GRE Literature in English (REA) (55 page)

 

122.
(A)

The sea is retreating. It leaves behind “naked shingles”—the rocky shore. Emotionally, the retreating of the tide mirrors the manner in which the poet loses faith.

 

123.
(D)

The excerpt is from “Dover Beach.” The passage exhibits some of Arnold's conventions, namely, his philosophical despair and loneliness.

 

124.
(D)

This is from Louka's oft-repeated retort to Sergius. Volpone (A) and Mercutio (C) can be eliminated since they are closer in character type to Louka than to Sergius.

 

125.
(D)

The dramatic situation itself contributes to the comedy, but the word “right,” coming as it does in response to a plausible—if hypocritical—state—ment by Sergius and before Louka's biting comment that she “thought... you had given up being so particular”—acts as a pivot point for the comic scene's full emotional delivery.

 

126.
(C)

It is from G.B. Shaw's
Arms and the Man
. The dialogue does not resemble that of Shakespeare [(B) and (D)], while Goldsmith's play (A) has a female protagonist. (E) is a contemporary musical.

 

127.
(D)

It is from John Wilson's
Noctes Ambrosianae
, 1822. This piece of vitriole refers to the Scottish Boswell's admiration for Samuel Johnson—The Great Bear. The passage is typical of the manner in which Boswell examines Johnson's contemporaries with a discerning eye.

 

128.
(A)

The passage is from John Locke's
Essay on Human Understanding
, in which he propounds his theories of empiricism. The other four writers are also philosophers, but deal with more contemporary issues.

 

129.
(A)

In
The Golden Reign of Wouter Van Twiller
, Irving, the social historian, knew howto manipulate precise descriptive terms (linsey-woolsey) and quaint modifiers (the fair hands of his mistress) to spin a tale of bygone days.

 

130.
(D)

This is from the Battle of Bannockburn, 1314. Bruce is one of Scotland's greatest heroes—often recalled by Scots in the century following the Battle of Culloden. Bruce is known as the liberator of Scotland, and was Scotland's first king.

 

131.
(A)

This is evident from the high rhetoric and sense of imminent bloodshed. The final cry to “do or die” is a final appeal. The call seems to immediately precede battle [eliminate (D) and (E)], and is certainly not negative in tone (C).

 

132.
(C)

The poet himself subtitles it this way. Monody is a song sung in Greek drama by a single voice. While the passage is clearly not a dialogue (A) or an epic (D), this work does share many of the characteristics of an elegy (B), save the refrain.

 

133.
(D)

This parallels the premature taking of life—the berries were plucked too early and the human life was taken before its time. (A) is a trap which relies on a modern interpretation of the word “crude.”

 

134.
(D)

The prematurely fallen hero here was really the poet's college friend, Edward King, who drowned in the Irish Sea in 1637. The name is apparently male [eliminate (A) and (C)], and Prometheus (E) was an immortal.

 

135.
(D)

This is from “Lycidas,” termed “probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence,” by Arthur Machen in 1923. This poem, in addition to being a tribute to Milton's departed friend, finds him once again struggling with questions of existence.

 

136.
(E)

If “miscreant” is “misbeliever,” then “recreant” resembles “rebeliever,” or someone who has turned on previous commitments. The idea of being a traitor is reinforced in the following lines, where the subject of the speech is accused of making the speaker “break [his] vow.”

 

137.
(D)

The royal “we,” the unwillingness to reconsider the order, and the obsession with the nature of his power are indicative of King Lear.

 

138.
(E)

“Attend” here means “await.” Taken in context, it emphasizes her short time on earth. (A) and (B) are traps that rely on an overly literal interpretation of the line.

 

139.
(C)

This was written to commemorate the death of Elizabeth Drury, a 14-year-old girl. (A), (B), and (D) are not used to commemorate the dead, while (E) is usually more of a lament than indicated in the passage.

 

140.
(B)

This is from “An Anatomy of the World.” The artful use of many rhymed couplets while avoiding monotony is indicative of Dryden's poetic genius.

 

141.
(A)

Hardy, in
The Return of the Native
, constructs a tragic story based to a large extent on coincidental events. This stands in contrast to the plays by Shakespeare (B) and O'eill (D), in which tragedy is determined more by character. It also stands in contrast with the novel by Steinbeck (C) and the play by Ibsen (E) in which tragedy is determined more by economic and social factors.

 

142.
(B)

The phrase “cloistered virtue” is from Milton's
Areopagitica
, in which he argues against censorship because it deprives the public of the freedom and responsibility of choosing good over evil, a freedom that Milton felt to be necessary for true virtue. The notion of a “cloistered virtue” is thus, to Milton, a contradiction, since it implies ignorance of evil, and not the exercise of free choice. The essays by Mill (A) and Rousseau (E) are concerned with the rights of individuals and minorities in a democracy. Thoreau (C) argues for disobeying immoral laws, even in a democracy. Aristotle (D) establishes the basis of morality in moderation between evil extremes.

 

143.
(C)

Both Beowulf (A) and Sir Gawain (B) are characters in major medieval works. Beowulf fights Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a dragon. Sir Gawain seeks the Green Knight in order to fulfill a bargain with him. Neither Beowulf nor Gawain is known for his singing. Chaucer (D) and Dante (E) are major medieval authors. Dante wrote
The Divine Comedy, Chaucer The Canterbury Tales
. Again, neither was inspired to sing. The answer is Caedmon.

 

144.
(A)

Like other early Germanic and Anglo-Saxon poetry, Caedmon's hymn is alliterative. The tradition of iambic pentameter (B) in English does not start until the late Middle Ages, for example, Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales
. Ballad stanza (C) is typical of the Scottish border ballads from the late medieval period. Free verse (D) is characteristic of twentieth-century poetry, and heroic couplets (E) are typical of eighteenth-century poetry.

 

145.
(E)

Like
The Dream of the Rood
and a number of other medieval works, the passage from Bede could be classified as a dream vision. Caedmon, after leaving the hall, falls asleep and is visited by an angel in a dream. When he wakes up, he returns and sings the songs as instructed by the angel. An epic simile (A) is an extended comparison, as found in Homer's
Iliad
and
Odyssey
and as imitated by Virgil in Latin or by Spenser or Milton in English. Comic relief (B) might best be illustrated by the interlude scenes in Marlowe's
Doctor Faustus
or other Elizabethan drama, when lower-class characters parody the activities of the heroic characters. Classical allusions (C) are references to Greek and Roman mythology, characteristic of Renaissance literature. A mock epic (D) is a work that imitates epic form while dealing with commonplace topics for humorous effect. An example would be Pope's “The Rape of the Lock.”

 

146.
(C)

This poem by Ezra Pound is a parody of a poem by W. B. Yeats entitled “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” In his poem, Yeats remembers a little island in a lake near where he grew up and his dream of living there in a little cottage in imitation of Thoreau in
Walden
.

 

147.
(D)

In his parody of Yeats, Pound substitutes an urban and middle-class setting, a tobacco shop, for the island. He implies that Yeats' desire to run off to an island is a form of escapism. From Pound's point of view, poetry is not to be found by escaping into nature. Instead, it is a craft, an art, requiring hard work and discipline. In comparison, running a tobacco shop seems like an escape. The emphasis on art as craft rather than inspiration, the references to art as the subject matter, and the invocation of classical gods and goddesses are all features of Pound's classicism. In making fun of Yeats' desire to escape into nature, Pound is anti-Romantic.

 

148.
(E)

The passage is from Milton's
On Education
. It is characteristic of Milton in that it provides a theological basis for his ideas about education. Humanity is alienated from God, and it is the aim of education to direct humanity back to God. Although St. Augustine (A) and More (B) would share similar views, their works are not specifically about education. Mill (C) addresses the limits on social control of individual freedom. His views are not theological and are not directly related to education. Dewey (D) writes about education, but not from a traditional theological viewpoint.

 

149.
(B)

The use of “ruin” in this context is characteristic of Milton's style. The Latin root means “fall” and Milton's phrase, “the ruins of our first parents” becomes the “fall” in a theological sense, alienation from God as a result of the eating of the apple in the Garden of Eden. Milton frequently uses English words derived from Latin with the Latin meaning adding a second, usually literal, level to the text.

 

150.
(D)

The Pequod is Ahab's ship on which he pursues the white whale in Melville's novel
Moby Dick
. The term “sailor” allows one to eliminate answers (A) and (E).

 

151.
(D)

O'Neill used the myth of Hippolytus as the basis for
Desire Under the Elms
. In the myth, Phaedra falls in love with her stepson, is rejected by him, accuses him of trying to seduce her, and then commits suicide. Believing the false accusation, the husband, Theseus, curses his son, Hippolytus, resulting in the son's death. O'Neill modernized the story, placing it in rural New England in order to have classical tragedy in a modern, colloquial form.

 

152.
(C)

The passage given is from Leibniz's
Monadology
. It sums up his belief that this world is “the best of all possible worlds.” That view is expressly ridiculed in Voltaire's
Candide
in the character of Pangloss.
The Clouds
(A) is a satirical look at Socrates, (B) and (E) are satires of the respective societies in which the authors lived, and (D) is a satire of hypocrisy and religion.

 

153.
(E)

Sonnet writing in England started in the Renaissance and continued through the first part of the seventeenth century. Both Donne (D) and Milton (C) wrote sonnets. The sonnet was associated with the densely metaphorical style of the Renaissance. After the Restoration, this style fell out of fashion and poets stopped writing sonnets. This hiatus lasted about 150 years until the Romantic period. Wordsworth and Keats wrote sonnets and the practice continued on into the first half of the twentieth century. Both Robert Frost (A) and Edna St. Vincent Millay (B) wrote sonnets. Thus, the poet who did
not
write sonnets was Alexander Pope, living in the eighteenth century when the form was out of fashion.

 

154.
(D)

Insofar as the poem expresses a worship of nature, or at least a nostalgia for the worship of nature, it could be classified as pantheist. A Petrarchan poem (A) would be, for example, a typical Renaissance sonnet imitating the style of Petrarch. An anti-Petrarchan poem (B) would be one that parodied the Petrarchan style. A deist poem (C) would be one like Pope's “An Essay on Man,” expressing a belief in God, but rejecting or ignoring other theological notions such as the fall, the trinity, and the redemption. A satirical poem (E) would be one ridiculing contemporary society. Wordsworth does criticize contemporary society, but with a serious, even somewhat desperate tone. It is not the playful or bitter ridicule of satire.