GRE Literature in English (REA) (37 page)

 

39.
(D)

The sonnet adheres to Petrarchan form in the octave (rhyming
abbaabba),
but differs from it in the sestet by introducing couplets rather than the usual rhyme scheme
(cdecde
or some variant, such as
cdccdc)
. In other ways it adheres to the conventions of the Petrarchan sonnet—a shift of thought occurs at the beginning of the sestet, and it contains no more than five rhymes.

 

40.
(B)

Countée Cullen, an African-American poet, predicts that the oppressed will not always be oppressed, will not always plant what others reap, and will not always “beguile” the limbs of the oppressor “with mellow flute” while the oppressor sleeps. The oppressed, he says, were not made to weep eternally.

 

41
. (E)

The night is “no less lovely” for being black; in fact, the blackness of the night “relieves the stark white stars,” giving them a loveliness they would not have without blackness.

 

42.
(A)

The Harlem Renaissance denotes a period of literary achievement in the 1920s in Harlem, a section of upper Manhattan. Other writers of the period include Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer.

 

43.
(B)

In order to answer questions of this type, it is important to consider the author's attitudes toward literature if one is not immediately familiar with these non-fiction passages. This is Fielding's definition of the comic romance, as distinct from comedy and from the serious romance, in his preface to
Joseph Andrews
. Since (B) is the only passage that seems to have a somewhat dated use of language and tone, the early eighteenth-century author Fielding might be a good choice here.

 

44.
(A)

This is from Lawrence's
Why the Novel Matters
. The passage reflects Lawrence's belief that one “knows” only through the body and his assertion that the novelist understands this, while parsons, philosophers, and scientists may not. It is interesting to note the use of fire as a symbol, which is heavily employed by Lawrence in his fictional works as well.

 

45.
(E)

In
Aspects of the Novel
, Forster says that although all novels tell stories, story-telling is not the novelist's greatest achievement. Forster differentiates between the “form” of the novel and its “content,” the story within the novel. The passage reflects the distinction between the two aspects of the novel.

 

46.
(D)

Dixon pokes fun at mindless, insignificant academic scholarship; aware of the limited value of such work, he persists in order to keep his university teaching position.

 

47.
(A)

Although the novel is related in third-person narration, events are seen through Dixon's eyes. It is his perspective on other characters and action that shapes the reader's responses. Although Dixon evokes considerable laughter at his own expense, he is treated sympathetically by the author.

 

48.
(D)

The passage is from Kingsley Amis' comic novel,
Lucky Jim
. Jack Kerouac (A) is best known for his autobiographical work
On The Road
. Woody Allen (B) is an excellent satiric writer, but his humor often delves into the absurd. Cary (C) and Kesey (E) are satirists as well, but their more famous works attack different targets than Amis' work.

 

49.
(B)

The Aesthetic Movement was a European phenomenon of the latter nineteenth century. Its rallying cry became “art for art's sake.” The references of (A), (C), and (D) to “utility” as well as the relationship of art to “social value,” are antithetical to the concept of aesthetics. The concept espoused in tenet (E) decries art as a pale imitation of nature.

 

50. (
C)

The passage is from
The Myth of Sisyphus
, by the existentialist writer Albert Camus. Eugene lonesco is a leading writer of the drama of the absurd. Chekhov and Turgenev have a much more sympathetic attitude towards their characters, which would eliminate (A) and (D). Ibsen (B) is known for his psychological realism, while Doctorow (E) was also known for his use of realistic characters as a commentary on society.

 

51.
(D)

The term was used by Keats to describe the objective, impersonal aspect of Shakespeare and has subsequently been used to denote an artist's ability to avoid expressing his own personality in his work.

 

52.
(C)

This is Gwendolyn Brooks' poem “We Real Cool,” subtitled
The Pool Players
.
Seven at the Golden Shovel
. Brooks has spent most of her life in the Chicago area. She is the first African-American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize. Cullen (A), Hughes (B), and Wilbur (D) did not utilize short lines to the extent that Brooks is known for, and Oates (E) is a prose writer.

 

53.
(D)

This is the concluding stanza of Thomas Gray's comic (sometimes called mock-heroic) poem, “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes.” Raleigh (A), Lovelace (B) and Blake (E) are not known for comical poetry, and Swift (D) was a satirist.

 

54.
(E)

The passage, in typical Jamesian style, is from
The Golden Bowl.
The scene occurs immediately after Fanny Assingham has broken the golden bowl. The husband and wife are Amerigo (the Prince) and Maggie.

 

55.
(C)

These are the concluding lines of Fitzgerald's
The Great Gatsby.
The “he” is Gatsby, whose pursuit of a vision destroys him; the passage emphasizes the influence of the past on man's attempts to shape the future. Although the lines are famous enough to be almost immediately recognizable, the styles of Melville (A) and Dreiser (B) are nowhere near as compact as the style in the passage, and can be readily eliminated.

 

56.
(A)

The lines given are two of the three stanzas from Dickinson's “I reason, Earth is short,” reflecting the style and thematic concerns of much of her poetry. Whitman's (B) poetry is more flowing and earthly, and Parker (E) is known for her humorous style.

 

57.
(D)

This passage is from Beckett's novel
Murphy
, which deals with Murphy's humorous and tragic search for self. The author draws on Gaelic legend in Murphy's quest for self-identity. The work is written in Beckett's highly individual style and is set in both Dublin and London. Although Beckett is often more famous for his plays, the passage is not representative of Swift's (A) satire, Joyce's (B) stream-of-consciousness, Thomas' (C) imagery, or Donleavy's (E) sardonic wit.

 

58.
(C)

The passage is from E. M. Forster's A
Passage to India
. It relates the aftermath of Mrs. Moore's nihilistic experience in the Marabar caves, an experience that undermines her “grip on life.” This passage contradicts the epiphanies usually enjoyed by Lawrence's (A) characters. Conrad's (B) examination of the human condition usually involves man's cruelty to his fellow man. The works of Woolf (D) and Greene (E) are often pessimistic but do not descend into nihilism.

 

59.
(C)

This passage is from Flaubert's
Madame Bovary
. The passage reflects Emma's disillusionment as well as her persistent romantic illusions. Maupassant (D) and France (E) often utilized writing as social commentary, while Zola (A) employed a more scientific method in his character studies. Proust (B) wrote his most famous works in first-person interior monologue.

 

60.
(B)

This is the vivid, vernacular narrative voice of Holden Caulfield at the beginning of Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye
. (D) is a satirical work about life in academia, and (A) concerns itself with the lives of a family rather than an individual. (E) is narrated by a character older than the one in the passage.

 

61.
(D)

The passage is from Milton's
Samson Agonistes
. Samson is reflecting on the relative importance of his gift of strength from God. The last line alludes to the fact that the seat of Samson's strength is his hair, which Delilah has cut, thereby depriving him of his strength.

 

62.
(E)

Jane Austen's patronizing description is of Catherine Morland, the heroine of
Northanger Abbey
. Plain and unimpressive, Catherine only gradually wins our admiration. The female protagonist in (A) is described as a privileged child. Answers (B), (C) and (D) open with more general comments about families.

 

63.
(B)

The two novels alluded to are Hardy's
Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure
. Lawrence (A) did not believe in a “neutral force,” but in the tension generated by two opposing forces. In Conrad's (C) works, people struggle against man's own inhumanity and the suffering people cause to each other. Waugh (D) is known for his satires and society tales, and while Dickens (E) did explore some of the themes listed, the plot outlines do not match his works.

 

64.
(E)

A number of poems from the Middle Ages are concerned with beauty that must die. An important element of these poems is the
ubi sunt
motif, from the Latin sentence, “
Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?”
(“Where are they who before us were?”). This stanza is the second in Francois Villon's “The Ballad of Dead Ladies”;
the ubi sunt
motif is stated directly in the last line (“Where are the snows of yesteryear?”) .

 

65.
(D)

Héloise and Abelard are famous lovers whose relationship has been the subject of many literary works. Abelard was a scholastic philosopher and theologian; Héloise was his student. They were secretly married to avoid hindering Abelard's advancement in the church. After Héloise's uncle took revenge, Abelard became a monk and Héloise a nun. Abelard lived from 1079 to 1142.

 

66.
(A)

All of the beautiful ladies of the past are dead, gone like the snows of yesteryear. Medieval poems like Villon's combine an appreciation for the world's beauty with an awareness of the transitory nature of that beauty, which is nearly illusory when viewed against the background of eternity. In asking the
ubi sunt
question, the poet calls to mind life's splendor, but the grim and inevitable answer poignantly reminds the reader how short-lived that splendor is.

 

67.
(C)

Everything turning away from Icarus' fall in stanza two provides a specific example of the general idea (indifference to suffering or to the extraordinary) advanced in stanza one; similarly, Brueghel's painting is a specific instance of Auden's generalization about the Old Masters' understanding the human position of suffering. Because there is a concrete example in the second stanza, answers (A) and (B) can be eliminated. Furthermore, the use of “for instance” in line 14 indicates that the idea in the second stanza does not contradict the previous stanza, thus eliminating answers (D) and (E).

 

68.
(D)

The children are indifferent to the miraculous birth and the plowman is indifferent to the fall of Icarus. The children and the plowman never consciously refuse to take part in the world around them, so answers (A) and (E) can be eliminated. Answer (C) is clearly incorrect because no strength of character is shown by anyone in the poem save Icarus, and answer (B) is irrelevant.

 

69.
(A)

The dogs and horse are oblivious to suffering; we might think that the world should take notice of something as dreadful as martyrdom, but, in fact, daily life continues unaffected. Answers (B) and (C) are incorrect because the animals' behavior is similar to that of humans in the poem, so neither animals nor humans are shown to be morally superior. Answers (D) and (E) refer to themes that are not explored in the poem.

 

70.
(A)

While novel and effective in Petrarch, the types of figures used by him became tired and conventional in love poems written by his imitators. Shakespeare satirizes some of the standard objects used for similes by Elizabethan sonneteers in this sonnet. Encomia (B), or works that pay tribute to heroes, are not discussed here, and the excerpt is a rhymed quatrain (C). There is nothing about the excerpt that suggests obscure conceits are being satirized (D), and the lines are directed more towards the cliches of love rather than the subject of love (E).