Test your basic knowledge |

GRE Literature: World Literature

Subjects : gre, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Ends: 'Yes - they will trample me underfoot - the numbers marching one two three - four hundred million five hundred six - reducing me to specks of voiceless dust - just as - in all good time - they will trample my son who is not my son - and his son






2. Concerns a man who is so intimidated by femininity that he resolves to marry his young - nave ward and proceeds to make clumsy advances to this purpose. The final act introduces a powerful irony as Oronte and Enrique arrive on the scene and announce






3. Best known for his analysis of interpretive communities an offshoot of reader-response criticism.






4. Wrote 'Anatomy of Criticism' and 'The Well-Tempered Critic' - 'centripetal' and 'centrifugal'






5. A semi-autobiographical novel which tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin - an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac on the Day of the Dead.






6. A beautiful young woman who is courted by both Levin and Vronsky - and who ultimately marries Levin. Modeled on Tolstoy'S real-life wife - she is sensitive and perhaps a bit overprotected - shocked by some of the crude realities of life.






7. The Kafka-influenced novel concerns a dejected researcher who becomes convinced that inanimate objects and situations encroach on his ability to define himself - on his intellectual and spiritual freedom. The protagonist is Antoine Roquentin - Anna






8. The illegitimate son of a wealthy count - who upon receiving an unexpected inheritance is suddenly burdened with responsibility and conflict. His former carefree behavior vanishes and he enters upon a philosophical quest of how one should live a mora






9. Wrote 'Structure - Sign - and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences' and 'Speech and Phenomena'






10. Jorgan Tesman






11. Saintly character who represents the ideal of the simple - life-affirming philosophy of the Russian peasantry






12. Wrote 'Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels' and 'The Critic as Host'






13. Most of the action takes place in an upmarket brothel that functions as a microcosm of the regime of the establishment under threat outside. Includes meta-theatricality and role-playing consisting of two central strands: a political conflict between






14. (A lawyer and a painter) Herr Huld and Titorelli






15. The protagonist of 'The Red and the Black' - Contains the epitaph 'The truth - the harsh truth - Mathilde de la Mole - Madame de Rnal and M. Pirard - A sociological satire of the French social order under the Bourbon Restoration






16. Highly intelligent - rational - and analytical - he is devoted to his country - returning to active duty even after nearly being killed at Austerlitz - and spending months helping Speranski write a new civil code for Russia. Though often detached - h






17. Wrote 'The Symbolist Manifesto'






18. 'The postmodern condition' and 'The collapse of the grand narrative'






19. A young woman - attempting to escape an existence cramped by social mores and have a little fun - dances at the servants' annual midsummer party - where she is drawn to a senior servant - a footman named Jean - who is particularly well-traveled - wel






20. Begins: 'Someone must have slandered Josef K. - for one morning - without having done anything truly wrong - he was arrested.'






21. A flirtatious - witty - young socialite who sends identical love letters to Alceste - Oronte - Acaste - and Clitandre.






22. John Oakhurst and Tom Simson. Tells the story of a town with serious financial and moral problems. In an effort to save what is left of the town and reestablish it as a virtuous place to be - a secret committee is created and it is decided whom ought






23. Wrote 'The Sandbox -' a universal failure.






24. A master of epic theatre and the 'distancing effect.'






25. Set in Oran - Main characters: Joseph Grand and Raymond Rambert - Cottard and Tarrou






26. Raskolinikov'S sister - she is decisive and brave - ending her engagement with Luzhin when he insults her family and fending off Svidrigailov with gunfire.






27. Old Mahon and Pegeen Mike






28. The narrator describes him as the 'hero' of novel and claims that the book is his 'biography.' A young - handsome man of about twenty - he is remarkable for his extraordinarily mature religious faith - his selflessness - and his innate love of humank






29. It describes the rise of a populist politician who calls his movement 'patriotic' and creates his own militia (the Minute Men or 'MM' - paralleling Hitler'S 'SS') and takes unconstitutional power after winning election mirroring what Hitler was doi






30. Her sci-fi novels explore Taoist - anarchist - ethnographic - feminist - queer theory - psychological and sociological themes. Wrote the Hainish cycle - including 'The Left Hand of Darkness' and 'The Dispossessed'






31. Parnell and Cranly






32. Concerns the son of the Roman emperor Claudius - whose succession to the imperial throne is usurped by Lucius - later known as Nero - and the son of Claudius' wife Agrippina the Younger.






33. It describes life above and below stairs in an Irish country house during the Second World War. In the absence of their employers the Tennants - the servants enact their own battles and conflict amid rumors about the war in Europe; invading one anoth






34. The story documents the troubles of Tayo - a Native American World War II veteran who strives to overcome PTSD and end the drought that is devastating his Laguna Pueblo people.






35. It concerns the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: an ingenue - a fading actress - her son the symbolist playwright - and a famous middlebrow story writer. The play has a strong intertextual relationship with 'Hamelet.'






36. The Patna and Patusan - Begins: 'Stately - plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead - bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.' Begins: 'All this happened - more or less'






37. Dmitri Razumikhin and Katerina Ivanova






38. Semi-autobiographical novel that provides a portrait of life in Knoxville - Tennessee - showing how the sudden death of a father affects a young widow - her two children - her atheistic father and the dead man'S alcoholic brother. Protagonist is Rufu






39. The husband of Emma Bovary.






40. The daughter of King Minos and wife of Theseus.






41. Known for his combination of realism and romanticism and his dedication to finding 'le mot juste' ('The right word') - which he considered has the key mean to achieve quality in literary art.






42. Poet and critic who wrote 'Seven Types of Ambiguity'






43. Jewel and Gentleman Brown






44. Ends: 'Yes - she thought - laying down her brush in extreme fatigue - I have had my vision.'






45. General Kutuzov






46. Wrote exclusively in Alexandrine. His dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight - the prevailing passion of his characters - a strong Jansensist sense of fate - and the nakedness of both the plot and stage.






47. Ephraim Cabot and Abbie Putnam






48. Wrote 'The Blacks' and 'The Maids'






49. Two married couples - one twenty years older and bitterer than the other - engage in an evening of merciless personal attack - George and Martha - Nick and Honey






50. Daughter of Menelaus and Helen