GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of British Plays After 1925
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
In what decade was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead first performed?
1950s
1970s
1960s
1940s
1980s
1960s
The play was first staged in 1966 in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Festival Fringe, the world's largest annual arts festival.
Example Question #2 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
The author of The Birthday Party also wrote work belonging to all but which of the following genres?
comedy of menace
theater of the absurd
memory plays
morality plays
morality plays
Morality plays were popular during medieval times. Pinter’s work was avant-garde, not antiquated, so we can infer that his work was categorized as comedy of menace, memory plays, and theater of the absurd.
Example Question #3 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
In what decade was Waiting for Godot published?
1960s
1970s
1930s
1950s
1940s
1950s
The play was published in 1953.
Example Question #4 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Who is the author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966)?
Eugène Ionesco
Eugene O’Neill
Samuel Beckett
Tom Stoppard
Harold Pinter
Tom Stoppard
This play is written by Tom Stoppard.
Example Question #5 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Which of the following is not a character in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead?
Fortinbras
Falstaff
Ophelia
Polonius
Gertrude
Falstaff
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966)shares many of its characters with Hamlet. Only Falstaff is not taken from Hamlet; he is a major character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I (1600).
Example Question #6 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Who wrote The Birthday Party?
Eugene O’Neill
Edward Albee
Samuel Beckett
Harold Pinter
Eugène Ionesco
Harold Pinter
The author is Harold Pinter. The Birthday Party (1958) is one of his most famous plays.
Example Question #7 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Who is the protagonist of The Birthday Party?
Goldberg
Meg Boles
Stanley Webber
McCann
Petey Boles
Stanley Webber
Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1958) follows a former piano player named Stanley Webber through the events that transpire after two menacing strangers arrive at his birthday party. The rest of the characters appear in the play as well, but they are not the protagonist.
Example Question #8 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Which of the following was not originally written by the author of The Birthday Party?
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
The Homecoming
Betrayal
The Caretaker
The Room
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Although Harold Pinter produced a film adaptation of The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), the novel was originally written by John Fowles in 1969.
The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1965), Betrayal (1978), and The Room (1957) were all written by Harold Pinter.
Example Question #9 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
Who is the author of Waiting for Godot?
Tom Stoppard
Eugène Ionesco
Samuel Beckett
Harold Pinter
Eugene O’Neill
Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot (1953) is one of Samuel Beckett’s most famous plays.
Example Question #10 : Contexts Of British Plays After 1925
What movement does Waiting for Godot belong to?
Modernism
Dadaism
theatre of the absurd
Neo-realism
Bretonian Surrealism
theatre of the absurd
Waiting for Godot (1953) is a prime exemplar of the theatre of the absurd movement, which features surreal situations, meaningless wordplay, examination of existential questions and nihilism, and a lack of clear resolutions.
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