The Romantics: 1790-1837
Which of the following was not written by John Keats?
c. Caleb Williams
Which poet was particularly occupied with aestheticism?
a. William Wordsworth
b. Percy Bysshe Shelley
c. John Keats
d. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Who is the author of the poem Don Juan?
a. Percy Bysshe Shelley
b. Lord Byron
c. Sir Walter Scott
Who is the author of The Lay of the Last Minstrel?
a. William Wordsworth
b. John Keats
c. Sir Walter Scott
Who from the following is known as the author of historical novels and was admired by both British and foreign writers?
a. William Hazlitt
b. Thomas De Quincey
c. Sir Walter Scott
Which of the following works was written by Sir Walter Scott and portrayed the Middle Ages?
a. Ivanhoe (1819)
b. Castle Rackrent (1800)
c. Waverly (1814)
Which poet lived by engraving?
a. William Blake
b. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
c. John Keats
Which of the following sentences concerning the Romantic view of poetry is false? (Two answers should be chosen.)
a. The poet should communicate his or her experiences and special truths to the reader.
b. Poetry should be subjective.
c. Poetry should be objective.
d. Poetry should draw on public and moral concerns.
About which poet has it ‘been said that his greatest masterpiece was Wordsworth’ (Alexander, A History..)?
Wybierz jedną odpowiedź:
a. John Keats
b. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
c. Thomas Love Peacock
Which poet/writer was a trained surgeon?
a. John Keats
b. William Blake
c. Charles Lamb
Which writer was a daughter of the philosopher and writer William Godwin and the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and, in her early years, married a well-known poet?
a. Mary Shelley
b. Maria Edgeworth
c. Jane Austen
Who is the author of the essay My First Acquaintance with Poets?
a. Charles Lamb
b. Thomas De Quincey
c. William Hazlitt
Which poet/writer was the first Briton to be given the title of baronet for writing books?
a. Lord Byron
b. William Wordsworth
c. Walter Scott
Which sentence is false?
a. The French revolution was unanimously supported in England.
b. France declared war on England in 1793.
Who is the author of The Ancient Mariner, Frost at Midnight, Kubla Khan and Christabel?
a. John Keats
b. William Wordsworth
c. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Who is the author of the words: ‘?
a. William Wordsworth
b. John Keats
c. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
d. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Who, from the following, collected ballads and other works in English and in Scots and influenced the Romantic Revival?
a. Charles Lamb
b. William Hazlitt
c. Thomas Percy
For the Romantics, access to truths can be obtained by
a. imagination.
b. reason.
According to Alexander, from whom does modern criticism of poetry start?
a. John Keats
b. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
c. William Wordsworth
Which of the following was not written by Percy Bysshe Shelley?
a. Prometheus Unbound
b. ‘To a Skylark’
c. Defence of Poetry
d. ‘Ode to the West Wind’
e. ‘Immortality Ode’
VICTORIAN LITERATURE
Who of the following Victorian thinkers and authors wrote History of the French Revolution (1837)?
a. John Ruskin
b. Thomas Carlyle
c. Matthew Arnold
Which of the following sentences concerning Thomas Carlyle is not true?
a. returned to the idea of a great man.
b. was acquainted with German thought.
c. ’s writings had a strong moral and anti-capitalistic strand.
d. was from a Scots Calvinist background.
e. was a member of the Oxford Movement?
Who of the following was known for his utilitarian ideas and was the author of On Liberty (1859) and Utilitarianism (1863)?
a. Matthew Arnold
b. Thomas Carlyle
c. John Henry Newman
d. John Ruskin
e. John Stuart Mill
Which of the following statements regarding John Ruskin is not true?
a. returned to his childhood in Praeterita.
b. wrote the five volume Modern Painters and the three volume The Stones of Venice.
c. dealt with both art and architecture criticism and social writings.
d. was an advocate of commercialism. As a matter of fact, Ruskin was an anti-materialist and saw a great danger in the mechanization of labour (see Zgorzelski 198)
e. ’s writings impressed e. g. Oscar Wilde and Gandhi.
Who of the following was associated with the Oxford Movement?
a. John Stuart Mill
b. John Henry Newman
c. Thomas Carlyle
d. John Ruskin
e. Matthew Arnold
Which work was not written by John Henry Newman?
a. Development of Christian Doctrine
b. The Dream of Gerontius
c. Apologia Pro Vita Sua
d. Idea of a School The correct title: The Idea of a University
Which of the following sentences is not true?
a. Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) describes the author’s journey to South America and his findings during the expedition.
b. In The Descent of Man (1871) Charles Darwin touches upon the issue of human ancestry.
c. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published in 1849. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published in 1859
TENNYSON
At the beginning of the documentary, who is referred to as ‘the greatest’ among Victorian poets?
Alfred Tennyson
What is the title of the early poem that proves Alfred Tennyson’s long-life interest in the Arthurian theme?
The Lady of Shalott
According to Dr. Julian North ‘the Arthurian legends offered Tennyson a kind of escape from the modern world’.
TRUE
‘Tennyson continued to use a variety of poetic forms, including the elegy, the poem in praise of the departed dead’
Which of the following sentences is not true?
Alfred Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’
a. touches upon ‘universal human emotions of love and loss’ (North)
b. 'is made up of separate but often […] short lyric moments’ (McDonald)
c. is the idyll
d. has the ABBA rhyme structure
e. was published in 1850
f. evokes deep spiritual questions
What is the special title that Tennyson received as a poet in 1850?
poet laureate
THE VICTORIAN AGE – Basic Information
1837 – 1901 (= Queen Victoria’s long rule)
The issues appearing in Lectures on British Literature by Andrzej Zgorzelski:
the political expansion of England
the English fleet in the Black Sea, suppression of the Indian mutiny (1857), control of
the Suez Canal (1857), South Africa (1880-1890), good relations with Canadian,
Australian and New Zealand colonies, conquering Egypt and Sudan (1898)
economy
trading around the world (the merchant fleet very well developed)
England as the banking centre
the Chartists – working people fighting for reforms
rise of the Trade Unions (and then the Labour Party)
ideas
utilitarianism – ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers’ (Zgorzelski 2008, 192),
progress, rationalism
transcendentalism – derived from Romantic ideals
the objective instead of the individual, reductionism
development of the sciences
development of industry, trade and agriculture (Zgorzelski 2008, 190-197)
Additional selected issues concerning the Victorian Age touched upon by Allen et al.:
development of towns
gap between the rich and the poor
slums, epidemics of cholera and typhoid
The Great Exhibition (1 May 1851)
development of the railway network
the Victorian family as ‘a synonym for a strict and repressive upbringing’ (Allen et al.
2003, 330) (Allen et al. 2003, 327-330)
also: strict moral codes
Robert Browning was fascinated with the …………………… Renaissance.
Italian
What is the name of the poet who was to become Robert Browning’s wife?
Elizabeth Barrett
What poetic form is ‘most closely associated with Browning’?
Monologue
According to Prof. Shattock, the dramatic monologue serves as ‘the link between romantic poetry and the
modernists
Give the title of Browning’s work that
· was published in 1868
· was based on the monologue technique
· draws on 17th century murder
· turned out to be a verse detective novel
The ring and the book.
What work is mentioned as ‘the first true detective novel’, published the same year as Browning’s verse detective novel? Provide the full title.
Author: Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone
Give the title of the novel, the plot of which is set in Alexandria in the 5the century:
a.Cranford (1853)
b.Vanity Fair (1847-8)
c. Hypatia (1853) The novel Hypatia was written by Charles Kingsley.
d.The Woman in White (1860)
Which novel features one of the first detectives in English literature?
a. The Newcomes (1853-5)
b. Vilette (1853)
c. The Moonstone (1868) The name of the detective is Sergeant Cuff. The character was created by William Wilkie Collins.
d. Hard Cash (1863)
Which novel tells the story of a precious Indian object that disappears?
a. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
b. The Woman in White by William Wilkie Collins
c. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
d. The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray
e. The Moonstone by William Wilkie Collins
Which of the following novels was/were not written by Jane Austen?
a. Mansfield Park
b. Sense and Sensibility
c. Persuasion
d. Northanger Abbey
e. Pride and Prejudice
f. Cranford
Cranford was written by Elizabeth Gaskell (Mrs Gaskell) and describes village life.
Which author is the author of the novels
with a distinct preference for the nobility - William Makepeace Thackeray
focused on society and family life - Jane Austen
that are set at sea - Frederick Marryat
that are written in the likeness of Walter Scott’s fiction - Lord Lytton
including vivid portrayals of hostile places (e.g. prisons, bad schools) and dubious characters (e.g. thieves, criminals, deceivers) - Charles Dickens
in which nature is particularly important - Thomas Hardy
Which of the following novels by Charles Dickens is about a character who starts behaving in a better way only after a ghost’s apparition? - A Christmas Carol
about the cruel and sad experiences of a poor boy - "Olivier Twist"
about a cruel schoolmaster - "Nicholas Nickleby"
based on the life of the author - "David Copperfield"
Which of the following titles/motifs/issues does/do not concern Charlotte Bronte’s life and oeuvre?:
a.a stay in Brussels
b.The Professor (1857)
c.a blind wife
d. studied the law and engineering? a heroine who is a teacher
e. Villette (1853)
f.a story of a girl without good looks
g.Jane Eyre (1847)
Which of the writers
was a clerk and worked in the General Post Office? - Anthony Trollope
studied the law and engineering? - Robert Louis Stevenson
was a ship captain? - Joseph Conrad
Which of the following novels by Thomas Hardy is about
a patient lover who kills his beloved’s husband? - "Far From The Madding Crowd"
a man who drinks too much, sells his family and then attains a very important position in society? - The Mayor of Casterbridge
a stone-worker whose passions and unhappiness bring him to a tragic end? -
Jude the Obscure
a person who turns out to have come from an ancient family but goes through very difficult experiences? - Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Which of the following does not concern Thomas Hardy’s oeuvre?
a. characters facing fate or chance
b. the motif of the same man as if playing two opposite characters This character is featured in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.)
c. the past as an important factor in characters’ lives
d. the importance of nature
Which of the following facts/motifs/issues is not connected with Thomas Hardy?
a. a poet and a novelist
b. the author of almost thousand poems
c. the recurring motif of birds and animals
d. the motif of joy
e. a sense of humour
f. the importance of the beauty of the world
Which of the following titles/motifs/issues does not concern Joseph Conrad?
a. of Polish roots; brought up in Poland
b. Lord Jim
c. The Secret Agent
d. the motif of faithfulness to another man
e. the Barsetshire novels
f. Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Choose the author and the title of the book about the boy Mowgli?
a. Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book
b. E. M. Forster A Passage to India
c. Rudyard Kipling Kim
Whose novels were often set in the Potteries?
a. Rudyard Kipling
b. Arnold Bennett
c. H. G. Wells
Which of the following authors was particularly interested in modern scientific advances?
a. Evelyn Waugh
b. H. G. Wells
c. Doris Lessing
d. D. H. Lawrence
e. Somerset Maugham
Which novel presents a story of two families, the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels, representing two different sets of values?
a. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
b. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
c. Ulysses by James Joyce
d. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
e. Howard’s End by E. M. Forster
Who is the author of A Passage to India (1924)?
a. Rudyard Kipling
b. H. G. Wells
c. Arnold Bennett
d. E. M. Forster
Which of the following novels was/were not written by H. G. Wells?
a. A Clockwork Orange
b. The Time Machine
c. To the Lighthouse
d. The First Men on the Moon
e. The Bell
f. The War of the Worlds
Which novel is known for the employment of the ‘stream of consciousness technique’?
a. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
b. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
c. Ulysses by James Joyce
d. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Which book was not written by Graham Greene?
a. Brighton Rock
b. The Power and the Glory
c. Brideshead Revisited
Which book is set in the future and, telling the story of Alex, a violent and cruel teenager, makes a moral point?
a. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
b. Pincher Martin by William Golding
c. The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess
d. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Which writer belongs to the greatest English comic novelists of the 20th century, often employs the motif of confusion and authored the novel featuring young men studying at university?
a. William Golding
b. Iris Murdoch
c. Graham Greene
d. Kingsley Amis
e. Evelyn Waugh
Which author created the character of Hercule Poirot?
a. Wilkie Collins
b. Dorothy L. Sayers
c. Agatha Christie
d. Arthur Conan Doyle
Which author does not belong to the British female writers of the 20th century?
a. Doris Lessing
b. Rebecca West
c. Muriel Spark
d. Iris Murdoch
e. Margaret Fuller
f. Margaret Drabble
Which famous work was written by Arthur C. Clarke?
a. 2001: A Space Odyssey
b. Brave New World
c. A Clockwork Orange
d. The Time Machine
Which of the following facts/issues/titles is not connected with George Bernard Shaw?
a. the motif of ‘the Life Force’
b. opposing approaches
c. of Irish roots
d. Waiting for Godot
e. witty language
f. Pygmalion
g. against widespread opinions
What is the title of the play that
- belongs to the most important works of the 20th century
- features two tramps
- according to one critic, ‘describes the essence of the human condition’?
a. The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter
b. Roots by Arnold Wesker
c. Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
d. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Which of the following plays was written by Oscar Wilde and is said to be his most famous comedy?
a. Comedians
b. The Caretaker
c. The Importance of Being Earnest
d. The Homecoming
Which of the following poets did not fight in the First World War?
a. Siegfried Sassoon
b. Gerard Manley Hopkins
c. Rupert Brooke
d. Isaac Rosenberg
e. Wilfred Owen
Which of the following poets does not belong to the most famous English and Irish poets of the 20th century?
a. W. H. Auden
b. W. B. Yeats
c. Elizabeth Bishop
d. Seamus Heaney
ZIMOWY SEMESTR
Tudor Literature
1. In the form of a few points, provide the basic background information for the
development of the Renaissance.
1550, Georgio Vasari wrote
2. According to the author, what stands behind the 16th century necessity for a national
literature in England?
The establishment of the Tudor and the need to compete with Latin, Greek, French, Portugeese and Spanish (languages).
3. What is the title of Henry VIII’s Latin work?
“Defends of the Seven Sacraments”
4. What kind of education was promoted by humanists? Describe it briefly.
A belief system based on the principle that people's spiritual and emotional needs can be satisfied without following a god or religion. They studied classical literature, learn liberal arts.
5. Who was the author of Utopia? Provide some information on the work.
“Utopia” was written in Latin by Thomas More and It was published in 1517. It describes fictional society living on an Island. They have their own religions, political customs etc.
6. What were two modern verse-forms that reached print during the reign of Queen Mary?
The sonnet and an unrhymed lambic pentameter.
7. What are the literary achievements of Sir Thomas Wyatt and The Earl of Surrey?
Sir Thomas Wyatt: translated sonnets from Petrach and Alamanni, wrote 200 songs, he introduced sonnets and terza rima to English poetry.
8. When was the King James Bible published and what was its role/importance? What was
the other 16th century Church book of great importance?
1611 and it was created because of an urgent need for religious prose caused by The Reformation.
“Confessions” by St A Luther’s German Bible
9. Give the names of the first significant prose writers who were tutors to the great. Who
became tutor to the future Queen Elizabeth I?
Tutors: Sir Thomas Elyot, John Cheke, Roher Ascham (tutot to the future Queen Elizabeth I)
10. What was the interlude? Provide two examples (titles and authors).
It was kind of play, a moral entertainment, that was played between courses at feasts held in bog houses at Christmas and Easter. Examples: Morton’s “Fulgens and Lucrece” and Roper’s “Life”
11. Who was the author of the first English comedy to survive?
Nicolas Udall
12. What were the two main works by Sir Philip Sidney? Describe them in short.
“Astrophel and Stella” - sonnet sequence, the themes are love and the desire to write poetry that can persuade someone o return the speaker’s affection, “The Defense of Poesy” is literary criticism, defense of imaginative literature against charges of time-wasting, prevarication and allurement to vice.
13. Who is the author of "The Faerie Queene"? In the form of points, provide a short
characterization of the work.
Edmund Spencer
-allegory
- almost every character and event has specific symbolic meaning
- theme is Justice and Judgement
- it’s age greatest poetic monument
14. Who was Sir Walter Raleigh?
The son of a country gentleman, an amateur, poet with huge talent.
15. According to Alexander, what are the great periods of new achievement in non-dramatic
English poetry?
16. Explore (on your own) and describe in short the issue of the University wits.
17. Describe briefly the role of song in the time under discussion.
The most important music in the beginning of the renaissance period o religious musical forms bbut later it changed. New style of music was invented: polyphony and it become popular in choirs.
18. Enumerate three authors who wrote prose in the Tudors’ time.
John Lyly, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe
19. Who is the author of "The Unfortunate Traveller"? What is the work about?
Thomas Nashe, brutal and realistic tale. The books describes the travels through Italy and Germany of a hero, Jacke Wilton.6
SHAKEPSPEARE
tragedies:
„Titus Andronicus”
„Julius Caesar”
„”Anthony and Cleopatra”
„Coriolanus”
„Troilus and Cressida”
„Timon of Athens”
„Romeo and Juliet”
„Hamlet, Prince od Denmark”
„Othello, the Moor of Venice”
„King Lear”
„Mackbeth”
Comedies:
Some of the Shakespeare’s comedies are called romances, but they also conclude masque, ritual and symbolism. The other group is compared to the opera. Those spectacular comedies are full of scenes of action and scenes of character, resembling recitativo and dramatized arias. They are also enhanced with “mood music”, songs and visual effects. Events aren’t that important as emotional value of performance. The most precious precious things are emotions of the moment in simple, real situations. Comedies of Shakespeare are written in a pattern and action. Audience usually know more than characters in play and they can enjoy that feeling of omniscience. Those plays are based on folklore and fairytales. World is divided into black and white. Happy ending, especially with wedding or some big banquet and forgetting all the conflicts. Heroines are brave. Love isn’t the main theme but it it always one of them and it always wins. Lost or changed identities. Disorientation of the characters. Deep, mysterious forest.
STUART LITERATURE
1. What did Bacon advocate in his Advancement of Learning?
taht "the truths about natural phenomena should be established by experiment”
2. What kind of verse did George Herbert write?
Devotional verse (religious and spiritual)
3. Provide the names of “Cavalier poets”.
Sir John Suckling
Sir Richard Lovelace
Andrew Marvell
4. What epic does the title Paradise Lost by John Milton answer?
Tasso's "Gerusalemme Conquistata"
5. What tragic events took place in 1665-6 in London?
the Plague and the Great Fire
6. Between which years does Augustanism span?
From the Dryden’s maturity in the 1680s until the death of Alexander Pope in 1744.
7. Give the names of the main representatives of Restoration comedy.
Sir George Etherege, Wilian Wycherley
8. What is “mock-heroic”?
Magnifying the littleness and pretension. Form of satire that changes values from classical epic
poems into trivial subject.
9. Provide some information on John Locke
He was born i 1632 and died in 1704. Locke graduated from Oxford. He was a key figure in a
British cultural history, formulated an „empirical philosophy which derived knowledge from
experience and theory of government as a contract beetween governor and governed”. He believed
that we are born without any knowledge and ideas.
