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British Drama — Mystery Plays to Stoppard — GK Questions with Answers

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26 questions
  1. In Everyman, who alone accompanies the hero to the grave?
    1. Knowledge
    2. Fellowship
    3. Good Deeds
    4. Beauty
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) Good Deeds

    Only Good Deeds goes with Everyman at the end.

  2. The first English tragedy is generally held to be —
    1. Ralph Roister Doister
    2. Gorboduc
    3. The Spanish Tragedy
    4. Gammer Gurton’s Needle
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Gorboduc

    Gorboduc (1561) by Norton and Sackville — also the first English play in blank verse.

  3. Who founded the English revenge tragedy?
    1. Marlowe
    2. Kyd
    3. Webster
    4. Jonson
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Kyd

    Thomas Kyd, with The Spanish Tragedy.

  4. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" is spoken in —
    1. Tamburlaine
    2. Doctor Faustus
    3. The Jew of Malta
    4. Edward II
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    Answer: (B) Doctor Faustus

    Faustus addresses the spirit of Helen of Troy.

  5. Shakespeare’s First Folio was published in —
    1. 1616
    2. 1623
    3. 1632
    4. 1640
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) 1623

    1623, by his fellow actors Heminges and Condell.

  6. "He was not of an age, but for all time" was written by —
    1. Dryden
    2. Ben Jonson
    3. Milton
    4. Johnson
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    Answer: (B) Ben Jonson

    Ben Jonson, in the First Folio commendatory verses.

  7. The comedy of humours is associated with —
    1. Congreve
    2. Ben Jonson
    3. Wycherley
    4. Sheridan
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    Answer: (B) Ben Jonson

    Ben Jonson — each character ruled by one dominant trait.

  8. The English theatres were closed in —
    1. 1603
    2. 1642
    3. 1660
    4. 1688
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) 1642

    Closed by the Puritans in 1642 and reopened at the Restoration in 1660.

  9. The Way of the World was written by —
    1. Wycherley
    2. Congreve
    3. Etherege
    4. Vanbrugh
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Congreve

    William Congreve, 1700 — the finest comedy of manners.

  10. The first Englishwoman to earn her living by writing was —
    1. Mary Astell
    2. Aphra Behn
    3. Fanny Burney
    4. Margaret Cavendish
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Aphra Behn

    Aphra Behn, author of The Rover and Oroonoko.

  1. Who attacked the immorality of the English stage in 1698?
    1. Thomas Rymer
    2. Jeremy Collier
    3. John Dennis
    4. Richard Steele
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Jeremy Collier

    Jeremy Collier, in A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage.

  2. The word "malapropism" derives from a character in —
    1. The School for Scandal
    2. The Rivals
    3. She Stoops to Conquer
    4. The Critic
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) The Rivals

    Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775).

  3. She Stoops to Conquer was written by —
    1. Sheridan
    2. Goldsmith
    3. Steele
    4. Gay
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Goldsmith

    Oliver Goldsmith, 1773 — an attack on sentimental comedy.

  4. Who wrote The Quintessence of Ibsenism?
    1. William Archer
    2. Bernard Shaw
    3. Granville-Barker
    4. Edmund Gosse
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Bernard Shaw

    Shaw, 1891, championing Ibsen in England.

  5. The Importance of Being Earnest is subtitled —
    1. "A Comedy for Serious People"
    2. "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People"
    3. "A Serious Comedy for Trivial People"
    4. "A Play of Ideas"
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People"

    Wilde’s own subtitle.

  6. Shaw based Professor Higgins on the phonetician —
    1. Daniel Jones
    2. Henry Sweet
    3. A. J. Ellis
    4. Peter Ladefoged
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Henry Sweet

    Henry Sweet, as Shaw says in his preface.

  7. The Abbey Theatre opened in —
    1. 1899
    2. 1904
    3. 1907
    4. 1916
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    Answer: (B) 1904

    1904, growing out of the Irish Literary Theatre of 1899.

  8. The Abbey Theatre riots of 1907 were over —
    1. Cathleen ni Houlihan
    2. The Playboy of the Western World
    3. The Plough and the Stars
    4. Juno and the Paycock
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) The Playboy of the Western World

    Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World.

  9. Murder in the Cathedral is about the death of —
    1. Thomas More
    2. Thomas Becket
    3. Thomas Cromwell
    4. Thomas Wolsey
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Thomas Becket

    Thomas Becket, murdered at Canterbury in 1170.

  10. Modern British drama is usually dated from the 1956 premiere of —
    1. Waiting for Godot
    2. Look Back in Anger
    3. The Birthday Party
    4. A Taste of Honey
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Look Back in Anger

    John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court.

  1. The hero of Look Back in Anger is —
    1. Jimmy Porter
    2. Archie Rice
    3. Davies
    4. Stanley
    Show answer

    Answer: (A) Jimmy Porter

    Jimmy Porter, whose rage gave the "Angry Young Men" their name.

  2. In Waiting for Godot, the two tramps are —
    1. Pozzo and Lucky
    2. Vladimir and Estragon
    3. Hamm and Clov
    4. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
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    Answer: (B) Vladimir and Estragon

    Vladimir and Estragon, who wait under a tree.

  3. Waiting for Godot was originally written in —
    1. English
    2. French
    3. German
    4. Irish
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) French

    As En attendant Godot; Beckett translated it himself.

  4. The term "comedy of menace" is applied chiefly to —
    1. Beckett
    2. Pinter
    3. Orton
    4. Stoppard
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Pinter

    Harold Pinter; the phrase is Irving Wardle’s.

  5. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was written by —
    1. Pinter
    2. Stoppard
    3. Bond
    4. Shaffer
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Stoppard

    Tom Stoppard, 1966, from two minor characters in Hamlet.

  6. Which of these dramatists is NOT normally classed with the Theatre of the Absurd?
    1. Ionesco
    2. Genet
    3. Beckett
    4. Galsworthy
    Show answer

    Answer: (D) Galsworthy

    Galsworthy wrote social-problem plays a generation earlier.

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