English Language

Literary Analysis

4,495 Questions

Analyze classic and modernist novels, autobiographies, plays, and graphic novels across various genres. This topic tests your familiarity with prominent authors, literary movements, and thematic elements. Questions appear regularly in the English language sections of SSC, banking, and teaching competency exams.

Classic and modernist novelsAutobiographies and biographiesPoetic language and farcesThematic literary elements

Literary Analysis Questions

Multiple choice

Price of power

  1. R. B. Sheridan

  2. Kalidas

  3. Seymour Hersh

  4. Dante

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The Price of Power is a book by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

Multiple choice

Which of the following is the oldest printed book in the world?

  1. The Gutenberg Bible

  2. Hiraka Sutra

  3. Les Hommes de bonne Volante

  4. Old King Cole
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The Diamond Sutra (868 AD) is the world's oldest surviving printed book, printed in China during the Tang Dynasty. The Gutenberg Bible (1450s) came nearly six centuries later. Note: 'Hiraka' appears to be a typo for 'Diamond'.

Multiple choice

Which of the following is a coming-of-age narrative?

  1. Death in Venice

  2. Disgrace

  3. Down Second Avenue

  4. Madam Bovary
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Down Second Avenue by Es'kia Mphahlele is a classic autobiography that serves as a coming-of-age narrative set in South Africa.

Multiple choice

The work of Milman Parry concerned the genre of _________.

  1. Novel

  2. Comedy

  3. Picaresque

  4. Epic
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Milman Parry, along with Albert Lord, conducted groundbreaking research on oral tradition, specifically focusing on the Homeric epics. Their work established the theory of oral-formulaic composition in epic poetry.

Multiple choice

All the following texts come under the category of ‘dystopia’ EXCEPT ________.

  1. Zamyatin – We

  2. Huxley – Brave New World

  3. Tolstoy – Death of Ivan Illyeh

  4. Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Zamyatin, Huxley, and Orwell are the foundational authors of the dystopian genre. Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' is a realist novella focused on existentialism and mortality, not a dystopian political narrative.

Multiple choice

The novel which uses cultural contrast as a theme is ________.

  1. Journey to Ithaca

  2. Fasting, Feasting

  3. Distant Drum

  4. English, August
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting explores the cultural contrasts between Indian and Western lifestyles through the experiences of its characters. While other novels touch on similar themes, this is the most prominent example of the specific cultural contrast theme.

Multiple choice

Directions: The question carries the meaning of any one of the four options that follow. You are required to select the correct option.

"Life story of a person written by another”

  1. Biology

  2. Iconography

  3. Analogy

  4. Biography
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

(1) Biology = science of life and living things (2) Iconography = the visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation of these. (3) Analogy = a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification (4) Biography = life story of a person written by another 

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements about the Man Booker International Prize that was given to a Canadian author earlier this year is incorrect?

  1. Alice Munro is the winner of the prize for 2009

  2. £60,000 is awarded to the winner of the Prize

  3. Ismail Kadare of Albania was the first winner of this Prize

  4. Salman Rushdie is a previous winner of this Prize
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Canadian short story author Alice Munro has won the third £60,000 Man Booker International Prize which is given every two years to a living author for an entire body of work that has contributed to fiction across the world stage. The international Booker was first awarded to Ismail Kadare, from Albania, in 2005, and then to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe in 2007.

Multiple choice

To mark the 40th anniversary of the world's most prestigious literay prize the Booker Prize which one of the following works won the best of the Booker Award'?

  1. Midnight's Children

  2. A Suitable Boy

  3. The Inheritance of Loss

  4. Algebra of Infinite
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize, a special poll called the Best of the Booker was conducted, and Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, which had won the Booker Prize in 1981, was voted the best work.

Multiple choice

______ is the Britain’s highest award for fiction.

  1. Booker prize

  2. Thant award

  3. Magsaysay award

  4. Jean award

  5. None
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The Booker Prize is a prestigious literary award given annually for the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Multiple choice

Directions: Select the two answer choices that, when used to complete the sentence, fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole and produce completed sentences that are alike in meaning.

“The Mystery of Mitzie,” at the Newhouse Cinema, a breeding ground for dystopian family dramas has enough ________ to please the discerning matinée crowd, and, sometimes, to transfer to Broadway.

  1. wit

  2. bite

  3. mystery

  4. suspense

  5. intrigue

  6. flourish
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

“……to please the discerning……….” points out that the crowd has keen insight and judgment. Now only something that is witty or has a bite (wit having a sharp and caustic quality) can please such audience.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements is correct in respect of Graham Greene?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions.

Graham Greene was one of the most outstanding novelists after the Second World War. His remarkable novels are mainly concerned with evil and its endless conflict with righteousness. He saw action as a series of moral dilemmas and he depicts fundamental good and fundamental evil. His famous novels are Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair, Brighton Rock.

  1. He wrote during the Second World War.

  2. All his novels are outstanding.

  3. He depicts fundamental right and wrong.

  4. Most of his novels depict the conflict between good and evil.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

There is contradiction in (1): 'after', not 'during'. (2) and (3) are not directly given in these lines.