25 MCQs on Renaissance Period English Literature
UGC NET June 2025 Preparation - Moderate to Hard Level
1. Which of the following works is considered the first major work of English literary criticism?
Answer: A) The Defence of Poesy by Philip Sidney
Explanation: Sidney's "The Defence of Poesy" (also known as "An Apology for Poetry") is considered the first major work of English literary criticism. Written around 1580 and published posthumously in 1595, it defends poetry against Puritan attacks and establishes its value as a means of moral instruction.
2. In Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," which character represents Queen Elizabeth I?
Answer: C) Gloriana
Explanation: Gloriana, the "Faerie Queene" herself, represents Queen Elizabeth I. While other characters like Britomart also have connections to Elizabeth, Gloriana is the primary representation. Una represents truth and the Protestant church, while Duessa represents falsehood and the Catholic church.
3. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic feature of Renaissance humanism?
Answer: C) Rejection of all medieval traditions
Explanation: Renaissance humanists did not completely reject medieval traditions. While they emphasized classical learning (A), focused on individual potential (B), and believed in human educability (D), they often built upon and synthesized medieval thought with classical learning rather than rejecting it entirely.
4. Which Shakespearean play features the character Iago famously declaring "I am not what I am"?
Answer: B) Othello
Explanation: Iago, the villain in "Othello," says this line in Act 1, Scene 1. The statement is a paradoxical revelation of his duplicitous nature, echoing (and inverting) God's declaration to Moses "I am what I am" (Exodus 3:14).
5. The term "metaphysical conceit" is best described as:
Answer: A) A complex, extended metaphor drawing unlikely connections between dissimilar things
Explanation: A metaphysical conceit is a hallmark of metaphysical poetry, particularly seen in the works of John Donne and Andrew Marvell. It creates elaborate, often surprising comparisons between seemingly unrelated things (like lovers and a compass in Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning").
6. Which Renaissance work begins with the line "Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit"?
Answer: A) Paradise Lost
Explanation: This is the opening line of John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost" (1667), which recounts the biblical story of the Fall of Man. The "fruit" refers to the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
7. Which of these Renaissance playwrights was known as the "upstart crow" in Robert Greene's criticism?
Answer: C) William Shakespeare
Explanation: Robert Greene's 1592 pamphlet "Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit" contains this famous reference to Shakespeare as an "upstart crow, beautified with our feathers," suggesting he was achieving success by borrowing from university-educated writers like Greene himself.
8. The phrase "sweet silent thought" appears in which Shakespearean sonnet?
Answer: C) Sonnet 30 ("When to the sessions of sweet silent thought")
Explanation: The phrase appears in the opening line of Sonnet 30, which reflects on memories of past sorrows. The "sessions" metaphor compares the poet's thoughts to a court session where grievances are heard.
9. Which of the following best describes the "Great Chain of Being" in Renaissance thought?
Answer: A) A hierarchical structure of all matter and life believed to be decreed by God
Explanation: The Great Chain of Being was a Renaissance worldview that placed all creation in a strict hierarchical order from God down through angels, humans, animals, plants, and minerals. This concept influenced much of the period's literature and thought about social order.
10. In Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," what is the term of Faustus's pact with the devil?
Answer: D) 24 years of power in exchange for his soul
Explanation: Faustus makes a pact with Lucifer to exchange his soul for 24 years of service from Mephistopheles and unlimited knowledge and power. This timeframe appears in both the A and B texts of the play.
11. Which Renaissance poet wrote "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" as an answer to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"?
Answer: B) Sir Walter Raleigh
Explanation: Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is a skeptical response to Marlowe's pastoral poem, pointing out the transient nature of all the pleasures the shepherd offers and the inevitability of time's ravages.
12. What is the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet?
Answer: C) abab cdcd efef gg
Explanation: The Shakespearean sonnet (also called English sonnet) follows this distinctive rhyme scheme, divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet. This differs from the Petrarchan sonnet's octave-sestet structure (option A).
13. Which of these Renaissance works features the character Volpone?
Answer: B) Volpone, or The Fox
Explanation: Volpone is the titular character of Ben Jonson's 1606 comedy "Volpone, or The Fox." He is a wealthy Venetian who feigns illness to trick others into giving him gifts in hopes of becoming his heir.
14. In John Donne's "The Canonization," what does the speaker suggest he and his lover will be "canonized" as?
Answer: A) Saints of love
Explanation: Donne's poem uses religious imagery to elevate earthly love, suggesting that if they cannot live by love, they will die by it, and be "canonized" (made saints) for their love. The poem is a prime example of metaphysical conceit.
15. Which Renaissance text includes the line "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact"?
Answer: A) Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Explanation: These lines appear in Act 5, Scene 1 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," spoken by Theseus. They reflect Renaissance ideas about imagination and its power to transform perception of reality.
16. What is the significance of the year 1579 in English Renaissance literature?
Answer: A) Publication of Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender
Explanation: 1579 marks the publication of Edmund Spenser's "The Shepheardes Calender," which signaled the arrival of a major new poet and helped establish English as a language capable of sophisticated poetry. The Globe wasn't built until 1599, Marlowe died in 1593, and the first sonnet sequence (Astrophil and Stella) came later.
17. Which Renaissance work features the character Bosola?
Answer: A) The Duchess of Malfi
Explanation: Bosola is the complex, morally ambiguous antagonist in John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" (1612-13). Initially a spy for the Duchess's brothers, he becomes her executioner but later seeks redemption by avenging her death.
18. What literary device is exemplified by these lines from Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"?
"If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two"
Answer: B) Metaphysical conceit
Explanation: This is a classic example of a metaphysical conceit - an extended, elaborate metaphor that draws an unlikely comparison between lovers and the two legs of a compass. The comparison is intellectually rigorous and unexpected.
19. Which of these Renaissance authors wrote a utopian work describing an ideal society on an imaginary island?
Answer: B) Thomas More
Explanation: Thomas More wrote "Utopia" (1516), describing an ideal society on an imaginary island. The title coined the term "utopia" (from Greek meaning "no place" or "good place"). Bacon's "New Atlantis" came later (1627).
20. In Renaissance drama, what is a "malcontent"?
Answer: A) A character dissatisfied with society who often comments on its corruption
Explanation: The malcontent is a stock character in Jacobean drama - a cynical, disillusioned figure who rails against the corruption of the court or society. Examples include Bosola in "The Duchess of Malfi" and Malevole in "The Malcontent."
21. Which Shakespeare play features the famous "All the world's a stage" speech?
Answer: B) As You Like It
Explanation: This famous speech (Act 2, Scene 7) is delivered by Jaques in "As You Like It." It describes the seven ages of man, from infancy to old age, using the theatrical metaphor that gives the speech its name.
22. What is the term for the unrhymed iambic pentameter frequently used in Renaissance drama?
Answer: A) Blank verse
Explanation: Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter, introduced to English by the Earl of Surrey and perfected by Marlowe and Shakespeare in dramatic works. It became the standard verse form for Renaissance drama.
23. Which Renaissance poet wrote the sequence "Amoretti" to celebrate his courtship and marriage?
Answer: B) Edmund Spenser
Explanation: Spenser's "Amoretti" (1595) is a sonnet sequence chronicling his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle, whom he married in 1594. The sequence culminates in his marriage ode "Epithalamion."
24. In Renaissance poetry, what is the "pathetic fallacy"?
Answer: A) Attributing human emotions to nature or inanimate objects
Explanation: Coined later by Ruskin but applicable to Renaissance poetry, the pathetic fallacy involves giving human emotions to nature (e.g., "angry clouds" or "mourning flowers"). It's distinct from personification in its focus on emotional states.
25. Which of these works represents the transition from Renaissance to Restoration literature?
Answer: A) Paradise Lost
Explanation: Milton's "Paradise Lost" (1667) bridges the Renaissance and Restoration periods. While its themes and epic form are Renaissance, its publication after the Restoration (1660) and its influence on later literature mark it as transitional. The other options are either earlier or fully Restoration works.
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