GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of American Poetry
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
During what decade was this poem first published?
1910s
1810s
1890s
1840s
1860s
1840s
The poem was first published in 1847. Even if you didn’t know this, the dates of Longfellow’s life (1807 to 1882) could have helped you narrow down the answer choices.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of American Poetry
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
What type of poem is this?
Sestina
Sonnet
Epic
Melodrama
Southern Gothic
Epic
Longfellow’s Evangeline is an epic poem, spanning dozens of long stanzas and concerning a young woman’s search for her lover, Gabriel Lajeunesse. It is set during the Great Deportation of the Acadians in Canada, a period of time during the French and Indian War.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #2 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
The author of this poem also wrote which of the following works?
Walden
Voices of the Night
Leaves of Grass
The Last of the Mohicans
The Red Badge of Courage
Voices of the Night
In addition to Evangeline and translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Longfellow was known for several early collections of poetry, including Voices of the Night.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #3 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
Who is the author of this poem?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anne Bradstreet
Robert Frost
Stephen Crane
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
These are the opening lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven," which follows the story of a lovelorn man who is possibly slowly driven mad by grief for a woman named Lenore.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #4 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
During what era was this poem first published?
Revolutionary War
Reconstruction
Antebellum
Fin de Siècle
Colonial
Antebellum
The poem was first published in 1845, which falls in the Antebellum Period (spanning from the War of 1812 to the Civil War). You could have eliminated several of these answers based on Poe’s short life: He was only alive between 1809 and 1849.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #5 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
The author of this poem also wrote all but which one of the following works?
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
“The Mask of the Red Death”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The rest of the titles are all short stories by Poe.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #6 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
Which of the following poets would be least likely to employ a meter similar to the one in this passage?
Walt Whitman
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anne Bradstreet
Walt Whitman
“The Raven” is written in trochaic octameter. Whitman’s major work, Leaves of Grass, was written in free verse and is an important early example of this form. The other poets here all tended to write in strict meter. For example, Longfellow’s Evangeline is written in unrhymed dactylic hexameter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Oh could I raise the darken’d veil” is in iambic tetrameter, and Anne Bradstreet’s “Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666” is in rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
Example Question #7 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
Who is the author of this poem?
Robert Frost
Walt Whitman
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stephen Crane
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the prologue to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie. It is known for being written in dactylic hexameter, a meter that many classical writers used.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Example Question #9 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
When was this poem published?
1885
1905
1925
1895
1915
1915
The poem was first published in Frost’s second collection in 1915.
Passage adapted from Robert Frost’s poem "After Apple-picking" published in his collection North of Boston (1915).
Example Question #8 : Contexts Of American Poetry Before 1925
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
In what collection was this poem first published?
Meditations in an Emergency
Harmonium
The Pangolin and Other Verse
The Cantos
North of Boston
North of Boston
The poem appeared in North of Boston, Frost’s second collection.
Harmonium (1923) is a collection by Wallace Stevens, Meditations in an Emergency (1957) is a collection by Frank O’Hara, The Pangolin and Other Verse (1936) is a collection by Marianne Moore, and The Cantos (1948) is a collection by Ezra Pound.
Passage adapted from Robert Frost’s poem "After Apple-picking" published in his collection North of Boston (1915).
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