GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of Poetry
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following was not an associate of Mina Loy?
Arthur Cravan
Man Ray
Marcel Duchamp
Conrad Aiken
Ezra Pound
Conrad Aiken
Conrad Aiken is known for openly criticizing Loy’s poetry. All the others were affiliated with Mina Loy in some way – most through her Greenwich Village ties.
Example Question #2 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
In what decade was The Whitsun Weddings written?
1960s
2000s
1990s
1970s
1980s
1960s
The Whitsun Weddings was first published in 1964. Philip Larkin was born in 1922 and died in 1985, which rules out a few of the answer choices.
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following is not another work by the author of Birthday Letters?
Winter Pollen
The Hawk in the Rain
Candles in Babylon
The Iron Man
Crow
Candles in Babylon
Ted Hughes wrote The Iron Man (1968), The Hawk in the Rain (1957), Crow (1970), and Winter Pollen (1994). Candles in Babylon is a 1982 collection by the British-born American humanist poet Denise Levertov.
Example Question #1 : Contexts Of British Poetry After 1925
During what decade was Birthday Letters published?
1990s
1960s
1980s
1950s
1970s
1990s
Knowing that this was Hughes’ last work of poetry, and knowing that he lived from 1930 to 1998, you could have inferred that Birthday Letters was published in the 1990s (1998, to be precise).
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Who is the author of The Lost Lunar Baedeker and Insel?
Kate Tempest
Djuna Barnes
Mina Loy
Christina Rossetti
Jackie Kay
Mina Loy
British artist, poet, playwright, actress, and lamp designer Mina Loy wrote The Lost Lunar Baedeker (1923) and Insel (1914).
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following labels could not be applied to Mina Loy’s work?
Bourgeois
Avant-garde
Feminist
Bohemian
Futurist
Bourgeois
Mina Loy’s poetry and fiction are known for their futurist, feminist leanings as well as their emphases on the avant-garde and the bohemian life-style. Her work was not bourgeois – conventional, middle-class, or materialistic – in any way.
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following is another collection of poetry by Mina Loy?
An Atlas of the Difficult World
Songs to Joannes
Nightwood
Crossing the Water
Tender Buttons
Songs to Joannes
In addition to The Lost Lunar Baedeker (1923)and Lunar Baedeker & Time Tables (1958), Loy wrote Songs to Joannes, a collection of frank, experimental love poetry,in 1915. Tender Buttons (1914) is by Gertrude Stein, Nightwood (1936) is by Djuna Barnes, An Atlas of the Difficult World (1990) is by Adrienne Rich, and Crossing the Water (1971) is by Sylvia Plath.
Example Question #6 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Who is the author of The Whitsun Weddings?
W.H. Auden
Wallace Stevens
Ezra Pound
Philip Larkin
Seamus Heaney
Philip Larkin
The Whitsun Weddings (1964) is Philip Larkin’s 8th book, and it contains such well-known poems as the title poem, “MCMXIV,” and “An Arundel Tomb.”
Example Question #2 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following was not written by the author of The Whitsun Weddings?
The Sea and the Mirror
Jill
All What Jazz
The Less Deceived
High Windows
The Sea and the Mirror
The Sea and the Mirror is a 1958 poetry collection by W.H. Auden. Jill (1946), High Windows (1974), The Less Deceived (1955), and All What Jazz (1970) are all by the prolific Philip Larkin.
Example Question #1 : Cultural And Historical Contexts
Which of the following subjects does not appear in The Whitsun Weddings?
volunteers enlisting in World War I
a 1798 rebellion by the United Irishmen
renting a room
a train journey from Kingston upon Hull
a medieval tomb in Sussex, England
a 1798 rebellion by the United Irishmen
A medieval Sussex tomb is the subject of the poem “An Arundel Tomb,” renting a room is the subject of “Mr. Bleaney,” volunteer enlistment and slaughter is the subject of “MCMXIV,” and a train journey is the subject of “The Whitsun Weddings” – all of which are poems included in Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings. The United Irishmen rebellion is the subject of “Requiem for the Croppies,” (1966) a famous poem by Irish poet Seamus Heaney.
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