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GRE English Literature > GRE English Subject > Flashcards

GRE English Subject Flashcards

1
Q

Alexandrine

A

A line of iambic hexameter

EX: Spenser

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2
Q

Alliteration

A

Use of repeated consonant or sound at the beginning of a series of words

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3
Q

Allusion

A

Reference

EX: “Call me Ishmael!”

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4
Q

Antagonist

A

Main character opposing the protagonist, villain

EX: Iago

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5
Q

Anthropomorphism

A

Assigning human traits to animals, plants, or objects – different from personification bc it occurs throughout the work

EX: Aslan in Chronicle of Narnia

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6
Q

Apostrophe

A

Speech addressed to someone not present or addressed to an abstracted idea – prone to parody

EX: “History! You will remember me.”

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7
Q

Bildungsroman

A

Coming of age tale, from innocence to experience

EX: Catcher in the Rye

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8
Q

Caesura

A

Pause that breaks an OE line in half

EX: Beowulf

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9
Q

Decorum

A

Neoclassical principle of drama – a character’s speech should reflect their social status

EX: Oscar Wilde

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10
Q

Doggerel

A

Bad poetry

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11
Q

Epithalamium

A

A poem written to celebrate a wedding

EX: Spenser’s “Epithalamium”

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12
Q

Euphamism

A

Writing that is self-consciously laden with figures of speech

EX: Polonius

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13
Q

Feminine rhyme

A

Lines ended with final two syllables rhyming

EX: “running” and “gunning”

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14
Q

Flat vs. round characters

A

Est’d by E.M Forrester

Flat= same dominant trait, never change
Round= complex psychological profile
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15
Q

Georgic

A

People laboring in countryside – NOT pastoral

EX: Virgil’s Georgic is about the virtues of farming

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16
Q

Hamartia

A

Aristotle’s “tragic flaw” that is determined by fate

EX: Oediupus

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17
Q

Homeric epithet

A

Repeated descriptive phrase

EX: “the ever-resourceful Odysseus”

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18
Q

Hudibrastic

A

Samuel Butler’s Hudibras – couplets of rhymed tetrameter lines

EX: Bad poetry, limericks

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19
Q

Hyperbole

A

Deliberate exaggeration

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20
Q

Litotes

A

Understatement created by use of double negative

EX: “no ordinary”

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21
Q

Masculine rhyme

A

Rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable

EX: “know” and “snow”

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22
Q

Metonymy

A

Referring to a person or object using a single important feature

EX: “the pen” and “the sword”

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23
Q

Neoclassical unities

A 
Dramatic conventions derived from Aristotles poetics
Time
Place
Decorum
Action

EX: a play must be set over the course of one day in one place, to unify time and place of audience and play with no subplots – all unified

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24
Q

Pastoral elegy

A

Lament for the dead sung by a shepherd

EX: Milton’s “Lycidas” and Shelley’s “ Adonais”

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25
Q

Pastoral literature

A

A work with shepherds in the country or nature

EX: Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love”

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26
Q

Pathetic fallacy

A

Ascribing emotion to inanimate objects

EX: “cruel crawling foam”

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27
Q

Personification

A

Giving inanimate objects human characteristics

EX: Emily Dickinson’s train “laps” the miles

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28
Q

Picaresque

A

Adventure story about a rogue who wants to eat and stay out of jail

EX: Huckleberry Finn

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29
Q

Protagonist

A

Main character,usually the hero

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30
Q

Skeltonics

A

Humorous poem with short rhymed lines, created by John Skelton – better than doggerel
Best for satire/comedy
Stomping

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31
Q

Sprung rhythm

A

19th-c poetry created by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Length of lines determined only by stressed syllables, unstressed not counted

EX: “Pied Beauty” – study this one more

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32
Q

Synesthesia

A

Interplay of senses

EX: “tasting green”

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33
Q

Synecdoche

A

Phrase that refers to a person or object by a single important feature

EX: “I should have been a pair of ragged claws.”

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34
Q

Voice

A

Perspective from which a story is written

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35
Q

First person POV

A

Narrated using “I”
Narrator may be the protagonist or an omniscient speaker who is not a clear character
May be multiple “I”s

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36
Q

Third person POV

A

Refers to subjects using he/she/it

May be omniscient or limited

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37
Q

Second person POV

A

Author uses “you”

Reader is an active participate

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38
Q

First person plural POV

A

Author uses “we”

Reader and author are together

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39
Q

Ballad rhyme

A

Typical stanza of folk ballad
Length of lines determined by stressed syllables
Rhyme scheme abab

EX: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

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40
Q

In memoriam rhyme

A

Stanza composed of four lines of iambic tetrameter rhyming abba

EX: Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”

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41
Q

Ottavia Rima

A

Eight-line stanza in iambic pentameter rhyming abababcc

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42
Q

Rhyme royal

A

Seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter rhyming ababbcc

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43
Q

Spenserian rhyme

A

Nine-line stanza
First 8 lines iambic pentameter
Final line in iambic hexameter (alexandrine)
Rhyme scheme ababbcbcc

EX: Created by Spenser for The Fairy Queene

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44
Q

Terza Rima

A 
3-line stanzas with interlocking rhyme schemes:
aba
bcb
cdc
ded... etc.

EX: Divine Comedy

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45
Q

Blank verse

A

Unrhymed iambic pentameter

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46
Q

Free verse

A

Unrhymed verse with no meter

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47
Q

OE verse

A

Verse with internal alliteration and midline pause (caesura)

EX: Beowulf

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48
Q

Italian/Petrarcha sonnet

A

14-line poem
First 8 lines are the octave: abbaabba
Final 6 lines are the sestet: cdecde

EX: Milton “When I Consider How My Light is Spent”

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49
Q

English/Shakespearean sonnet

A

14-line poem
3 quartets: abab cdcd efef
1 couplet: gg

EX: any Shakespearean sonnet

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50
Q

Spenserian sonnet

A

14-line poem
Rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee

EX: Spenser “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand”

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51
Q

Villanelle

A

19-line poem
Rhyme scheme:
aba aba aba aba aba abaa
First and third lines repeated throughout the poem

EX: Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

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52
Q

Sestina

A 
39-line poem
6 stanzas of 6 lines
Final stanza of 3 lines (envoi)
No rhyme scheme
6 repeated end words

EX: Rudyard Kipling’s “Sestina of Tramp-Royal”

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53
Q

Literature of the Absurd

A

Drama and prose works that claim common sense and the human condition is essentially absurd
Post WWII

EX: Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Eugene Ionesco’s “The Bald Soprano” & “The Lesson,” Camus & Sarte existentialism, Tom Stoppard “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”

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54
Q

Aesthetic ideology

A

Paul de Man described the seductive appeal of the aesthetic experience
Form & meaning, perception & understanding, cognition & desire become conflated
Argued that lit solves this problem because readers can’t confuse perception with understanding, etc.

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55
Q

Aestheticism

A 
1800s France
Revolt against reason
"Art for art's sake"
Roots with Kant
Developed by Baudelaire
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56
Q

Affective fallacy

A

Error of evaluating a poem based on its effects on the reader – “impressionism and relativism”
Argues in favor of objectivism

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57
Q

Allegory

A

Historical/political
Personification of abstract ideals (virtue, etc.)
Story representing another story

EX: The Fairy Queene, Pilgrim’s Progress, Gulliver’s Travels (also satire)

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58
Q

Fable

A

Also apologue
Short narrative that enacts abstract moral principles through physical characters
Ends with a conclusion (epigram)
Most common is beast fable

EX: Brer Rabbit

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59
Q

Parable

A

Short narrative about human beings to give a lesson

EX: Jesus

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60
Q

Exemplum

A

Stories told in theme of religious sermon

EX: Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale”

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61
Q

Proverb

A

Short pithy statement of widely accepted truth

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62
Q

Epic invocation

A

Call to divinity/muses to inspire/bless a work of art

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63
Q

Alexander Pope

A

The Rape of the Lock
Most famous mock-heroic
Based on true events
Belinda

“An Essay on Criticism” - known for witty mockery, not scathing or serious

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64
Q

End-stopped

A

When a line of poetry ends in punctuation or a natural pause

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65
Q

Enjambment

A

When a line of poetry ends mid-sentence or clause, and the idea continues into the next line

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66
Q

Iambic hexameter

A

Alexandrine

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67
Q

Criticism by Yeats

A

Known for symbolism, late 19th-c

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68
Q

Criticism by Matthew Arnold

A 
Known for humanism
"Sweetness and light"
Analyzes classical literature
Wrote Culture and Anarchy
Argued that art should provide a moral center
Not funny
Victorian
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69
Q

Criticism by Coleridge

A

Known as poet for Rime of Ancient Mariner
Romantic poet/hero
Interested in imagination, ways of creating/reading

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70
Q

Poetic inversion

A

Reverse of typical word order (e.g. when a noun comes before an adjective)

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71
Q

Hephaistos

A

Created the shield of Achilles

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72
Q

Athenians

A

Built the Parthenon

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73
Q

Daedalus

A

Created the labyrinth to contain the Minotaur that protects Midas

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74
Q

Epeuis

A

Built the Trojan Horse

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75
Q

J.M. Synge

A

Irish playwrite
Known for The Playboy of the Western World
Immorality of the Irish working class

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76
Q

Yeats

A

Known for poetry (The Second Coming) but also a playwrite

The Countless Cathleen, play about selling souls for food during the Irish potato famine

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77
Q

O’Casey

A

Irish playwrite
Known for The Plow and the Stars
Nationalism and poverty in Ireland

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78
Q

Oscar Wilde

A

Known for novels

Also a playwrite known for Salome, about John the Baptist

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79
Q

Shaw

A

Irish playwrite known for Mrs. Warren’s Profession

prostitution

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80
Q

Humanism

A

Lit crit arguing for culture as a moral center
Matthew Arnold famous 19th-c critic
Irving Babbitt contemporary critic

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81
Q

Structuralism

A

20th-c criticism
Meaning found w/in text
Key words: center, textual, structural

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82
Q

Post-structuralism

A

Deconstruction
Allows for multiple simultaneous readings
Key words: slippage, signifiers, heteroglossia (Bakhtin)
Derrida most famous

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83
Q

Pyschoanalytic

A

Freud, Lacan

Key words: un/consciousness, oedipal

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84
Q

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

A

Poe’s only novel about a stowaway

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85
Q

James Fenimore Cooper

A

American fiction

Leather-Stocking Tales
Narrator is a do -right nature lover named Natty Bumpo

Also known for Last of the Mohicans

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86
Q

David Copperfield

A

Dickens semi-autobiographical novel about child abuse – the main character is continuously sent off to boarding schools and prison
Uriah Heap= Iago type
Micawbers= nice old friends

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87
Q

The Adventures of Augie March

A

Bildungsroman by Saul Bellow set in depression era Chicago

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88
Q

Scheherazade

A

Narrator of The Thousand and One Arabian Nights

Frame narrative, continuously interrupted by Sultan

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89
Q

Mephistopheles

A

Demon of Faust myth

Versions by Marlowe, Goethe, Thomas Mann

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90
Q

Raskolnikov

A

Murderer of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment

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91
Q

Mr. Lockwood

A

First narrator of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

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92
Q

Sancho Panza

A

Fat, likeable narrator of Don Quixote

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93
Q

Lycidas

A

Milton

Pastoral elegy

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94
Q

“Caliban Upon Setebos”

A

Browning

Dramatic monologue

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95
Q

Absalom and Achitophel

A

Dryden
Allegorical poem using biblical figures to represent religious upheaval (Catholic v. Protestants, King v. Parliament)
David= Charles II (Dryden prefers)

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96
Q

Charles Lamb

A 
Friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge
Used pen name Elia
Essays of Elia
Tales from Shakespeare (children's book)
Antiquarian
Early 19th-c
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97
Q

Heroic couplets

A

aabbcc, etc.

Each set of 2 lines rhymes

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98
Q

Native Son

A

Richard Wright

Main character’s name is Thomas Bigger

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99
Q

Kate Chopin

A

Known for The Awakening
Set on the beach
Pontellier and Labrun
Women as property of men

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100
Q

Charlotte Bronte

A

Jane Eyre

Rochester is the male main character with crazy wife in attaic

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101
Q

Edith Wharton

A

The House of Mirth
Lily Bart
Set in NYC
Shares an elaborate interiority with Henry James

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102
Q

Elizabeth Gaskell

A

Known for North and South
English society
Critique against social conditions in 19th-c England

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103
Q

Robert Browning

A

My Last Duchess
Use of enjambed heroic couplets
Dramatic monologue
Murderer adulterous wife

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104
Q

The Dubliners

A

James Joyce
Last chapter “The Dead” about Gabriel watching his wife hear music on the stairs
Joyce as an exile

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105
Q

Joseph Conrad

A

Heart of Darkness
Lord Jim
“Youth” - seafaring story about inexperience

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106
Q

Carson MuCullers

A

American southern gothic writer
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Lymon Willis, a dwarf, ruins his cousin’s life

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107
Q

D.H. Lawrence

A

“The Odour of Chrysanthemums”
Miners “red mouths”
Woman’s husband suffocates in a mine

108
Q

Henry James

A

The Aspern Papers
Fictionalized Byron
Set in Venice
Main character trying to write a biography and get material from dead subject’s former mistress and daughter

The Golden Bowl
Baroque sentence structure, hestitations + considerations, interirority, possibilities, London

109
Q

Charon

A

Ferryman of river Styx

110
Q

Leda

A

Raped by Zeus in the form of a swan

Mother to Clytemnestra, Helen

111
Q

Aristotle

112
Q

Prosopopoeia

A

Personification

113
Q

“The Sun Rising”

A

Donne
Lovers inhabit another world, outside of space and time
Early poetry about humping, later poetry about God (this is earlier)

114
Q

Percy Shelley

A

Romantic poetry
All about sublime, volcanoes, waterfalls, cliffs, etc.
“Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude”

115
Q

Icarus

A

Flew too close to the sun, fell into the ocean

Ambition

116
Q

Medusa

A

Snake-haired fury

Killed by Perseus with mirror

117
Q

Penelope

A

Went through ruses to keep suitors at bay while Odysseus was gone

118
Q

Imogen

A

From Cymbeline

Embodiment of goodness

119
Q

Aristophanes

A

Comedic plays:
Lysistrata - she breaks up armies, no sex for warriors until wars are over
Clouds- ridicules Socrates
Frogs- makes fun of Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus

120
Q

Medea

A

Tragedy by Euripides in which a woman kills her lover, his fiance, the fiance’s father, and her own children

121
Q

Wordsworth

A 
"She lived amongst th' untrodden ways"
Wordsworth and Coleridge were Lake Poets (Rydal Lake)
Lake district of London
Wordsworth wrote about Lucy
"Intimations on Immortality"
122
Q

Robert Herrick

A

Julia poems

123
Q

O’Neill

A

Playwright

Mourning Becomes Electra

124
Q

Racine

A

Playwright
Phaedra
Master of French neoclassical theater

125
Q

Euripides

A

Tragic dramatist

Medea

126
Q

George Chapman

A

“High priest of Homer”
Early English translator of Greek
Keats and Swinburne write about his translations

127
Q

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A

Victorian poet
Rebellious attitude toward Victorian morals
Rhyme and meter

128
Q

Enlightenment

A

Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot prominent figures

129
Q

Blake

A

Displeased with Enlightenment theories and reliance on rationality
Early romantic poet
“The Tygre”

130
Q

Volpone

A 
Ben Johnson
Comedy, beast fable play
Volpone (the fox) and Mosca (the fly)
Trickery, blackmail, outwit everyone but each other, Volpone turns them in
Corvino (the raven)
Set in Venice
131
Q

Restoration comedy

A

1660-1710
Comedy of manners
Etheredge
Dryden

132
Q

Heroic stanza

A

abab

Four lines

133
Q

Maya Angelou

A

“On the Pulse of Morning” read at Clinton inauguration

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

134
Q

Mary Queen of Scots

135
Q

Queen Isabella

A

Catholic

Ferdinand and Isabella

136
Q

Queen Anne

A

Daughter of Charles II

Not well known or memorable

137
Q

Queen Elizabeth

A

Notable Puritan

Write some poetry about Massachusetts

138
Q

Anne Bradstreet

A

Puritan poetry

139
Q

Margery Kempe

A

Medieval figure who devoted her life to Christ after a long marriage and kids
Wrote at autobiography

140
Q

MAry Rowlandson

A

Puritan woman who recorded her abduction by Native Americans

141
Q

Sarah Orne Jewett

A

19th-c New England
The Country of the Pointed Firs
Racist white solitude

142
Q

Mary Wollstonecraft

A

Not a Puritan
Vindication of the Rights of Women
Mary Shelley’s mom

143
Q

Tamburlaine

A

Marlowe
Epic
Central Asia, Timur the Sultan
War, Damascus

144
Q

Gilgamesh

A

Ancient Assyrian Epic
1500 years before Iliad
Beowulf-esque

145
Q

The Niebelungenlied

A

13th-c romance, betrayal, war, murder
Enormous treasure= niebelungenlied
Siegfried main character
Legend used by William Morris for Sigurd the Volsung

146
Q

Eudora Welty

A

Southern gothic writer, not super extreme, died in 2001

147
Q

Willa Cather

A

West/Midwestern writer

Died in 1947

148
Q

Nadine Gortimer

A

South African novelist, alive in 1969

149
Q

May Sarton

A

New England poet, novelist, diarist

150
Q

Flannery O’Connor

A

Southern gothic writer

Describes South in scary Christian poor way

151
Q

Henry Fielding

A 
Tom Jones
Rollicking good time
Comic irony
Adventure
Goody Brown
Molly Jones
152
Q

Tess of the D’Ubervilles

A

Drama, Hardy

153
Q

Daniel Deronda

A

George Eliot, drama

154
Q

Zeus (Greek)

A

Jove (Roman)

Raper

155
Q

Hera (Greek)

A

Juno (Roman)

Always angry at Zeus and his ladies

156
Q

Apollo (Greek)

A

Apollo (Roman)

Sun/music god

157
Q

Athena (Greek)

A

Minerva (Roman)

Wisdom

158
Q

Hermes (Greek)

A

Mercury (Roman)

Messenger god

159
Q

Artemis (Greek)

A

Diana (Roman)

Hunter

160
Q

Eros (Greek)

A

Cupid (Roman)

Love

161
Q

Prometheus

A

Gave men fire

Doomed to have liver torn out by vultures for all eternity

162
Q

An Apology for Poetry

A

Sir Philip Sidney
Comedic curse to shitty poets
16th-c

163
Q

Ptolemaic model of planets

A

Divine music of spheres moving around

Older than heliocentric Copernicus, Kepler, and Galieo

164
Q

T.S. Eliot

A

The Waste Land
Esoteric poetry
“Modern” style, not antiquated

165
Q

John Dos Passos

A

U.S.A. trilogy

Anti-war stories and essays

166
Q

E.M. Forster

A

Intricate human relationships
Wrote criticism: Aspects of the Novel
Interested in character development - Austen round, Dickens flat
Started round/flat terminology

167
Q

Langston Hughes

A

“Raisin in the sun”
I, Too
Harlem Renaissance
Vernacular

168
Q

Countee Cullen

A

Peer of Langston Hughes

Traditional verse

169
Q

W.E.B. DuBois

A

Harvard educated
Critical of Booker T. Washington
Double-consciousness
NAACP

170
Q

Paul Lawrence Dunbar

A

Late 19th-c

Vernacular

171
Q

Amiri Bakara

A

Poet, playwright, novelist
Preface to a 20 Volume Suicide Note
The Dutchman
Jazz and blues

172
Q

Dylan Thomas

A

20th-c
Musical verse
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (villanelle)

173
Q

Ezra Pound

A 
20th-c modernist
American
"Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" rhyming satiric poem
Facist "The Cantos"
Asian poetry
Juxtaposition and quotes
Followed Yeats and edited The Waste Land
174
Q

William Carlos Williams

A

American modernist
“no ideas but in things”
Big words and made up words together

175
Q

Ted Hughes

A

Poet laureate of GB
Died in 1998
Known for Crow
People as beasts

176
Q

Sylvia Plath

A

Ariel
The Bell Jar
Married to Ted Hughes
Haunting, violent, bitter, pitiless

177
Q

William Dean Howells

A 
Harpers and Atlantic monthly
Joyless critic
Realist
Socialist
The Rise of Silas Lapham
178
Q

William Faulkner

A

Stream of consciousness known for Yoknapatawpha County, fictionalized version of Lafayette, MS
Super long sentences
American gothic modernist

Absalom, Absalom
The Sound and the Fury
As I Lay Dying

Quentin Compsons (2)
Benjy Compson (TSATF "idiot")

Count No’ count - derogatory nickname

179
Q

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A

This Side of Paradise
Tender is the Night
The Great Gatsby
American

180
Q

Samuel Pepys

A

17th-c diary
Restoration London man
Written in private code
1600s

181
Q

Sir Thomas More

A

16th-c

Dead before 1660

182
Q

Sir Thomas Mallory

A

16th-c
Rival and friend of Shakespeare
Dead before 1660

183
Q

John Bunyan

A 
Pilgrim's Progress
Grace Abounding for the Chief of Sinners
Religious
17th-c
Contemporary to Spenser, Dryden, Pepys, Milton
184
Q

John Ruskin

A

Materialist
Victorian
19th-c
Not funny

185
Q

Walter Pater

A

Not funny
Victorian
Christian Renaissance works

186
Q

Thomas Carlyle

A 
Early 19th-c/Victorian critic
Funny
Sketches of his contemporaries
Rancorous, philosophical
Sartor Resartus - self-satire and German metaphysics
187
Q

Notes from the Underground

A

Dostoyevsky

Memoir, hypochondriac, alienation

188
Q

Remembrance of Things Past

A

Marcel Proust
Epic masterpiece
Ordinary childhood
First person, memory

189
Q

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

A

Rainer Maria Rilke
Biographical spiritual musings
Poetry-like, known for lyrical writing

190
Q

The Stranger

A

Albert Camus
Mother dies @ beginning
Witnesses senseless murder on the beach (Algiers)
Disaffected

191
Q

Pere Goriot

A

Balzac
Examinations of bourgeois
French, known for descriptions of Paris

192
Q

The Scarlet Letter

A

Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale fathers Hester Prynne’s child

193
Q

The Sun Also Rises

A

Jake Barnes
Sexually disabled WWI veteran
Hemingway
France and Spain

194
Q

Daisy Miller

A

Flirtatious Henry James character

Nouveau riche American girl in France

195
Q

Hudibras

A

Samuel Butler (1613-1680)
English Don Quixote
Comically rhymed, “hudibrastic”

196
Q

Dunciad

A

Alexander Pope
Satire about bad poets
Set in the kingdom of Dulness
Pope was irritated that Colley Cibber was chosen Poet Laureate

197
Q

Mac Flecknoe

A

Dryden
Argument against boring poets
Annoyed with Restoration playwright Thomas Shadwell

198
Q

The Red and the Black

A

Stendhal

Read about attempted murder and execution in newspaper, wrote about it

199
Q

Buddenbrooks

A

Mann

Decay of a family

200
Q

Lost Illusions

A

Balzac
Lucian de Rubempre travels to Paris with mistress to write
Loses everything and makes a comeback orchestrated by criminal Vautrin

201
Q

Sentimental Education

A

Flaubert
Rewrote beginning of Balzac’s Lost Illusions
Frederic Moreau unrequited love, pitiful

202
Q

Growth of the Soil

A

Knut Hamsun

Rustic Norwegian stoic perseveres against a hard land

203
Q

“To His Coy Mistress”

A

Marvell

Argument not to wait until death to have sex

204
Q

“The Emperor of Ice Cream”

A

Wallace Stevens

Odd imagery to convey Zen-like version of cosmos/death

205
Q

“In Memoriam of A.H.”

A

Tennyson about a fellow poet who died young

abba iambic tetrameter

206
Q

“Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard”

A

Gray
Heroic stanzas
“Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest”
Lyric

207
Q

“To an Athlete Dying Young”

A

A.E. Houseman

4-line stanzas, heroic couplets

208
Q

The School of Scandal

A

Sheridan
Play
Comedy
1777

209
Q

The Way of the World

A 
Congreve
Play
Comedy
1700
Women talking about marrying men and pretending they're cuckolds
210
Q

The Conquest of Grenada

A

Dryden
Play
Drama
Mid-17thc

211
Q

Webster

A

The Duchess of Malfi
1612
Macabre tragedy

212
Q

The Spanish Tragedy

A

Thomas Kyd
Play
1587
Madness, suicide, self-mutilation

213
Q

The Fairie Queene

A

Spenser
9 line stanzas in pentameter, last line hexameter
Archaic style, added e’s to the ends of words
1590-6

214
Q

Cerberus

A

3-headed dog that guards the underworld (Greek)

215
Q

Hydra

A

7-headed dragon, when one head is severed 2 grow back in its place (Greek)
Hercules

216
Q

Chimera

A

Goat, lion, serpent

217
Q

Jorge Luis Borges

A 
Argentinian
Kafka-esque
Known for poetry
Ficciones
Modernist, miniaturist
Similar to Beckett, Joyce, Nabakov
218
Q

George Orwell

A

Animal Farm
1984
Social justice

219
Q

Vladimir Nabokov

A

Lolita
Pale Fire
Experiments with form
Erudite

220
Q

Bernard Malamud

A

American writer, Russian-Jewish heritage

The Fixer

221
Q

Andre Gide

A

French

Diaries + novels

222
Q

Richard III

A

Notoriously evil psychopath

Seduces Anne, kills her husband

223
Q

Emily Dickinson

A

“Slant of light”
Em dashes
“Because I could not stop for death”

224
Q

“Tithonus”

A

Tennyson
“And after many a summer dies the swan”
Eternal life but not eternal youth

225
Q

“Howl”

A

Ginsberg

Madness, long sentence

226
Q

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d”

A

Whitman’s eulogy for Lincoln

227
Q

Henry IV

A

Henry kills rival Hotspur “undone by ambition”

Falstaff survives by playing dead, takes credit for victory

228
Q

George Etherege

A 
Man of Mode
Restoration comedy
18th-c
Vulgar
Insults itself and its audience
229
Q

Jacobean masque

A 
Draws from medieval/religious traditions
Lavish sets and machinery
Dancing and music
Early 17th-c
Ben Jonson and John Milton
230
Q

Aurora

A

Goddess of dawn

231
Q

“Corinna’s Going A-Maying”

A

Herrick
Julia poems
Dawn

232
Q

The Sorrows of Young Werther

A

Goethe
Werther a poet, bourgeois, falls in love with Lottie
Tells his story in a diary and commits suicide with pistols

233
Q

Axel

A

Le Compte Villiers
Obscure play that inspired Axel’s Castle
Edumund Wilson wrote some criticism about it

234
Q

Sturm and Drang

A

Goethe’s “storm and stress” movement

Youthful romantic hero confronts the laws of society, flouts them, plays the price

235
Q

Letters from Earth

A

Mark Twain

Satan talks to God about humans

236
Q

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

A

Stephen Crane

Dystopic story about homeless girl raised by an alcoholic mother, ends up being a prostitute and commits suicide

237
Q

Homage to Catalonia

A

Spanish Civil War
Not utopian
Socialism

238
Q

My Antonia

A

Cather

Hard life of Nebraska pioneers Jm Burden and Antonia Shimerda

239
Q

The Blithedale Romance

A

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Based on real utopian socialist colony Brook Farm

240
Q

Thomas Shadwell

A

1642-92
Bawdy playwright
Dryden make fun of him

241
Q

Samuel Johnson

A

1709-84

Poet, critic, essayist

242
Q

Veni, vidi, vici

A

I came, I saw, I conquered

243
Q

Honi soit qui mal y pense

A

Shame on him who thinks this evil

244
Q

Ars longa, vita brevis

A

Art is long, life is short

245
Q

Cogito ergo sum

A

I think therefore I am

246
Q

Carpe diem

A

Seize the day

247
Q

Utopia

A

Thomas More

Beheaded for treason bc he refused to support Henry VIII’s conflict with the Pope

248
Q

John Donne

A

Once Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral

Early poetry raunchy, later religious

249
Q

Metaphysical poets

A

17th-c
John Donne
George Herbert

250
Q

Sir Walter Raleigh

A

Adventurer, poet, confidant to Queen Elizabeth

251
Q

William Cowper

A

Wrote between bouts of suicidal madness

252
Q

Erewhon

A

Samuel Butler
Parody of Utopia
Also wrote Way of All Flesh and Hudibras

253
Q

A Tale of the Tub

A

Jonathan Swift

Satire about religion, got him banned from church

254
Q

Alice in Wonderland

A

Lewis Carroll

1865

255
Q

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

A

George Orwell
1930s London
Social critique

256
Q

Eyeless in Gaza

A 
Aldous Huxley
Bildungsroman of Anthony Beavis over 4 sections, becomes disillusioned with upper-class society after suicide of a friend
257
Q

Piers Ploughman

A

William Langland 1350-80

Middle English

258
Q

Caedmon’s Hymn

A

Caedmon
Late 7th-c
First English poet known to history

259
Q

Comedie Humaine

A

Balzac
Collection of interrelated novels
Rastignac, main character of Pere Goriot

260
Q

Maupassant

A

1850s French writer, naturalist school of thought
Social critique
Known for denouement
Inspired Citizen Kane

261
Q

Truman Capote

262
Q

Tennessee Williams

A 
American playwright
1911-83
The Glass Menagerie
A Streetcar Named Desire
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Plays based on family and self, alcoholism, homosexuality
263
Q

William Styron

A

American playwright
1925-2006
Sophie’s Choice - Auschwitz survivor

264
Q

The Good Woman of Sezchuan

A

Brecht

Modernist play

265
Q

The Country Wife

A

Wycherly

Restoration comedy

266
Q

For Whom the Bell Tolls

A

Line from John Donne and title of Hemingway novel

GRE English Literature (1 decks)

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