📜 Pre-Chaucerian to Elizabethan Fiction & Short Stories
“The past is a foreign country: they did things differently there.” — A comprehensive set of 100 MCQs for UGC NET/SET English, ranging from the easy to the challenging, covering key texts, authors, and literary concepts from this rich period.
📖 SECTION A: PRE-CHAUCERIAN PERIOD (Easy - 20 Questions)
1. Which is the earliest surviving long poem in Old English?
Answer: B) Beowulf
2. Beowulf is written in which language?
Answer: C) Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
3. Who is the protagonist of Beowulf?
Answer: B) A Geatish warrior
4. Which monster does Beowulf fight first?
Answer: C) Grendel
5. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an example of:
Answer: B) Historical prose record
6. Which work is attributed to Caedmon, the first known English poet?
Answer: B) Caedmon's Hymn
7. The Venerable Bede wrote which important historical work?
Answer: B) Ecclesiastical History of the English People
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8. "The Dream of the Rood" is a poem about:
Answer: B) The crucifixion of Christ from the cross's perspective
9. King Alfred the Great is known for:
Answer: B) Translating Latin works into Old English
10. Which battle is commemorated in "The Battle of Maldon"?
Answer: C) Battle against Viking invaders in 991 AD
11. "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" are examples of:
Answer: B) Elegiac poetry
12. The Exeter Book contains:
Answer: B) A major collection of Old English poetry
13. Which literary device is characteristic of Old English poetry?
Answer: B) Alliteration and kenning
14. A "kenning" in Old English poetry refers to:
Answer: B) A compound metaphorical phrase
15. "Whale-road" as a term for sea is an example of:
Answer: B) Kenning
16. The Norman Conquest occurred in:
Answer: B) 1066 AD
17. Which language became dominant in English courts and literature after 1066?
Answer: C) Anglo-Norman French
18. The Owl and the Nightingale is written in:
Answer: C) Middle English
19. Layamon's Brut is a translation/adaptation of:
Answer: B) Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae
20. The Ancrene Wisse is:
Answer: B) A guide for anchoresses (religious women)
📖 SECTION B: CHAUCER AND HIS AGE (Easy to Moderate - 25 Questions)
21. Geoffrey Chaucer is known as:
Answer: B) The Father of English Poetry
22. The Canterbury Tales is written in:
Answer: C) Middle English
23. What is the frame narrative of The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: B) A pilgrimage to Canterbury
24. How many pilgrims are in the original plan of The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: B) 30 (including Chaucer himself)
25. The host of the Tabard Inn is named:
Answer: B) Harry Bailey
26. Which tale is told by the Knight?
Answer: B) A chivalric romance about Palamon and Arcite
27. The Miller's Tale is an example of:
Answer: B) A fabliau (bawdy comic tale)
28. The Wife of Bath has been married how many times?
Answer: C) Five
29. In the Wife of Bath's Tale, what does the knight learn?
Answer: B) What women most desire
30. The Pardoner's Tale is a:
Answer: B) Exemplum about the love of money
31. Which character tells a tale about three rioters seeking Death?
Answer: C) The Pardoner
32. The Nun's Priest's Tale is about:
Answer: B) A rooster named Chaunticleer
33. Troilus and Criseyde is a:
Answer: B) Tragic love story set during the Trojan War
34. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is based on works by:
Answer: B) Boccaccio
35. The Parliament of Fowls is a:
Answer: B) Dream vision about love and nature
36. The Book of the Duchess is an elegy for:
Answer: B) Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster
37. Which meter does Chaucer primarily use in The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: B) Heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter)
38. The General Prologue describes:
Answer: B) The pilgrims and their portraits
39. Which religious figure is described as having "a love knot in the larger of his buttons" in the General Prologue?
Answer: B) The Friar
40. The Prioress speaks:
Answer: B) French "after the school of Stratford-at-Bow"
41. Which tale involves a magic carpet and is told by the Squire?
Answer: B) The Squire's Tale (unfinished)
42. The Franklin's Tale deals with the theme of:
Answer: B) Gentillesse (noble conduct) and marriage
43. The Reeve's Tale is a:
Answer: B) Fabliau involving millers and students
44. Which character is described as having "a vernicle" (pilgrim badge) sewn on his cap?
Answer: B) The Shipman
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45. Chaucer's "Retraction" at the end of The Canterbury Tales:
Answer: B) Withdraws his worldly writings
📖 SECTION C: MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCES & FICTION (Moderate - 20 Questions)
46. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is written in:
Answer: B) Middle English alliterative verse
47. The Pearl poet is also known as:
Answer: A) The Gawain poet
48. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight challenges the knights to:
Answer: B) Exchange blows with an axe
49. The test in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight primarily concerns:
Answer: B) Courtesy and truth (troth)
50. Piers Plowman is written by:
Answer: B) William Langland
51. Piers Plowman is an example of:
Answer: B) Dream vision allegory
52. The central figure in Piers Plowman is:
Answer: B) A plowman representing true Christian life
53. John Gower wrote primarily in:
Answer: B) Latin, French, and English
54. Gower's Confessio Amantis is:
Answer: B) A collection of tales framed as a lover's confession
55. The Alliterative Revival refers to:
Answer: B) A 14th-century resurgence of alliterative poetry in Middle English
56. "The Awntyrs off Arthure" is:
Answer: B) A romance featuring Gawain
57. The Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure are:
Answer: B) Middle English romances about King Arthur's death
58. "The Siege of Jerusalem" is:
Answer: B) An alliterative poem about the destruction of Jerusalem
59. "Patience" and "Cleanness" (Purity) are poems by:
Answer: B) The Pearl/Gawain poet
60. "Sir Orfeo" is a:
Answer: B) Breton lay about Orpheus and Eurydice
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61. "Havelok the Dane" is:
Answer: B) A romance about a Danish prince in England
62. "King Horn" is considered:
Answer: A) One of the earliest Middle English romances
63. "Emaré" is a Middle English:
Answer: B) Breton lay about a calumniated wife
64. The "Auchinleck manuscript" is significant for:
Answer: B) Preserving many Middle English romances
65. "Floris and Blancheflour" is a:
Answer: B) Oriental romance popular in Middle English
📖 SECTION D: MALORY AND EARLY PRINTED FICTION (Moderate to Hard - 15 Questions)
66. Sir Thomas Malory wrote:
Answer: B) Le Morte Darthur
67. Le Morte Darthur was printed by:
Answer: A) William Caxton
68. William Caxton set up his printing press in England in:
Answer: B) 1476
69. The first book printed in England was:
Answer: B) Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (or possibly an indulgence, but Dictes is the first substantial book)
70. Malory's Le Morte Darthur is primarily based on:
Answer: B) French Arthurian prose cycles and English alliterative poems
71. The "Morte Darthur" is divided into:
Answer: B) 8 books (in Caxton's edition; 21 in Winchester)
72. The final book of Le Morte Darthur deals with:
Answer: B) The death of Arthur and the dissolution of the Round Table
73. The Winchester Manuscript of Malory was discovered in:
Answer: B) 1934
74. "The Tale of Sir Gareth" in Malory is notable for:
Answer: B) Showing the "fair unknown" motif and kitchen knight narrative
75. The Grail quest in Malory involves:
Answer: B) Galahad, Percival, and Bors
76. Caxton's prefaces and epilogues are important for:
Answer: B) Understanding early print culture and readership
77. The "Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur" influenced Malory's treatment of:
Answer: B) The death of Arthur and Lancelot-Guinevere tragedy
78. "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle" deals with:
Answer: B) The "loathly lady" motif and what women most desire
79. The prose style of Malory is characterized by:
Answer: B) Plain, rhythmic prose with "and" (paratactic style)
80. Wynkyn de Worde is significant as:
Answer: B) Caxton's successor who popularized printed romances
📖 SECTION E: ELIZABETHAN FICTION & PROSE NARRATIVE (Hard - 20 Questions)
81. John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) is known for:
Answer: B) The "euphuistic" style of elaborate balanced sentences and classical allusions
82. "Euphuism" is characterized by:
Answer: B) Antithetical constructions, alliteration, and similes from natural history
83. Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller is considered:
Answer: B) One of the earliest English picaresque novels
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84. The protagonist of The Unfortunate Traveller is:
Answer: B) Jack Wilton
85. Robert Greene is known for:
Answer: B) Popular prose romances and pamphlets attacking Shakespeare
86. Greene's Pandosto (1588) is:
Answer: B) A prose romance source for Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale
87. "Menaphon" by Greene is:
Answer: B) An Arcadian romance
88. Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde (1590) is:
Answer: B) A prose romance source for Shakespeare's As You Like It
89. Philip Sidney's Arcadia exists in:
Answer: B) Two versions: the Old Arcadia and the New Arcadia
90. The Arcadia is a:
Answer: B) Pastoral romance combining chivalric adventure with love debates
91. Sidney's "Defence of Poesy" (Apology for Poetry) argues:
Answer: B) That poetry is superior to history and philosophy for teaching virtue
92. The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia refers to:
Answer: B) The published version of Sidney's Arcadia prepared by his sister Mary Sidney Herbert
93. Barnaby Rich's "Farewell to Military Profession" (1581) contains:
Answer: B) Stories including the source for Twelfth Night (Apollonius and Silla)
94. "The Spanish Masquerado" by Greene is:
Answer: B) A prose work capitalizing on anti-Spanish sentiment
95. The "coney-catching" pamphlets by Greene and others describe:
Answer: B) London's criminal underworld and confidence tricks
96. "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton (1621, begun earlier) is:
Answer: B) A vast prose compendium on melancholy mixing scholarship, anecdotes, and stories
97. The frame narrative of The Unfortunate Traveller involves:
Answer: B) Jack Wilton as a page traveling through Europe during the wars
98. Elizabethan prose fiction is characterized by:
Answer: B) A mix of romance, adventure, pastoral, and emerging novelistic elements
99. The transition from medieval romance to Elizabethan fiction shows:
Answer: B) Increasing influence of Italian novellas, classical models, and realistic detail
100. The significance of Elizabethan prose fiction for later literature includes:
Answer: B) Providing sources for Shakespeare and developing prose narrative techniques for the novel
📋 ANSWER KEY SUMMARY & TOPICS COVERED
| Section | Questions | Focus Area |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1-20 | Pre-Chaucerian/Old English |
| B | 21-45 | Chaucer & The Canterbury Tales |
| C | 46-65 | Middle English Romances |
| D | 66-80 | Malory & Early Print |
| E | 81-100 | Elizabethan Fiction |
📌 IMPORTANT TOPICS COVERED:
- ✅ Pre-Chaucerian: Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, elegies, kennings, alliterative verse
- ✅ Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (all major tales), Troilus, dream visions, characterization
- ✅ Middle English: Pearl poet, Langland, Gower, romances (Gawain, Havelok, etc.)
- ✅ Transition: Malory's Morte Darthur, Caxton and print culture
- ✅ Elizabethan: Lyly (Euphuism), Sidney (Arcadia), Greene, Lodge, Nashe (picaresque), prose romance evolution
- ✅ Difficulty Distribution: 20% Easy | 40% Moderate | 40% Hard
These questions test factual knowledge, textual understanding, literary terminology, and critical awareness of the period's development—exactly what UGC NET/SET exams require.
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