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. Melanctha - 'The Good Anna' and 'The Gentle Lena' - Set in the fictional town of Bridgepoint






2. It was criticized for its pessimism and ambiguous ethical message. The presentation of the lower classes was viewed as overly dark and unredemptive - and the playwright was clearly more interested in creating memorable characters than in advancing a






3. Concerns a writer who becomes ill and confronts the duality of life: follow the path of logic and reason (Apollo) or follow the path of passion (Dionysus). He becomes obsessed with a young boy who he believes represents the latter. The protagonist is






4. Ends: 'Who knows but that - on the lower frequencies - I speak for you?'






5. Wrote 'The Discourse on Language' - Wrote 'Truth and Power' and 'What is an Author?'






6. 'The Heresy of Paraphrase' - Wrote 'The Well Wrought Urn' and 'Understanding Poetry'






7. Concerns a young poet trying to make a name for himself - who becomes trapped in the morass of society's darkest contradiction - Lucien de Rubempr - Eve Chardon - David






8. 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.






9. Borodino






10. Set in the sitting room of a plantation home in the Mississippi Delta of Big Daddy Pollitt - a wealthy cotton tycoon - Big Daddy Pollitt - Brick and Maggie






11. The play concerns an aristocratic Russian woman and her family as they return to the family'S estate just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. While presented with options to save the estate - the family essentially does nothing and the play e






12. The narrator - K. - arrives in a village governed by a mysterious bureaucracy - Frieda and Klamm






13. Anastasie and Delphine






14. 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






15. Beautiful - accomplished - lively - spontaneous - and charming - she begins the novel as a willful and exuberant teenager and ends it as a happily married to Pierre. Her crush on Anatole costs her a chance with Andrew - who cannot forgive her lapse.






16. A retelling of the story of Phaedra - Theseus - and Hippolyte.






17. He is a pompous speechmaker - endlessly rattling on about medical techniques and theories that he really knows nothing about. His presence serves - in part - to heighten our sense of Emma'S frustration with her life.






18. Wrote 'The Myth of Sisyphus' and 'The Rebel'






19. Ends: 'But that is the beginning of a new storythe story of the gradual renewal of a man - the story of his gradual regeneration - of his passing from one world into another - of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a






20. Based on Euripides' 'Hippolytus' - Tells of a mother'S love for her step-son during her husband'S absence. She drinks poison at the end.






21. Aside from presenting a detailed account of the life and land of the Mojave desert - each story and essay includes at least one of three themes: the supremacy and divinity of nature - the negative consequences of the disconnect between humans and nat






22. Raskolnikov'S love who is forced to prostitute herself to support herself and the rest of her family. She is meek and easily embarrassed - but she maintains a strong religious faith.






23. The novels chronicle the life of Christopher Tietjens - 'The last Tory -' a brilliant government statistician from a wealthy land-owning family who is serving in the British Army during World War I.






24. The Guermantes






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






26. Amanda and Laura Wingfield - Jim O'Connor






27. 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






28. It tells the story of the Bridau family (Phillipe and Joseph) - trying to regain their lost inheritance after a series of unfortunate mishaps.






29. Dmitri Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna






30. The novel depicts the inward journey of Mrs. Curren - an old classics professor. She lives in the Cape Town of the Apartheid era - where she is slowly dying of cancer. She has been philosophically opposed to the Apartheid regime her entire life - but






31. Opens opens in a country store - which is doubling as a Justice of the Peace Court. A hungry boy named Sarty Snopes craves the meat and cheese in the store.






32. The protagonist - Olga - has always been in love with someonestarting with her father as a young childand that she inspires mutual affection from most of the people she meets. She marries Kukin and - after his death - Vasily.






33. Dmitri Razumikhin and Katerina Ivanova






34. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane - his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists known as the Whole Sick Crew - and the quest of an aging traveller named Herbert Stencil to identify






35. Begins: 'If I am out of my mind - it'S all right with me.'






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






37. The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime. Her desperation is driven by the social norms of her culture - and th






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






39. 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






40. Wrote 'The Meaning of Meaning' - Wrote 'The Principles of Literary Criticism' and 'Practical Criticism'






41. Wrote 'The New Criticism'






42. 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.






43. The 'Intentional' and 'Affective' Fallacies






44. A young law student who seems to share Emma'S appreciation for the finer things in life - and who returns her admiration






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






46. The protagonist of 'The School for Wives -' also known as Monsieur de la Souche.






47. 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.






48. Mimesis






49. General Kutuzov






50. Gregers and Hjalmar Ekdal