Top 100 English Literature MCQs For GATE Exam- Are you looking for English literature MCQs for the GATE exam? Do you want to download the English literature MCQ Book for the GATE exam? Do you want to apply for the GATE exam but don’t know where to starts? Here are the solutions.
Here I will give you a list of important MCQ for English literature students. Also, I have added the English literature syllabus for the GATE exam in this post.
It’s very important to read the syllabus of the GATE examination. Also, you need to understand the exam pattern of the GATE examination.

Top 100 English Literature MCQs For GATE Exam
1- A selection of the language really used by men” should be the language of literature whose view is this?
A-Wordsworth
B-Blake
C- Coleridge
D-None
2- More’s Utopia shows the influence of
A- Plato’s Republic
B-Machiavelli’s The Pince
C- Both A and B
D-None
3- Which of the following wrote plays that are all tragedies?
A-Marlow
B-Shakespeare
C-Thomas Dekkar
D-None
4- Who wrote ‘Coriolanus’?
A-Shakespeare
B-Jonson
C-Marlow
D-None
5 – Whos is the rite of ”A Thing of Beauty is Joy Forever?
A- John Keats
B-P.B Shelley
C- Wordsworth
D-None
6- The pre- Romantic were influenced by the middle ages
A- Yes
B-No
C-May Be
D-None
7- ”Good Morning to the day and next to my gold, open the shrine that I may seem may saint” these lines from
A- Volpone
B-Cynthia’s Revels
C-The Poetaster
D-None
8- ”Pity would be no more if e did not make somebody poor” who wrote these lines?
A- Blake
B-Shelley
C-Coleridge
D-None
9- Joseph Conrad’s Technique used in Lord Jim is known as
A- Oblique narrative
B-Episodic Narrative
C-Both A and B
D-None
10- ‘Utopia ‘ appeared in English translation in the year
A-1551
B-1516
C-1515
D-1185
11- Which of the following begins with ”Our is essentially a tragic age?
A- Lady Chatterley’s Lover
B-Rainbow
C-Greenwood Tree
D-None
12- The first edition of the ‘Encyclopedia Britannica appeared in
A-1771
B-1717
C-1900
D-1815
13- Henry VII the patron of education came to the throne in
A- 1485
B-1414
C-1485
D-1486
14- Who wrote ”For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die?
A-Charles Lamb
B-Walter Scott
C-Lord Byron
D-None
15- The phrase, ‘Religion by the blood” is associated with
A- D.H Lawrence
B-Virginia Woolf
C-E.M Forster
D-None
16-As a philosopher Coleridge as more interested in the philosophy of
A- German
B-French
C-England
D-None
17-” Inscape” and ”Instress” and ”Sprung Rhythm” are associated with
A-G.M Hopkins
B- Ezra Pound
C-T.S Eliot
D-None
18- Who employed the Blank Verse firstly
A-Sackville
B-Norton
C-Both A and B
D-None
19-John drinking water helped revive the interest in
A- Poetic drama
B-Historical drama
C-Problems plays
D-Classical drama
20- ‘Bartholomew Fair’ is a play by
A- Ben Jonson
B-Sheridan
C-Marlowe
D-Congreve
21- Shylock, the Jew is a character in the play
A- The Merchant of Venice
B-The Taming of the Shrew
C-The Jew of Malta
D-None
22- Which play by Shaw is centered around Napolean?
A- The Man of Destiny
B-Arms and the Man
C-Man and Superman
D-None
23——- is the first play by Galsworthy
A-The Silver Box
B-Loyalties
C-Justice
D-The Skin Game
24- The line ‘Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss’ appears in Marlowe’s play
A- Doctor Faustus
B-The Jew of Malta
C-Tamburlaine
D-None
25- Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ concludes with a———word.
A- Sanskrit
B-English
C-French
D-Latin
26- Which of these poems has been written by
A-Everlasting Mercy
B-Crow
C-Listeners
D-None
27- The first tragedy was
A- Gorboduc
B-Cleopatra
C-Philotas
D-Everyman
28- Modern Painters is the longest book by
A- Ruskin
B-Leigh Hunt
C-Walter Peter
D-None
29- That government is best which governs least” where has Thoreau said this?
A- Civil Disobedience
B-Walden
C-Week
D-None
30- Milton’s poetic style is usually regarded as
A- Grand
B-Classical
C-Plain
D-Ornamental
31- Emily Bronte wrote only one novel entitled
A- Wuthering Heights
B-Agnes Grey
C-Jane Eyre
D-Shirley
32- Browning has written chiefly
A-Dramatic Monologues
B-Sonnets
C-Odes
D-Plays
33- Thyrsis and The Scholar Gipsy and Matthew Arnold’s
A- Pastoral elegies
B-Narrative Poems
C-Lyrics
D-None
34- Which of the poems mentioned below not by Browning?
A- Empedocles on Etna
B-Sordello
C-My Last Duchess
D-Pippa Passes
35- In which poem does Tennyson commemorate his friend Arthur Hallam?
A- In Memoriam
B-Maud
C-Enoch Arden
D-The Princess
36-‘Love virtue, she alone is free, in Which work of his has Milton made this remark?
A- Comus
B-Lycidas
C-Paradise Lost
D-None
37- Who is the creator of the character named Sherlock Holmes?
A- Arthur Conan Doyle
B-Agatha Christie
C-Edgar Allen Poe
D-None
38- Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ contains a satire on Love and
A-War
B-Marriage
C-Sex
D-Family
39- Which modern write wrote under the pseudonym ‘Alpha of the Plow’?
A- A.G Gardiner
B-Bertrand Russell
C-G.K Chesterton
D-None
40- The History of Mr. Polly by H.G Wells is
A-A novel
B-Poem
C-Story
D-None
41- Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana is a satire on
A-Spy Novels
B-Education
C-Religion
D-None
42- Which of the following of Byron is autobiographical?
A- Manfred
B-The Corsair
C-Child Harold’s Pilgrimage
D-None
43- Thomas Wyatt is associated with
A- The Sonnet
B-The Epic
C-The Ballad
D-None
44-Which of the following were the admirers of Zola?
A- George Moore
B-George Gissing
C-Both
D-None
46- In which of the novels did Aldous Huxley Attempt to ”Musicalise fiction”
A- Point CounterPoint
B-Brave New World
C-Eyeless in Gaza
D-None
47- Who is the biographer of Donne Hooker and George Herbert?
A- Izaac Walton
B-James Boswell
C-Dr.Johnson
D-None
48- Which of the following deals with the War of the Rose?
A- Samuel Daniel’s The Civil Wars
B-Michael Dryton’s The Baron’s War
C-Both
D-None
49- In ‘The Plumed’ serpent Lawrence stress——-value system?
A- Primitive
B-civilized
C-Both
D-None
50- Who is the author of the world-famous Sherlock Holmes stories?
A- Conan Dyle
B-James Chase
C-Both
D-None
51- Who wrote ”For the sake, tobacco I would do anything but die
A- Charles Lamb
B-Walter Scott
C-Lord Byron
D-None
52- The Royal society of science is the result of ——emphasis on the collection of facts
A-Bacon’s
B-Thomas More’s
C-Nash’s
D-None
53- Shakespearean comedy mainly preoccupied itself with
A- Family of Romance
B- Reality of Romance
C-Both A and B
D-None
54-What said ”Shakespeare has only heroine and no heroes?
A- Ruskin
B-Eliot
C- Johnson
D-None
55- What does ”Marlowe’s mighty line” refer to
A- To his blank verse
B-To his high seriousness
C-To his lengthy lines
D-None
56- Who was it that called Henry James, ”Victorian of fine consciousness”?
A- Joesph Conrad
B-Thomas Hardy
C-R.L Stevenson
D-John Gross
57- The Great East India Company founded in—————?
A-1599
B-1699
C-1499
D-1895
58- Madeline, a creation of Keats figures in
A- The Eve of St. Agnes
B-Endymion
C-Isabella
D-Lamia
59- The Authorised Version of the Bible is based on
A- Tyndale’s Translation
B-John Wycliff
C-Both A and B
D-None
60- Shakespeare left the following play unfinished
A- Timon of Athens
B-Coriolanus
C-Titus Andronicus
D-None
61- Who is considered the Dickens of the Elizabethan stage for his intimate knowledge of common men?
A- Thomas Dekker
B-Ben Jonson
C-Christopher Marlowe
D-Shakespeare
62- An anti-novel is one in which there is
A- No plot
B-No Characterisation
C-No Relation
D-All
63- Who among the following wrote ‘Regional Fiction’
A- Thomas Hardy
B-Phillpott
C-G.D Brown
D-None
64- Which of the Shakespearean plays has a clement of colonialism suggestively?
A- The Tempest
B- Cymbeline
C-Hamlet
D-None
65- Which of the following produced works in collaboration?
A- Beaumond and Fletcher
B-Heywood and Tourneur
C-Marston and Middleton
D-None
66- The incident of changing the sex occurs in——Virginia Woolf.
A- Orlando, a Biography
B-To The Light House
C-Mrs.Dalloway
D-None
67- The author of The Portrait of a Lady is
A- Henry James
B-R.L Stevenson
C-Joseph Conrad
D-None
68- Who described Chaucer as ”The Well of English undefiled?
A- Spenser
B-Shakespeare
C-Dryden
D-None
69- The characters of Henry James novel are
A-Intellectuals
B-Middle class workers
C-Illiteratres
D-None
70- Which of the following was called by Lawrence as ”Thought Adventure?
A- Kangaroo
B-Woman in Love
C-Rainbow
D-None
71- Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is about
A- Sexual Experience
B-The revenge
C-Both
D-None
72- Sir Philip Sidney did at thirty-two in the battle of
A-The Battle of Zutphen
B-He did not die in a battle
C-The wars of rose
D-None
73- What is The Mousetrap?
A- A Character of Marlowe
B-A Play by Ben Johnson
C-Both
D-None
74- Who is the writer of ‘Two Cheers for Democracy?
A- E.M Forster
B-Rudyard Kipling
C-H.G Wells
D-None
75- Why are the University Wits knows by that name?Because
A- They were all University educated men
B-They all held jobs in the Universities
C-None
76-Spanish Armada was defeated in
A- 1588
B-1166
C-1415
D-None
77- Columbus discovered America in
A- 1492
B-1482
C-1972
D-1548
78- Cockney school of poetry a phrase coined on analogy with the
A- Lake School
B-Augustan School
C-Romantic School
D-None
79- Which of the following was a left-wing poet?
A- W.H Auden
B-T.S Eliot
C-W.B Yeats
D-None
80- The Authorised Bible was dedicated to
A- James I
B- Charles II
C- Charles I
D-None
81- Shakespeare used prose for
A- Comic Scenes
B-Plays within plays
C-Chorus
D-None
82- Where has Keats expressed his dislike for poetry ”That has a palpable design upon us?
A- In one of his letters
B-In one of his odes
C-Both
D-None
83- Which of the following is a play by Arthur Miller?
A- Death of a Salesman
B-The Death of the Heart
C-Death in the Afternoon
D-None
84- Rudyard Kipling was born in
A- Bombay
B-Calcutta
C-London
D-None
85- The title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance in prose is
A- Arcadia
B-Utopia
C-Hydriotaphia
D-Lamia
86- which novel of Graham Greene deals with the persecution of Catholics in Mexico?
A- The power and the Glory
B-The Comedians
C-The End of the Affairs
D-None
87- These dialogues between actual persons of the pastor of Landor’s own day deal with a wide variety of subject ” about which work is this said?
A- Imaginary Conversations
B-Hours of Idleness
C-Table Talk
D-None
88- Which of the following is not an American magazine?
A- New Atlantis
B-The New Yorker
C-The New Review
D-None
89- Which of the following works of Huxley is not a novel?
A- Grey Eminence
B-Those Barren Leaves
C-Ape and Essence
D-None
90- Manalive is a novel by
A- G.K Chesterton
B-R.L Stevenson
C-Galsworthy
D-Hillaire Belloc
91- Which of the undermentioned essays is not by A.G Gardiner?
A- In Praise of Idleness
B-On Being Idle
C-On Courage
D-None
92- Which English novelist received the Nobel Prize in 1953?
A- William Golding
B-C.P Snow
C-Graham Greene
D-None
93- Arun Joshi’s novel ‘The Apprentice’ is in the form of
A- Long Monologue
B-Letters
C-Dialogue
D-None
94- Which volume of Carl Sandburg’s poem first brought him fame and recognition?
A- Chicago Poem
B-Smoke and Steel
C-Good Morning, America
D-The People, Yes
95- Nathaniel Hawthorne has been called a Puritan
A- Romance
B- Poet
C-Writer
D-Preacher
96- Nature is an essay by
A- Emerson
B-Jefferson
C-Poe
D-Thoreau
97- Edgar Allen Poe wrote review etc for a year for the magazine
A- South Literary Messenger
B-Evening Post
C-South America Review
D-None
98- The Conquest of Canaan is an epic poem by
A- Timothy Dwight
B-Edward Taylor
C-John Trumbull
D-None
99- Santiago is the name of a —– in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the sea
A- Character
B-Narrator
C-Festival
D-Place
100- Maya is the central character in Anita Desai’s novel
A- Cry, the Peacock
B-Voice in the City
C-Bye, Bye Blackbird
D-None
English Literature Syllabus For GATE Exam
C2- Multi-genre literature in English – Poetry, the novel, and other forms of fiction including the short story, drama, creative non-fiction prose with emphasis on the long 19th century and 20 centuries.
C2.2- Especially in a comparative context, anglophone and in English translation, literature from India and extending to some degree the larger Indian subcontinent
C2.3- Literary criticism and theory; critical and cultural intellectual traditions and approaches widely referred to and used in the discipline of English
C2.4 – History of English literature and English literary studies
C2.5- Research approaches and methodologies including interpretive technique responsive to literary forms devices concepts and genres
Here you can download the complete GATE Syllabus for English Literature- Download PDF
Best Books for GATE Exam: English Literature
There are several books available for English literature. You need to choose the best books for English literature.
Here are some of the important study materials for English Literature: GATE Exam
- 400+ English Literature MCQ for Competitive Exam- PDF Download
- 200+ One-liners questions answers on English literature- PDF Download
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