1. The Norman Conquest of England in the battle of Hastings is an important landmark in the history of English literature. It occurred in the year

(a) 1066 (b) 1076

(b) 1065 (d) 1075

2. Beowulf, the only important piece of litera­ture surviving since the old English period is a/an

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(a) lyrical ballad (b) prose narrative

(c) Anglo-Saxon epic (d) classical epic

3. Out of the four chief dialects that flourished in the pre-Chaucerian period, the one that became the standard English in Chaucer’s time is

(a) the Northern

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(b) the East-Midland

(c) the West-Midland

(d) the Southern

4. Which of the following is not one of the fea­tures of French literature that the Normans imported to England?

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(a) Clarity of expression

(b) Varied verification

(c) Gloom and other-worldly attitude

(d) Varied moods and themes

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5. Which of the following was a characteristic feature of Medieval literature?

(a) A large body of personal literature

(b) Realism in representation of time and space

(c) Absence of alliteration in poetry

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(d) The popular genre of the bird and the beast fable

6. Which of the following statements is incor­rect regarding medieval literature?

(a) Allegory was frequent and usual

(b) The dream-vision convention was preva­lent

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(c) Chaucer exploited the dream-vision con­vention in The Canterbury Tales.

(d) There was often an undercurrent of moral and dialectic strain.

7. The poet who was born in the reign of Ed­ward III, lived through that of Richard II and died in the reign of Henry IV was

(a) Trevelyan (b) Chaucer

(c) Boccaccio (d) Langland

8. The Black Death that swept over England when Chaucer was about nine years old is another name for

(a) the Great Plague

(b) the Great Flood

(c) the Great Drought

(d) the Great Revolt

9. There were three important medieval institu­tions. Which of the following was not one of them?

(a) Feudalism

(b) Chivalry or Knight-errantry

(c) The church (d) Slavery

10. In Chaucer’s times the Peasant Revolt re­sulted in the

(a) dethronement of the King

(b) demolition of church as an institution

(c) end of serfdom

(d) rise of nationalism

11. The spirit of new learning in the transitional period from the medieval to the modern was chiefly the influence of

(a) French Renaissance

(b) Italian Renaissance

(c) German Renaissance

(d) All of the above

13. The Book of the Duchess by Chaucer is a

(a) lengthy allegory on the death of his patron’s wife

(b) short lyrical story of the Duchess of Wales

(c) long narrative story of an adulterous Duchess

(d) tribute to his beloved and her beauty

14. Which of the following works of Chaucer bears close resemblance to Dante’s Divine Comedy?

(a) The Remount of the Rose

(b) The Parliament of Fowls

(c) The House of Fame

(d) Troilus and Criseyde

15. Which of the following works of Chaucer contains passages that have been directly taken from Dante?

(a) The House of Fame

(b) The Parliament of Fowls

(c) The Canterbury Tales

(d) Legend of Good Women

16. Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer shows great influence of Filostrato by

(a) Dante

(b) De Lorries

(c) De Menu

(d) Boccaccio

17. Troilus and Criseyde and Pandora’s reveal maturity of Chaucer’s narrative skills and his dexterity in handling the

(a) Heroic Couplet

(b) Rhyme Royal

(c) Free Verse

(d) Blank Verse

18. The very idea of The Ceuerbury Tales is believed to have been taken from Boccaccio’s

(a) Recamerone

(b) Filostrato

(c) Confession Mantis

(d) Polychronicon

19. The poem by Chaucer known to be the first attempt in English to use the Heroic Cou­plet is

(a) The Complaint unto Pity

(b) The Romance of the Rose

(c) The Legend of Good Women

(d) Troilus and Criseyde

20. Who has remarked that “Chaucer found English a dialect and left it a language” ?

(a) Legouis

(b) Hadow

(c) Lang

(d) Lowes

21. Hudson has rightly said that under the influ­ence of Chaucer in English poetry, the rhyme gradually displaced

(a) free verse

(b) alliteration

(c) prose narrative

(d) None of the above

22. Chaucer used octave rhyme, the eight syl­labic line rhyming in couplets, in

(a) The Prologue

(b) The Canterbury Tales

(c) The Book of the Duchess

(d) Troilus and Criseyde

23. In Prologue and Canterbury Tales Chaucer employed the

(a) Ottawa Rhyme

(b) Rhyme Royal

(c) Heroic Couplet

(d) Both (a) and (c)

24. The rhyme royal which Chaucer so effectively used in Troilus and Criseyde is arranged in stanzas consisting ten-syllabic lines and having

(a) seven imines in each stanza

(b) five lines in each stanza

(c) eight lines in each stanza

(d) nine lines in each stanza

25. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales the fading chivalry of Middle Ages is represented by the aged Knight, while the budding chiv­alry of Chaucerian times is represented by

(a) the Friar

(b) the Squire

(c) the Parson

(d) Wycliffe

26. Chaucer’s physician in the Doctor of Phy­sique was heavily dependent upon

(a) Church (b) Astrology

(c) Modern Science (d) Sorcery

27. Chaucer has been criticized for presenting an incomplete picture of his times, because

(a) he overemphasizes the rights of the lower class

(b) he exaggerates the courtly benevolence

(c) he writes for the court and cultivated clas­ses and neglects the suffering of the poor

(d) he supports the Lolland and the Peas­ant Revolution too fervently

28. Who among the following has been called The Morning Star of the Renaissance?

(a) Shakespeare (b) Spenser

(c) Chaucer (d) Marlowe

29. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a story of

(a) nineteen pilgrims

(b) twenty-four pilgrims

(c) twenty-nine pilgrims

(d) thirty-four pilgrims

30. Who among the following has been called by Spenser as ” The Well of English Uncle- filed”?

(a) Chaucer

(b) Langland

(c) Shakespeare

(d) Thomas More

31. Chaucer introduced the Heroic Couplet in English verse and invented the

(a) Ottawa Rhyme

(b) Blank Verse

(c) Sonnet

(d) Rhyme Royal

32. One of the main drawbacks of Troilus and Criseyde is

(a) lack of coherence

(b) long and tiresome speeches

(c) complex characters

(d) the unmistakable personal accent

33. The character of Criseyde is

(a) a superficial portrait of a haughty woman

(b) a psychological study of a complex woman

(c) the true representative of a Epical medieval woman

(d) the reflection of frailty of women in Chaucer’s times

34. Pandora’s is a/an

(a) negative character

(b) literary genius

(c) comic character

(d) obnoxious rogue

35. John Gower’s Confession Mantis, “an en­cyclopedia of the art of love”, was written in

(a) Latin

(b) French

(c) English (East-Midland dialect)

(d) Anglo-Saxon

36. The Vision of William Concerning Piers, the Plowman is the only extant poem of

(a) John Gower

(b) Lydgate

(c) W. Langland

(d) Higden

37. Four anonymous poems contained in one manuscript of about 1370 were found which give us good examples of medieval allego­ries. Which of the following is not one of them?

(a) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

(b) Patience

(c) Pearl

(d) Pardon

38. The poet known entirely for Bruce, the su­preme national poem of Scotland, is

(a) John Gower

(b) John Barbour

(c) Langland

(d) John Wycliffe

39. One of the earliest works English prose was the translation that appeared in 1377 of the French Travels of Sir John Mandeville. It was the work of a French physician,

(a) John of Treviso

(b) Jean de Bourgogne

(c) De Lorries

(d) De Menu

40. The contemporary of Chaucer who is re­garded the most original and powerful prose writer of his times is

(a) John Wycliffe

(b) John of Treviso

(c) W. Langland

(d) John Gower

41. In the Canterbury Tales the fictional inn where the pilgrims meet is

(a) Canterbury (b) Tabard

(c) Wessel Hall (d) Princeton

42. Chaucer shows almost a modern attitude in his

(a) realism

(b) rejection of conventions

(c) humor

(d) All of the above

43. Arnold criticizes Chaucer for lacking in

(a) coherence

(b) high seriousness

(c) the lyric quality

(d) verisimilitude

44. Whose followers are known as Collards?

(a) Martin Luther King

(b) John Wycliffe

(c) John of Treviso

(d) William Langland

45. William Caxton pointed the first book in English in 1474. Name the book.

(a) To Gentlemen of Verona

(b) The Bible

(c) History of Troy

(d) Utopia

46. In which month did the pilgrims march to­wards the Canterbury?

(a) April (b) March

(c)June (d) May

47. Which of the following took place during 1455-85?

(a) The War of Roses

(b) The Battle of Hastings

(c) The Norman Conquest

(d) The Peasant Revolution

48. When did Henry VII, the patron of education come to throne?

(a)1456 (b)1468

(c) 1473 (d) 1485

49. Which of the following is a prose story by Chaucer?

(a) Tale of Melees

(b) The Parson’s Tale

(c) The Parliament of Fowls

(d) Both (a) and (b)

50. Who is regarded as the first translator of the Bible into English?

(a) Thomas More

(b) John Wycliffe

(c) William Tyndale

(d) William Langland

Chaucer to Shakespeare

Multiple Choice Questions:

Answers

1(a)

2. (c)

3. (b)

4. (c)

5. (d)

6. (c)

7. (b)

8. (a)

9. (d)

10. (c)

11. (b)

12. (a)

13. (a)

14. (c)

15. (b)

16. (d)

17. (b)

18. (a)

19. (c)

20. (d)

21.(b)

22. (c)

23. (c)

24.(a)

25. (b)

26.(b)

27. (c)

28. (c)

29. (c)

30. (a)

31.(d)

32.(b)

33.(b)

34.(c)

35. (c)

36. (c)

37. (d)

38.(b)

39. (b)

40. (a)

41(b)

42. (d)

43. (b)

44. (b)

45. (c)

46. (a)

47. (a)

48. (d)

49. (d)

50. (b)