GRE Literature in English (REA) (19 page)

229.

230.

1. (B)
   
2. (D)
   
3. (E)
   
4. (B)
   
5. (B)
   
6. (D)
   
7. (C)
   
8. (A)
   
9. (C)
   
10. (E)
    
11. (B)
    
12. (B)
    
13. (E)
    
14. (D)
    
15. (E)
    
16. (D)
    
17. (E)
    
18. (E)
    
19. (C)
    
20. (D)
    
21. (A)
    
22. (B)
    
23. (C)
    
24. (D)
    
25. (A)
    
26. (C)
    
27. (A)
    
28. (C)
    
29. (C)
    
30. (D)
    
31. (C)
    
32. (D)
    
33. (A)
    
34. (E)
    
35. (D)
    
36. (B)
    
37. (B)
    
38. (C)
    
39. (D)
    
40. (B)
    
41. (A)
    
42. (A)
    
43. (C)
    
44. (B)
    
45. (C)
    
46. (E)
    
47. (C)
    
48. (A)
    
49. (B)
    
50. (D)
    
51. (C)
    
52. (B)
    
53. (B)
    
54. (D)
    
55. (A)
    
56. (C)
    
57. (B)
    
58. (C)
    
59. (C)
    
60. (A)
    
61. (D)
    
62. (D)
    
63. (B)
    
64. (E)
    
65. (D)
    
66. (E)
    
67. (B)
    
68. (B)
    
69. (E)
    
70. (D)
    
71. (E)
    
72. (D)
    
73. (E)
    
74. (C)
    
75. (C)
    
76. (E)
    
77. (D)
    
78. (B)
    
79. (B)
    
80. (D)
    
81. (D)
    
82. (C)
    
83. (E)
    
84. (B)
    
85. (C)
    
86. (D)
    
87. (C)
    
88. (C)
    
89. (A)
    
90. (D)
    
91. (C)
    
92. (B)
    
93. (C)
    
94. (D)
    
95. (C)
    
96. (D)
    
97. (A)
    
98. (C)
    
99. (D)
    
100. (C)
     
101. (E)
     
102. (C)
     
103. (E)
     
104. (A)
     
105. (A)
     
106. (D)
     
107. (E)
     
108. (B)
     
109. (D)
     
110. (A)
     
111. (B)
     
112. (A)
     
113. (C)
     
114. (A)
     
115. (D)
     
116. (B)
     
117. (B)
     
118. (D)
     
119. (C)
     
120. (C)
     
121. (A)
     
122. (E)
     
123. (C)
     
124. (B)
     
125. (A)
     
126. (E)
     
127. (B)
     
128. (D)
     
129. (C)
     
130. (D)
     
131. (A)
     
132. (A)
     
133. (B)
     
134. (D)
     
135. (B)
     
136. (C)
     
137. (D)
     
138. (A)
     
139. (B)
     
140. (C)
     
141. (D)
     
142. (C)
     
143. (E)
     
144. (B)
     
145. (D)
     
146. (D)
     
147. (A)
     
148. (B)
     
149. (D)
     
150. (A)
     
151. (B)
     
152. (B)
     
153. (D)
     
154. (E)
     
155. (D)
     
156. (C)
     
157. (C)
     
158. (C)
     
159. (D)
     
160. (D)
     
161. (A)
     
162. (B)
     
163. (C)
     
164. (B)
     
165. (C)
     
166. (D)
     
167. (E)
     
168. (E)
     
169. (E)
     
170. (C)
     
171. (A)
     
172. (C)
     
173. (E)
     
174. (B)
     
175. (B)
     
176. (A)
     
177. (C)
     
178. (C)
     
179. (A)
     
180. (C)
     
181. (B)
     
182. (D)
     
183. (B)
     
184. (A)
     
185. (C)
     
186. (A)
     
187. (B)
     
188. (B)
     
189. (D)
     
190. (C)
     
191. (A)
     
192. (B)
     
193. (C)
     
194. (B)
     
195. (C)
     
196. (B)
     
197. (E)
     
198. (C)
     
199. (D)
     
200. (A)
     
201. (B)
     
202. (B)
     
203. (D)
     
204. (D)
     
205. (B)
     
206. (C)
     
207. (C)
     
208. (D)
     
209. (D)
     
210. (C)
     
211. (A)
     
212. (E)
     
213. (C)
     
214. (D)
     
215. (A)
     
216. (B)
     
217. (D)
     
218. (C)
     
219. (B)
     
220. (B)
     
221. (B)
     
222. (C)
     
223. (E)
     
224. (D)
     
225. (C)
     
226. (C)
     
227. (B)
     
228. (B)
     
229. (C)
     
230. (C)
     

1.
(B)

D. H. Lawrence believed in a “star-equilibrium” love, with the woman not as a satellite to the male but the two in balance. (“Mino” chapter -
Women in Love).
Consider the alternatives: Heathcliff's love (A) is “of the earth and rocks.” Rochester's love (C) is total possession. Stephen's love (D) of the “bird-girl” is of “profane joy.” George Emerson's love (E) is “of the body.”

 

2.
(D)

Raphael tells the story of the Fall of the Angels to Adam in Book V of John Milton's
Paradise Lost.
The first line gives a clue: “Son of heaven and earth.” From the context, eliminate Michael to Eve (A) and Gabriel to Mary (B). The Angel of Death does not appear to Virgil (C). The Angel Gabriel talks to Dante (E), but only to repeat the Annunciation to Mary.

 

3. (
E)

The art here is to read the passage intently, eliminating the obvious from context. The angel stresses that continued happiness depends “on thyself,” thus eliminating (A) and (B). Man was made “perfect, not immutable”—be careful with the Miltonic negative “not unchangeable”—he can thus change (C). The angel stresses that man's will (D) is by nature “free.”

 

4.
(B)

Consider carefully the alternatives and eliminate the obviously faulty: the tone is certainly not jolly (C); it is somewhat gloomy especially in the last lines, but not bad-tempered (D). It is not vindictive (E); it could be didactic but not coupled with patronizing (A)—the angel seems willing to be on a level with the man.

 

5.
(B)

The Canadian woodchopper figures largely in Thoreau's
Walden
as the “true savage.” If you do not know the work, consider the other authors. All loved Nature and the rustic life, but certainly poets like Homer (D) and Frost (E) never mention visitors like the Canadian who symbolizes for Thoreau all that he himself searches for in the simple life.

 

6.
(D)

You should recognize Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” From this stanza alone, eliminate the other possibilities. Music does refresh the soul (A), but that is not the central point. Youth does have some advantage (B) but not every advantage. Art is immortal (C) but only because the imagination holds the images in time. Nowhere does the stanza say that art destroys life (E).

 

7.
(C)

If you do not know Keats' poem, eliminate the other possibilities by style and tone: the enjambment would be unusual for Elizabethan poetry (A). The style is too “collected” for the fragmentation of the Post-modern (B). The tone might be early Victorian (D), but the imagination theme is Romantic. The tone is too uplifting for the Modern (E).

 

8.
(A)

If you know the poem, this is simpler. If you are relying on the text alone, go back and read carefully. Nowhere is there a suggestion of despair (B), distrust (C) or fear (D). There is an element of triumph (E), but it involves triumph in the imagination. This leaves (A), which sums up the gist of the poem and the philosophy of the era.

 

9.
(C)

If you have not read
The Sound and the Fury
, be aware of the technique of placing the reader within the protagonist's brain, here reliving a conversation from the past. Eliminate the poetic term enjambment (A) and the dream notion (B); the extended metaphor (D) does not sustain the entire passage. Time is dislocated (E), but that is a structural device, not a technique.

 

10.
(E)

Neither the poetic language (A), nor the nuance (B), nor the extended metaphor (C) of the game of chance achieve the effect of a mind in turmoil. Certainly there is lack of meaning (D) on first reading, but analyze how that is achieved. The lack of punctuation forces the reader to find the speech rhythms and, hence, the meaning.

 

11.
(B)

If you know the novel, the answer is clear—Quentin and his father are discussing suicide. If not, eliminate: white hair (A) is mentioned once—as how Mr. Compson thinks his son conceives of death. He mentions the mother's dream of the boy at Harvard but not killing that dream (C). Courtesy to women (D) and going away to college (E) are evident but not the main point of discussion.

 

12.
(B)

Even if you know the novel, the speaker's philosophy needs careful thought. The clue is given in the metaphor of the game of chance: dice loaded against men. Eliminate (D) and (E); the passage contradicts these. The idea of life not worth living (A) is negated in men hanging on to “expedients” to keep alive. The text does not state that love destroys (C).

 

13.
(E)

If you do not know the passage, eliminate the obvious through tone, style, or era of writing. Hardy's tone (A) is gloom and doom, but he is too early to use this technique, as was Henry James (B). Dreiser's sentence structure (C) eliminates him. Vonnegut's zany style (D) and his attitude to death and fate eliminates him.

 

14.
(D)

If you do not recognize Dreiser's
Sister Carrie
, eliminate the others. Jane Austen's Emma (A) rarely has pity for anyone, nor does anyone take anything on her account; nor for Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (B), James' Milly (C) of
Wings of a Dove
, or Crane's Maggie or George Eliot's Maggie Tulliver in
Mill on the Floss
(E).

 

15.
(E)

If you do not know Tennyson's “Ulysses,” which tells of the aged Ulysses setting out with his old crew for a new life, think of the other sailors here, thus eliminating Achilles (A) of
The Iliad
. Jason (B) would have mentioned his exciting venture and young crew; Melville's sailors, Ahab (C) and Ishmael (D), would be described in prose.

 

16.
(D)

The Fourth Book of
Gulliver's Travels
describes the Houyhnhnms, the horses who have canceled all feeling from their lives in favor of Reason, fighting against the Yahoos, feeling carried to the other extreme! Eliminate the others through style—all too modern for the sentence structure and high seriousness demonstrated here.

 

17.
(E)

Gulliver's Travels
is famous for tricking readers into thinking it is all of these options. It is a travel book—it satirizes travel accounts (A) well loved in the eighteenth century. It describes other societies which appear to be utopias, but then are proved not through satire [(B) and (C)]. The animals would suggest a fable (D), but the satire is stronger than the moral weight that fables carry.

 

18.
(E)

If you do not know the Fourth Book, eliminate through what you do know. The Liliputians and the Brobdingnagians are from the same work [(A) and (C)] but with different philosophies from the Houyhnhnms. Vonnegut's little plumbers' friends (B) view death stoically but not so coldly, and Orwell's pigs (D) run
Animal Farm,
but are more like the Yahoos.

 

19.
(C)

Whether deliberate or not, Donne mocks the Spenserian poetry so popular in his day, especially the addresses to the Sun. If you do not know Donne's poem, see what you recognize in the other possibilities and cancel out the obvious. (B) is a possibility but the poetry has the same liveliness as Shakespeare's—the mockery would not be effective enough.

 

20.
(D)

If you do not know the names of certain types of poems, learn to recognize them. (A) is an address often to a “lofty” subject, (B) a lament, (C) 14 lines of poetry with set patterns (Petrarchan, Shakespearean) which should be learned, and (E) six stanzas of six lines of poetry in a strict pattern.

 

21.
(A)

Read the poetry carefully and choose through analysis of context. The lovers do not need the sun to make their love wonderful or complete (E). There is no mention of non-sharing [(C) and (D)] or preferring the night (B). If you know the poem, think of the last stanza where the poet admits his love is all worlds to him; thus the sun shines everywhere when shining on their bed.

 

22.
(B)

The key word is “rags”—a striking image from metaphysical poetry where time is referred to as worthless fragments rather than the all-important subject Spenser or Marlowe considered it. The lover claims his love is eternal and has no need to be measured by an inconsequential element like time.

 

23.
(C)

If you have established the speaker as Oedipus (and discounted the Shakespeare characters) [(A) and (B)], think of the Sophocles story. The “dead king” is his father whom he killed, thus fulfilling the prophecy at his birth. King Priam (D) is king of the Greeks dealing with the “Helen Problem.” Creon (E) is Jocasta's brother who becomes king after Oedipus blinds himself.

 

24.
(D)

The two keywords are “modern” and “Sarah”—John Fowles' mysterious heroine. Eliminate the Dickens novel (C) because of the “modern,” and the others because of the names of the heroines or lack of heroines. Pynchon's V has a number of women's names—Rachel, Esther, Victoria, but no Sarah (E).

 

 

25.
(A)

If you do not recognize the Bible passage, eliminate the others through style and content, particularly (C) and (D) which would be more poetic, dealing with specific subjects. (E) is a dialogue and is much clearer in its expression, without the technique of paradox. Isaiah (B) also has its own content and distinctive style.

 

26.
(C)

This is one of Crane's most famous passages which reflects his realistic world view. If you do not know Crane, look carefully at the harshness of the middle sentence, with the hyphenated adjectives. The word “lice” comes across very bitterly. Through context, eliminate the other possibilities as too gentle and trivial.

 

27.
(A)

If you do not know the word through Chaucer and Shakespeare studies, eliminate the others through the context. The bitter tone must accompany a ridicule-worthy noun. Otherwise, think of Chaucer's tale of Chanticleer, and the word “coxcombe” carries connotations of both foolishness and arrogance. The other possibilities do not capture the almost sneering tone of the last sentence.

 

28.
(C)

Thomas Hardy (E) does have a passage similar to this where Tess and a companion toil like insects across a field, but here the sentence structure is too short and cryptic for Hardy. Vonnegut (B)and Pynchon (D) would be much lighter and more humorous. The opposite would be true for (A); Camus' tone and style are darker than Crane's.

 

29.
(C)

“Anecdote of the Jar” by Wallace Stevens is well known for the central position of an inconsequential object. He does the same for blackbirds, but not just one (A). Death (B) and nature (E) are too general. William Carlos Williams wrote a poem about plums (D), but again, not just one, and not with such an important status in the poem.

 

30.
(D)

The key words are “exile” and the name Rieux. If you have read
The Plague
by Albert Camus you will recall that the exile was caused by bubonic plague. Rieux is the doctor who survives the epidemic and learns about existence in the process. If you are unfamiliar with the work, think of other works that deal with periods of exile and what causes them, which will limit your choice.

 

31.
(C)

Again, if you know Camus the philosophy will follow naturally. Both
The Plague and The Stranger
show men battling the problems of existence. From the context of the passage, gather the idea that the character is deeply meditating on the notion of life's meaning and the possibility of hope, and this should lead you to eliminate the other negative choices.

 

32.
(D)

This is the most famous criticism of metaphysical poetry such as that of Donne (the pair of compasses illustrates the point). If you do not know the author, eliminate by thinking of the types of poetry listed, none of which have particularly “violent” images. Do not be confused by Jonson/Johnson—the former wrote at approximately the same time as Donne—but does not comment on religious poetry.

 

33.
(A)