Literary theories UGC NET solved questions
1. Who wrote the essay “My First Acquaintance with Poets”?
A. Charles Lamb
B. John Ruskin
C. Thomas De Quincey
D. William Hazlitt
2. In his recasting the canon of English poetry in New Bearings in English Poetry, which of the following pairs was downgraded by F.R.Leavis?
A. Browning and Arnold
B. Milton and Shelley
C. Pound and Hopkins
D. Tennyson and Swinburne
3. What term did Bertolt Brecht use for his mode of drama-writing to distinguish it from traditional theater?
A. Epic theater
B. Kitchen-sink theater
C. Musical theater
D. Proletarian theater
4. Who is the author of “The Typology of Detective Fiction”?
A. G. K. Chesterton
B. Tzvetan Todorov
C. Umberto Eco
D. Vladimir Propp
5. Which of the following terms describes a novel of fashionable high life in 19th-century English literature?
A. Brass-Spittoon
B. Diamond-Jar
C. Golden-Spoon
D. Silver-Fork
Notes :
Brass-Spittoon is a poem by Langston Hughes that highlights the institutional racial discriminations of the African- Americans.
The Golden Spoon is a murder mystery novel by Jessa Maxwell.
Silver-Fork novels are social satires to depict the aristocratic mannerism in detail. This term was applied by William Hazlitt in 1827. The name owes its influence to the upper-class habit of eating fish with two silver forks.
6. Which of these may be said to be true of the journal published from Bowling Green University from 1969, which carried essays on Spiderman comics, rock music, and detective films?
a. It sought to highlight the importance of popular culture.
b. It sought to highlight the importance of elite culture.
c. It sought to buttress the canon by making it more elitist.
d. It sought to break down the dominance of ‘high’ culture.
Choose the correct answer from the
options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and d only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
7. Which of the following are novels by David Lodge?
a) The British Museum is Falling down
b) The Seven Sisters
c) Changing Places
d) Nice Work
e) Empire of the Sun
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a, b and c only
B. a, c and d only
C. b, d and e only
D. c, d and e only
8. Which two of the following are works by I. A. Richards?
a) Concepts of Criticism
b) Science and Poetry
c) The Philosophy of Rhetoric
d) English Literature in Our Time and the University
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and d only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
9. Which of these countries does Montaigne’s essay, “Of Cannibals,”
focus on primarily?
A. Borneo
B. Brazil
C. India
D. Japan
10. Who among the following is associated with a ‘philosophy of praxis’?
A. Antonio Gramsci
B. Georg Lukacs
C. Raymond Williams
D. Stuart Hall
11. Who among the following has coined the term, ‘ecofeminism’?
A. Monique Wittig
B. Francoise d’Eaubonne
C. Helene Cixous
D. Marguerite Duras
12. Which among the following are examples of the Künstlerroman?
a) The Portrait of a Lady
b) David Copperfield
c) Tom Jones
d) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
Notes: Künstlerroman,a sub-category of the Coming of Age novels of Bildungsroman, focuses on the narrative of an artist's growth to maturity.
13. Who among the following posits the tradition of great writers as an
inescapable fact, and takes the ambivalent position of considering it as both
a blessing and a curse?
A. Allen Tate
B. F.R. Leavis
C. Harold Bloom
D. T. S. Eliot
14. With which of the following movements is Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil generally associated?
a) Neoclassical
b) Symbolist
c) Modernist
d) Postmodernist
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and d only
B. a and b only
C. b and c only
D. c and d only
15. Which two of the following are fallacious evaluations of poetry
according to Matthew Arnold’s “The Study of Poetry”?
a) Contextual estimate
b) Personal estimate
c) Comparative estimate
d) Historic estimate
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. b and c only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
16. Which of the following are books by Noam Chomsky?
a) Syntactic Structures
b) Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
c) Language and Society
d) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
e) The Pragmatics of Politeness
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and c only
B. b and d only
C. c and e only
D. d and a only
Notes :
Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior - co-authored by Charles Norval Cofer and Barbara S Musgrave
The Pragmatics of Politeness- Geoffrey Leech
17. Arrange the following terms in the chronological order as these appeared in literary theory:
a) Phallogocentrism
b) Locutionary act
c) Interpellation
d) Interpretive community
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a, d, c, b
B. b, c, a, d
C. c, b, d, a
D. d, a, b, c
Notes:
Phallogocentrism: Jacques Derrida coined the phrase by blending two terms phallocentrism that is focusing on the masculine point of view and logocentrism, focusing on language in assigning meaning to the world. The phrase Phallogocentrism is used to refer to the idea that how male point of view is privileged in the formation of meanings.
Locutionary act : The term locutionary act was introduced by British philosopher J. L. Austin in his 1962 book, "How to Do Things With Words.”, to refer to the act of making a meaningful utterance, in his Speech-Act theory. But, this term was later replaced by John Searle in a 1969 article titled "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language” as the propositional act, that is, the act of expressing a proposition.
Interpellation: Marxist theorist Louis Althusser introduced the concept in his book "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" to discuss how the individual human consciousness and agency,and overall subjectivity is constructed by the existing social structures through "state apparatuses", such as the family, mass media, schools, churches, the judicial system, police, government to maintain the social order.
Interpretive community: In Is There a Text in the Class? (1980), Stanley Fish proposes that readers form “interpretive communities” that consists of members who share the same “interpretive strategies” or the “set of community assumptions” of reading a text, or to write meaning into the text, and how the validity of any text depends on it.
18. Who is the author of The Otherness of English: India’s Aunty Tongue Syndrome?
A. Binoo K. John
B. Yamuna Kachru
C. Probal Dasgupta
D. S.K.Verma
19. Which of the following statements best articulates Frantz Fanon’s political position?
A. Colonialism will die a natural death sans any violent struggle against it
B. Peasants and social outcasts have little revolutionary potential in Africa
C. Social oppression in the third world is a matter more of race than of class
D. The African bourgeoisie can never succeed in the task of nation building
20. What was the center set up for studying culture at the University of Birmingham called?
A. Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
B. Centre for Contemporary Studies
C. Centre for Culture Studies
D. Centre for New Cultural Studies
21. How does T.S.Eliot sum up the peculiar quality of Marvell’s “Horatian Ode”?
A. .‘A contrast of ideas, different in degree but the same in principle’
B. ‘A tough reasonableness beneath a slight lyric grace’
C. ‘Heterogeneity of materials compelled into unity’
D. ‘Telescoping of images and multiplied associations’
22. Who among the following says that ideology is “a representation of
the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of
existence”?
A. Fredric Jameson
B. Herbert Marcuse
C. Louis Althusser
D. Terry Eagleton
23. Match the following:
a. Homi Bhabha______i.Reading the Popular
b. T S Eliot _______ ii. The Location of Culture
c. Roland Barthes _______ iii. Notes towards the Definition of
Culture
d. John Fiske_______ iv. Image-Music-Text
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a - i, b - ii, c - iv, d - iii
B. a - ii, b - iii, c - iv, d - i
C. a - iii, b - ii, c - i, d - iv
D. a - iv, b - ii, c - iii, d - i
24. Which two of the following are the earliest colonial publishing initiatives that apply to India?
a) Andrew Lang Colonial Book Series
b) Murray Colonial and Home Library Series
c) Colonial Library Series by Macmillan
d) Colonial Library Series by Chatto &Windus
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
25. Which of these is identified by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart
as having been deployed in Walt Disney comic books to propagate imperialist ideology?
A. Deification
B. Impoverishment
C. Infantilisation
D. Personification
Notes : Infantilisation is a process of treating an adult in a much younger way than their actual age to deny them of their due respect.
26. Match the following:
a. Advancement of Learning_____ i. Susan Sontag
b. Past and Present_____ii. Francis Bacon
c. English Traits_____ iii. Thomas Carlyle
d. Illness as Metaphor _____iv. R. W. Emerson
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a -i , b -iii , c -iv , d -ii
B. a -ii , b -iii , c -iv , d -i
C. a -iii , b -iv , c -ii , d -i
D. a -iv , b -i , c -ii , d -iii
27. Arrange chronologically the following texts in terms of their years of first publication:
a. Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
b. Coleridge and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads
c. Pablo Neruda’s Canto General
d. Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a, b, c, d
B. a, b, d, c
C. b, c, a, d
D. d, a, b, c
28. Arrange the following terms in their chronological sequence of appearance:
a. Dissociation of sensibility
b. Unreliable narrator
c. Theatre of cruelty
d. Egotistical sublime
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. b, d, a, c
B. d, a, b, c
C. d, a, c, b
D. d, b, a, c
Notes :
Dissociation of sensibility: Eliot in his 1921 essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’,meant by the term “dissociation of sensibility” that it was a separation of thought from emotion in the work of English poets following John Donne, especially, that of John Milton and John Dryden. Dryden’s style was far more rational and neoclassical; Milton’s was focused more on sensation and feeling.
b. Unreliable narrator: The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction to refer to a narrator whose credibility is compromised and can not be trusted. As an instance, the example of Nora and Cathleen can be cited as their observation of Maurya’s mental disposition was strikingly different from Maurya's own approach of her sons’ death.
c. Theatre of cruelty: Theatre of Cruelty is described by the Encyclopædia Britannica as "a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself”. Antonin Artaud has conceptualized the form of Theatre of cruelty that breaks from the traditional Western theater by assaulting the senses of the audience. For Artaud, cruelty is a physical determination to shatter a false reality.
d. Egotistical sublime: The phrase 'egotistical sublime' is coined by John Keats to describe the underlying self-centered nature of Wordsworth's poetry, particularly his use of the narrative voice to convey his own conception of a singular truth. This phrase was coined in an 1818 letter to Richard Woodhouse.
29. Who is the author of Radiant Textuality?
A. Jerome McGann
B. Gerald Graff
C. James Thorpe
D. Richard D. Altick
30. Which of these are generally taken to be true of Cultural Studies?
a. It is politically engaged.
b. It privileges text over context.
c. It has a symbiotic relationship with Formalism.
d. It studies the means of production of a text.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and c only
B. a and d only
C. a and b only
D. b and d only
31. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language is:
a. An interlocking structure.
b. A system of constant change.
c. A system of signs.
d. A self-standing formation.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
32. Which of the following narrative cycles is referred to in Michel Foucault’s “What is an Author”?
A. The Canterbury Tales
B. The Decameron
C. The Thousand and One Nights
D. TutiNamah
33. Who among the following was of the view that poetry was only an imitation of an imitation and therefore trivial?
A. Aristotle
B. Phaedo
C. Plato
D. Xenocrates
34. In “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” what is proposed by Matthew Arnold as the essence of criticism?
A. Affirmation
B. Cohesiveness
C. Disinterestedness
D. Judiciousness
35. Which two of the following essays form part of Mikhail Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays?
a. “From the History of Novelistic Discourse”
b. “Discourse in the Novel”
c. “Romance and Novel”
d. “Forms of Time and the Chronotope in the Novel”
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and d only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
36.Which of these are true of Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society?
a. It critiques the idea of high culture.
b. It overlooks the idea of high culture.
c. It defines culture as a way of life.
d. It equates culture with science.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and c only
B. a and d only
C. a and b only
D. b and d only
37. In “The Life of Cowley” which two of the following criticisms were made by Samuel Johnson against a group of writers he termed the ‘metaphysical poets’?
a. They made an inappropriate combination of wit and imagination.
b. Instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses.
c. They neither copied nature nor life.
d. They never tried to be singular in their thoughts.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. b and c only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
38. Which of these questions would Cultural Studies be most interested in
asking?
a) Who decides what is to be produced?
b) Who can afford the artifact?
c) How is the artifact marketed?
d) What is the register of speech in the artifact?
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a, b and d only
B. a, b and c only
C. a, c and d only
D. b, c and d only
39. Who among the following belong to the Chicago School of critics?
a) R. S. Crane
b) E. M. W. Tillyard
c) Elder Olson
d) Allen Tate
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and c only
B. a and d only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
40. Which two of the following are highlighted in relation to specific
historical moments by Stephen Greenblatt?
a) Crisis of meaning
b) Circulation of meaning
c) Production of meaning
d) Deferral of meaning
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. A and B only
B. B and C only
C. B and D only
D. C and D only
41. n “An Apology for Poetry” Sidney discusses the didactic function of
poetry by comparing it to philosophy and ____?
A. Aesthetics
B. Ethics
C. History
D. Religion
42. Arrange the following essays in the chronological order of publication.
a) T. S. Eliot, “The Function of Criticism”
b) Edgar Allan Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”
c) Henry James, “The Art of Fiction”
d) Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction”
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. b, c, a, d
B. b, c, d, a
C. c, b, a, d
D. c, b, d, a
43. Which of the following does the Subaltern Studies project contend?
a) Traditional historiography celebrated the role of the subalterns.
b) Traditional history of India’s freedom movement celebrates the
contribution of select icons.
c) Traditional historiography highlights the dominant strands of India’s
freedom struggle.
d) Subaltern Studies historiography highlights the dominant strands of
India’s freedom struggle.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
44. Which of the following clusters is associated with what Julia Kristeva
terms the ‘semiotic’?
A. Authority, order and patriarchy
B. Displacement, slippage and condensation
C. Logic, reason and power
D. Repression, control and normalcy
45. According to Longinus which two of the following qualities apply to
‘great poetry’?
a. It must be the work of a genius, an inspired person.
b. It must cause a feeling of melancholy in the reader.
c. It must employ devices of rhetoric.
d. It must please selectively and on special occasions.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and c only
B. a and b only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
46. Match the following:
a. Modernity at Large_____ i. J Urry
b. The Tourist Gaze_______ ii. E W Said
c. Culture and Imperialism_____ iii. C.L.R. James
d. The Black Jacobins_____ iv. A. Appadurai
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a -ii , b -iii , c -iv , d -i
B. a -iii , b -iv , c -ii , d -i
C. a -iv , b -i , c -ii , d -iii
D. a -iv , b -iii , c -ii , d -i
47. With which of these is Ngugi wa Thiongo generally associated?
A. Decolonising the Body
B. Decolonising the Mind
C. Decolonising the Polity
D. Decolonising the State
48. Who, among the following, played the most significant role in mobilizing the concept of ‘cultural intermediaries’?
A. Karl Marx
B. Louis Althusser
C. Pierre Bourdieu
D. Jurgen Habermas
49. Who among the following considered paraphrase as ‘a heresy’?
A. Cleanth Brooks
B. Edmund Wilson
C. I.A.Richards
D. Percy Lubbock
50. From whom does Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak borrow the term ‘subaltern’?
A. Friedrich Engels
B. Karl Marx
C. Louis Althusser
D. Antonio Gramsci
51. What 19th-century philosophical term of Russian origin did Friedrich
Nietzsche use to describe the disintegration of traditional morality in western
society?
A. Absolutism
B. Anarchism
C. Cynicism
D. Nihilism
52. In “The Function of Criticism” T.S.Eliot attacked J. Middleton Murry and similar critics for being devotees of what he called:
A. “The Inner Voice”.
B. “The Muse’s Mystery”.
C. “The Romantic Impulse”.
D. “The Symbol Hunt”.
53. What was the name of the journal published from Bowling Green University beginning 1969, which carried essays on amusement parks, comics and detective films?
A. Journal of Culture Studies
B. Journal of Mass Culture
C. Journal of Popular Culture
D. Journal of Public Culture
54. Which two of the following conform to liberal humanist thought?
a. Literature transcends the limits of the age of its origin and so is
timeless.
b. Literature is untouched by the essential human nature which is
unchanging.
c. Literature is devoid of any purpose to enhance life or promote human
values.
d. Identity is a unique essence unaffected by environment and society
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and c only
B. a and d only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
55. Who among the following is said to have believed that the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) never happened?
A. Jacques Derrida
B. Jean Baudrillard
C. Jurgen Habermas
D. Zygmunt Bauman
56. Arrange the following texts in the chronological order of publication.
a. This Bridge Called My Back
b. Sexual Politics
c. Gender Trouble
d. The Feminine Mystique
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. b, d, a, c
B. b, d, c, a
C. d, a, b, c
D. d, b, a, c
57. Which of these does the book How to read Donald Duck identify as an important element in its analysis of imperialist ideology in the Walt Disney comicbook?
A. Heartless civilisation
B. Impoverished royalty
C. Noble savage
D. Scientific magic
58. Which of the following statements best describes Terry Eagleton’s views on literature?
A. It is closely allied to religion in its significance and seriousness
B. It is involved in the reproduction of the dominant social order
C. Its primary purpose is to produce beauty and pleasure
D. Its raison d’être is to reflect social reality directly
59. Which two of the following conform to Northrop Frye’s typology of
literature?
a. Mythos of spring: Comedy
b. Mythos of summer: Satire
c. Mythos of autumn: Tragedy
d. Mythos of winter: Romance
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and d only
D. b and d only
60. In “Politics and the English Language” which two of the following ‘tricks’ are mentioned by George Orwell as ‘bad habits’ of English use?
a) Obsolete words
b) Pretentious diction
c) Dying metaphors
d) False modifiers
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
A. a and b only
B. b and c only
C. b and d only
D. c and d only
61. Who among the following compared ‘the mind in creation’ to ‘a fading coal’?
A. Coleridge
B. Keats
C. Shelley
D. Wordsworth
62. Which of these UK universities saw the first institutional incorporation of Cultural Studies?
A. Bath Spa University
B. Cambridge University
C. Oxford University
D. University of Birmingham
63. Which of the following are true of ‘performance’, as used in linguistic
theory?
a) It is analogous to the Saussurean concept of langue.
b) It refers to the specific utterances of individual native speakers in
actual situations.
c) It is an innate grammar that suggests humans’ universal ability to use
language.
d) It includes hesitations and unfinished structures arising out of
psychological difficulties acting upon the speaker.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below
A. a and b only
B. a and c only
C. b and c only
D. b and d only
64. 10. What does the phrase ut pictura poesis from Horace’s Art of Poetry mean?
“as in painting, so in poetry”.
“poetry beggars pictorial description”.
“as in poetry, so in painting”.
“picture above all poetry”.
65. Who among the following is the author of Account of the Augustan Age in England (1759)?
John Gay
William Hazlitt
Oliver Goldsmith
Samuel Johnson
66. Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians carries biographical sketches of writers and public figures.Identify the list below that correctly mentions those Eminent Victorians.
Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon.
A.E.W. Mason, Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, Matthew Arnold, Robert Bridges.
E.F. Benson, Cardinal Manning, Lord Tennyson, Beatrice Webb.
George Harding, General Gordon, Robert Browning, Mrs Humphrey Ward.
67. Which of the statements on Michael Roberts’s Faber Book of Modern Verse (1936) is not true?
His anthology canonized modern poetry and poets for quite some decades.
The collection begins with the poems of Robert Bridges.
Roberts omitted the Georgian poets in his anthology.
Yeats, Eliot and Pound find a place in the Faber Book of 1936.
68. Who among the following proposed that the First Gulf War had never taken place, it was simply a hyperreal, media-generated spectacle?
Richard Rorty
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Jean Baudrillard
Umberto Eco
69. From among the following, identify the incorrect observation regarding Ferdinand de Saussure’s seminal distinction between langue and parole.
A.Parole is the particular language system, the elements of which we learn as children, and which is codified in our grammars and dictionaries, whereas langue is the language-occasion (what A says to B).
B. A language consists in the interrelationship between langue and parole.
C. Saussure made this crucial distinction in a study called A Course in General Linguistics (1916).
D. Langue is the particular language-system, the elements of which we learn as children, and which is codified in our grammars and dictionaries, whereas parole is the language-occasion (what A says to B)
70. The error of interpreting a literary work by referring to evidence outside of itself, such as the design and purpose of the author is called __________.
Affective fallacy
Intentional fallacy
Authorial fallacy
Synecdochic fallacy
71. What does Philip Sidney call poet-haters in his Defence of Poesie?
misogynists
misanthropes
misnomers
mysomousoi
72. In the 1940’s, a critic and a philosopher produced two influential and controversial papers called “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Affective Fallacy”.Identify them.
(1) Cleanth Brooks
(2) Monroe C. Beardsley
(3) William K. Wimsalt Jr.
(4) R.P. Blackmur
The right combination according to the code is:
(1) and (2)
(2) and (4)
(2) and (3)
(3) and (4)
73. Semiotics originated mainly in the works of two theorists. They are:
(a) Charles Sanders Peirce
(b) Mikhail Bakhtin
(c) Ferdinand de Saussure
(d) Valentin Voloshinov
The right combination according to the code is __________.
(a) and (b)
(b) and (c)
(a) and (c)
(c) and (d)
74. In his book, In Theory, Aijaz Ahmed works out the relations between the three entities:
Classes, Nations, Literatures
Regions, Nation, Languages
State, Religions, Gender
Literature, Print, Theory
75. In 1660, a group of 12 people including Robert Boyle and Christopher Wren formed what they called the Royal Society. In 1663, it became The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. What was the Society’s motto?
“In Him we trust”
“In the words of no one”
“Lighted to lighten”
“Love conquers all”
76. Of whom did W.B. Yeats say that “We were the last Romantics”?
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Imagist poets
His Friends in the Irish Literary Revival
Himself and his lady love, Maud Gonne
77. Who among the following is not a reader-response critic?
Maud Bodkin
Hans-Robert Jauss
Stanley Fish
Wolfgang Iser
Notes : Classic reader-response critics include Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, and Roland Barthes.
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