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GRE Literature: World Literature

Subjects : gre, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • Match each statement with the correct term.
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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. Involves a blind daughter and hunting rabbits in a loft.


2. 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.


3. Became the subject of a heated 'querelle' over the neoclassical unities. The play focuses on Don Rodrigue and Chimène. Rodrigue'S father - Don Diègue - is the old upstart general of medieval Spain and past his prime - whereas Chimène'S father is the


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


5. His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character'S decorous social persona and inner corruption - and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient






6. After the death of her second husband an imperious mother imposes a period of mourning on her five daughters to last eight years - as has been traditional in her family.


7. Concerns a woman - Oedipa Maas - possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies - Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero


8. Zosima


9. 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.


10. The final play of Racine - based on the Bible - like 'Esther.'


11. Set in Yonville. She has a highly romanticized view of the world and craves beauty - wealth - passion - and high society. It is the disparity between these romantic ideals and the realities of her country life that impels her to commit adultery and a






12. 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


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


14. Masha - Olga and Irina - Andrei Prozorova and Natalia Ivanova - The characters identify Moscow with their happiness - and thus to them it represents the perfect life. However as the play develops Moscow never materializes and they all see their dream


15. Tomas and Tereza


16. Felix and Charles


17. Ends: 'There was the hum of bees - and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.'


18. Daughter of Menelaus and Helen






19. Chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The novel employs a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order - as well as an unreliable narrator.


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






21. Jewel and Gentleman Brown


22. A one-act play which explores themes of isolation - miscommunication - social disparity - and dehumanization in a commercial world. The main characters are Peter and Jerry. Concludes with a stabbing in Central Park.


23. Old Mahon and Pegeen Mike


24. The protagonist of 'Pere Goriot'






25. A gentleman'S debating club founded by Ben Franklin.






26. A wealthy and dashing military officer whose love for Anna prompts her to desert her husband and son. He accidentally destroys his beautiful racehorse Frou-Frou - a symbol of Anna.






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


28. Proposed that when we attribute motives to others - we tend to rely on ratios between 5 elements: act - scene - agent - agency - and purpose. This has become known as the dramatistic pentad. Wrote 'Permanence and Change' and 'A Grammar of Motives' -






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






30. Wrote 'Phenomenology of Reading'






31. 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


32. Concerns a man who is so intimidated by femininity that he resolves to marry his young - naïve 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


33. The independent-minded and socially awkward co-protagonist of 'Anna Karenina.' Whereas Anna'S pursuit of love ends in tragedy - his long courtship of Kitty Shcherbatskaya ultimately ends in a happy marriage.






34. 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


35. 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.


36. Hector'S wife






37. An aristocratic woman. The protagonist of 'The Cherry Orchard.'






38. Joachim Ziemssen and Clavdia Chauchat


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


40. Heterotopia and parrhesia - 'Regimes of truth' and 'Surveillance' - 'gaze' and 'archive'


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






42. Wrote 'Irony as a Principle of Structure'






43. Tells the tale of Rubashov - an Old Bolshevik and October Revolutionary who is cast out - imprisoned - and tried for treason against the very Soviet Union he once helped to create.


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






45. Anastasie and Delphine


46. Wrote 'Bodies that Matter' and 'Gender Trouble'






47. Wrote 'Allegories of Reading' and 'The Resistance to Theory' - Wrote 'Semiology and Rhetoric'






48. Wrote 'Culture and Society' and 'The Country and the City'






49. Mimesis






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