems of T.S Eliot
- MCQs – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- MCQs – The Waste Land
- MCQs – The Hollow Men
- MCQs – Ash Wednesday
- MCQs – Gerontion
- MCQs – Journey of the Magi
- MCQs – Marina
- MCQs – Rhapsody on a Windy Night
- MCQs – Preludes
- MCQs – A Song for Simeon
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