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Literary Terms — The Full Glossary — GK Questions with Answers

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27 questions
  1. "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is Forster’s example of —
    1. a story
    2. a plot
    3. a theme
    4. an allegory
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    Answer: (B) a plot

    Adding causality turns a story into a plot.

  2. The "untying" of a plot after the climax is the —
    1. exposition
    2. dénouement
    3. catastrophe
    4. peripeteia
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    Answer: (B) dénouement

    Dénouement literally means untying.

  3. "Flat" and "round" characters are terms of —
    1. Wayne Booth
    2. E. M. Forster
    3. Percy Lubbock
    4. Henry James
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    Answer: (B) E. M. Forster

    E. M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel.

  4. A character placed beside another to show him up by contrast is a —
    1. foil
    2. antagonist
    3. anti-hero
    4. stock character
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    Answer: (A) foil

    A foil — Laertes to Hamlet.

  5. The term "unreliable narrator" was coined by —
    1. E. M. Forster
    2. Wayne C. Booth
    3. Percy Lubbock
    4. Gérard Genette
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    Answer: (B) Wayne C. Booth

    Wayne C. Booth, in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961).

  6. A speech delivered by a character alone on the stage is a —
    1. monologue
    2. soliloquy
    3. aside
    4. chorus
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    Answer: (B) soliloquy

    A soliloquy; a monologue is spoken with others present.

  7. A dramatic monologue differs from a soliloquy because it —
    1. is spoken alone
    2. is a poem addressed to a silent listener
    3. is in prose
    4. is spoken by the chorus
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    Answer: (B) is a poem addressed to a silent listener

    It is a poem with a silent listener — Browning’s form.

  8. The term "poetic justice" was coined by —
    1. Dr Johnson
    2. Thomas Rymer
    3. Dryden
    4. Addison
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    Answer: (B) Thomas Rymer

    Thomas Rymer, in the seventeenth century.

  9. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called —
    1. free verse
    2. blank verse
    3. the heroic couplet
    4. sprung rhythm
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    Answer: (B) blank verse

    Blank verse — introduced into English by Surrey.

  10. A foot of two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed, is —
    1. a trochee
    2. an iamb
    3. an anapaest
    4. a spondee
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    Answer: (B) an iamb

    An iamb — the commonest foot in English verse.

  1. Rhyme royal consists of —
    1. six lines rhyming ababcc
    2. seven lines rhyming ababbcc
    3. eight lines rhyming abababcc
    4. nine lines rhyming ababbcbcc
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    Answer: (B) seven lines rhyming ababbcc

    Seven lines, ababbcc, introduced by Chaucer.

  2. Ababbcbcc with a final alexandrine describes the —
    1. ottava rima
    2. Spenserian stanza
    3. ballad stanza
    4. terza rima
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    Answer: (B) Spenserian stanza

    The Spenserian stanza of The Faerie Queene.

  3. The running on of sense past the end of a line is —
    1. caesura
    2. enjambment
    3. end-stopping
    4. scansion
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    Answer: (B) enjambment

    Enjambment; a caesura is a pause within the line.

  4. "All hands on deck" is an example of —
    1. metonymy
    2. synecdoche
    3. metaphor
    4. personification
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    Answer: (B) synecdoche

    Synecdoche — a part (hands) for the whole (sailors).

  5. "The Crown announced the decision" is an example of —
    1. synecdoche
    2. metonymy
    3. personification
    4. apostrophe
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    Answer: (B) metonymy

    Metonymy — something associated stands in.

  6. "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way" contains —
    1. a transferred epithet
    2. a pun
    3. litotes
    4. chiasmus
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    Answer: (A) a transferred epithet

    The weariness belongs to the ploughman, not the way.

  7. "He is no fool" is an example of —
    1. hyperbole
    2. litotes
    3. oxymoron
    4. irony
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    Answer: (B) litotes

    Litotes — understatement by denying the opposite.

  8. "Cruel kindness" is an —
    1. antithesis
    2. oxymoron
    3. epigram
    4. allusion
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    Answer: (B) oxymoron

    An oxymoron — two contradictory words joined.

  9. "She lost her purse and her temper" is an example of —
    1. zeugma
    2. chiasmus
    3. anaphora
    4. asyndeton
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    Answer: (A) zeugma

    Zeugma — one verb governing two words in different senses.

  10. Repetition at the beginning of successive clauses is —
    1. epistrophe
    2. anaphora
    3. chiasmus
    4. polysyndeton
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    Answer: (B) anaphora

    Anaphora; repetition at the end is epistrophe.

  1. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" is —
    1. anaphora
    2. chiasmus
    3. antithesis
    4. zeugma
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    Answer: (B) chiasmus

    Chiasmus — the structure is reversed in the second half.

  2. "Pathetic fallacy" was coined by —
    1. Matthew Arnold
    2. John Ruskin
    3. Walter Pater
    4. Thomas Carlyle
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    Answer: (B) John Ruskin

    John Ruskin, in Modern Painters.

  3. The Rape of the Lock is an example of —
    1. an epic
    2. a mock-epic
    3. an elegy
    4. a ballad
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    Answer: (B) a mock-epic

    A mock-epic — epic machinery on a trivial subject.

  4. A novel about the growth of an artist is a —
    1. bildungsroman
    2. künstlerroman
    3. roman à clef
    4. picaresque novel
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    Answer: (B) künstlerroman

    A künstlerroman.

  5. The Greek term for the hero’s error of judgement is —
    1. hubris
    2. hamartia
    3. catharsis
    4. anagnorisis
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    Answer: (B) hamartia

    Hamartia; hubris is overweening pride.

  6. A statement that seems self-contradictory yet holds a truth is a —
    1. paradox
    2. oxymoron
    3. antithesis
    4. epigram
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    Answer: (A) paradox

    A paradox — a whole statement, where an oxymoron is two words.

  7. Which figure is used in "the murmuring of innumerable bees"?
    1. alliteration
    2. onomatopoeia
    3. metonymy
    4. litotes
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    Answer: (B) onomatopoeia

    The sound of the words imitates the sense — onomatopoeia, with assonance.

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