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modern poetry and poetics MCQs

Practise focused modern poetry and poetics questions with marked answers for exam preparation and subject revision.

modern poetry and poetics Mcqs
1. Complete the following sentence. Yeatss Sailing to Byzantium is a good example of High Modernism, because it_____________?
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A. attempts to create a modernist high culture.

B. was written at the very beginning of the 20th century.

C. embraces the rhythms and diction of common mans speech.

D. does not employ rhyme.

2. Professor Hammer points out that T.S. Eliot used quotation as an important literary technique. The use of quotations, according to Professor Hammer, suggests which of the following attitudes to the past ?
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A. Curiosity about the past

B. Deference to the past

C. Violation of the past

D. Paradoxically both B and C
3. Professor Hammer argues that Hart Cranes poem Voyages is a complex reply to which of the following modernist works ?
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A. T.S. Eliots The Waste Land

B. Ezra Pounds Cantos

C. Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks of Rivers

D. T.S. Eliots A Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

4. According to Langston Hughess essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (his answer to George Schuylers essay Negro Art Hokum), what is the mountain that stands in the way of any true Negro art in America ?
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A. It is the racial discrimination endemic in the white community.

B. It is a widespread urge toward whiteness among African Americans.

C. It is a widespread urge to incorporate and neutralize other cultures among white Americans.

D. It is the racial segregation in the South.

5. The poem Dulce et Decorum Est ends with the following lines: My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory,/The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est/ Pro patria mori. Which of the following statements best describes these lines ?
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A. Brookes inclusion of a quotation from Horace in these lines serves to emphasize

B. distance between the ideals ofWestern civilization and its realities.

C. In these lines, Brooke seeks to bridge the gap between individual experience and cultural norms and beliefs.

D. These lines suggest the authors anger and disillusionment with cultural norms which glorify war.

E. All of the above
6. Which of the following statements best characterizes American World War II poems ?
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A. They tend to use classical imagery while rejecting romantic tropes.

B. They tend to be narrative and confront the reader with stark wartime realities.

C. They tend to use traditional rhyme schemes and rhythms, and they avoid free verse.

D. They tend to use metaphors and avoid direct descriptive statements.

7. Which of the following phrases best describes the central goal of Imagist poets ?
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A. Inclusion of natural objects as symbols

B. Emotional power achieved through suggestive visual images

C. Clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images

D. Exploration of philosophical paradoxes through visual images

8. In the first lecture of his Modern Poetry course, what argument does Professor Langdon Hammer make about the relationship between the modern city and poetic modernism ?
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A. Many languages and many forms of language were used in large cities; modernist poets often treated language not as something given and natural but as a construct which they could manipulate.

B. All of these answers

C. Most modernist poets lived in large cities; therefore, they often used urban imagery in their poetry.

D. Individuals often felt lost and alienated in large cities, and among poets this resulted in turning inward and focusing only on the world of ones own imagination.

9. Which of the following poets wrote about World War II ?
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A. Rupert Brooke

B. Hart Crane

C. Karl Shapiro

D. Rudyard Kipling

10. Ezra Pounds Canto I opens with the following lines: And then went down to the ship,/Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and(). Which of the following statements best characterizes these lines and the poem as a whole ?
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A. These lines are the only impersonal lines in the poem, the rest of which is primarily focused on the complexity of human emotions.

B. These lines set an impersonal tone which dominates the entire poem.

C. These lines establish a personal tone, focusing on a lyrical perspective similar to late-Victorian era poetry.

D. These lines establish a rhythmical pattern, which is followed strictly throughout the poem.

11. Complete the following sentence. Matthew Arnolds poem Dover Beach is illustrative of modernist poetry, because it________________?
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A. is chauvinistic about British exceptionalism.

B. employs free verse.

C. was composed between WW I and WW II.

D. has an undertow of nihilism.
12. Which of the following statements best characterizes Langston Hughess poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers ?
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A. Hughes uses a universal speaker for an exploration of a profound racial divide between blacks and whites.

B. The poem is an indictment of racial prejudice in Harlem.

C. The poem is an analytical exploration of racial differences in the United States.

D. Similar to Hart Crane and Whitman, Hughes uses a personal and universal I to address issues of history, race, and identity.
13. Which of the following features of Robert Brownings My Last Duchess make it classifiable as a Victorian poem ?
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A. It has a regular rhyme scheme (aa/bb/cc/dd), which is sustained throughout the poem.

B. All of these answers

C. It is primarily a narrative poem.

D. It is concerned with conventional 19thcentury relations between a man and a woman.

14. Which of the following statements best characterizes the formal qualities of Langston Hughess poem Life is Fine ?
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A. The diction is much more polysyllabic than monosyllabic.

B. This poem is structured like a villanelle.

C. The use of alternating end rhymes and word repetitions enhance the music of the poem and along with its occasional dissonance give it an improvisational jazz-like quality.

D. It is written in Standard American English for middle-class readers.

15. According to Professor Hammer, which of the following characteristics did Langston Hughes share with modernist poets like William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost ?
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A. Hughes was very conscious that he

B. an American poet, and this profoundly influenced his writing.

C. Hughes wrote about the legacy of the American Civil War and its long-term cultural consequences.

D. Hughes introduced new subject-matter and new language into poetry.

E. Both A and C
16. Professor Hammer argues that in a certain sense Wallace Stevenss poetry is always meta-poetry. What does this mean ?
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A. Stevenss poetry always addresses several different audiences.

B. Stevenss poetry highlights an objective voice.

C. Stevenss poetry is primarily, though not explicitly, concerned with metaphysics.

D. Stevenss poetry investigates its own rules.
17. According to Professor Hammer, Wallace Stevenss understanding of the imagination has most in common with which of the following literary traditions ?
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A. British Romanticism

B. Imagism

C. Vorticism

D. Classicism

18. Which of the following poets did NOTwrite about his experiences in World War II ?
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A. Wilfred Owen

B. Keith Douglas

C. Randall Jarrell

D. Karl Shapiro

19. In his first lecture onWilliam Butler Yeats, Professor Hammer says that the young Yeats identified with King Goll. What does he mean by this ?
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A. Yeatss poetry was autobiographical, but he understood his life through the prism of myths and symbols; symbolism was therefore present in both Yeatss life and in his poetry.

B. Yeats believed that each person was an instance of a general cultural type or symbol.

C. The young Yeats wished to emphasize his identity as an English poet and draw attention away from his Irish heritage.

D. Both A and B
20. Generally speaking, African-American themes were very rare in white modernist poetry. Which of the following white poets attempted to evoke elements of black experience in his or her poems ?
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A. William Carlos Williams

B. H.D.

C. T.S. Eliot

D. Hart Crane
21. Which of the following statements best characterizes the last two stanzas of Charles Baudelaires symbolist poem Correspondences ?
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A. They describe a scene in the countryside, which symbolizes the state of the authors soul.

B. They use metaphors with subtle political connotations.

C. They ascribe colors and sounds to scents, relying on a device known as synesthesia.

D. They describe the authors experiences as a young child.

22. What is the double-bind that African- American women poets encountered in the thirties and forties, according to Anthony Waltons essay ?
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A. Being ignored by a traditional poetry reading public because what they wrote about was the travails of subsistence living

B. Being a subordinated woman in a male dominated culture and a member of a suppressed minority race in the middle of a dominant white culture

C. Being overworked in menial jobs having to raise large families

D. Having little formal education with little access to publishers

23. What is the most notable characteristic of Ezra Pounds In a Station at the Metro ?
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A. The use of simile

B. The form of a villanelle

C. The use of synesthesia

D. The use of metaphor
24. In Amy Lowells imagist poem, This Green Bowl, a handmade bowl is compared to a pond in the woods. Can one say that, as in Pounds Cantos, this poems dominant tone is impersonal? Why, or why not ?
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A. Yes, the lyrical voice in Lowells poem seeks to express universal rather than individual experience.

B. No, even though Lowell strives for impersonal expression by borrowing poetic devices from Pound, she fails to accomplish this

C. Yes, Lowells detailed description of nature draws attention away from human realities.

D. No, Lowells poem is not impersonal; it addresses the maker of the bowl directly and speculates about his state of mind.
25. Which of the following statements best characterizes the form of Claude McKays poem The Harlem Dancer ?
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A. It is a Spenserian sonnet.

B. It is an Italian sonnet.

C. It is an English sonnet.

D. It is a free verse poem.

26. Langston Hughes was among the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Which of the following is an accurate characterization of his experiences before he published his first book ?
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A. He was a native New Yorker who did not travel much but who was keenly aware of New Yorks complexity and diversity.

B. He was born in Missouri and traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world before he moved to New York City.

C. He moved to New York from Alabama and the stark contrast between these places deeply influenced his writing.

D. He spent most of his life in Washington, DC, moving to Harlem only after he gained literary fame.

27. Which of the following writers was among the founders of the Imagist movement ?
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A. Salvador Dali

B. Horace Greeley

C. Ezra Pound

D. Rupert Brooke

28. Which of the following images in Arthur Rimbauds poem Eternity undermines the idea that eternity is something fixed and permanent ?
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A. The image of a sentinel

B. The image of the sun reflected on the sea

C. The image of a quest for knowledge

D. The image of satiny embers

29. Which of the following statements best characterizes Ezra Pounds poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley ?
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A. It is primarily a narrative poem.

B. It uses iambic pentameter to achieve tonal fluidity.

C. Its intensity derives from the combination of modern subject matter and alexandrine couplets.

D. It undermines the idea of a single lyrical voice by using diverse cultural symbols and numerous phrases in various languages.
30. Which of the following figures is the author of the 1909 Futurist Manifesto ?
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A. Filippo Marinetti

B. Umberto Boccioni

C. Vladimir Mayakovsky

D. Aleksander Wat

31. Siegfried Sassoons The Dragon and the Undying includes the following lines: Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze,/Vocal are they, like stormbewilderd seas. Which of the following literary devices does Sassoon use in these lines and to what effect ?
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A. Metaphor to suggest a connection between soldiers and nature

B. Simile to suggest a connection between soldiers and nature

C. Metonymy to describe the brutality of modern warfare

D. Onomatopoeia to describe the brutality of modern warfare

32. Which of the following statements best characterizes the contrast between T.S. Eliots The Waste Land and the futurist aesthetic project ?
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A. The Waste Land confronts the fragmentation of modernity by exploring a variety of modes and voices, whereas the futurists do not focus on the fragmentation of modern experience, praising speed and industrial progress instead.

B. The Waste Land is primarily concerned with nature, whereas the futurists are most interested in industrial and urban landscapes.

C. The Waste Land is an ironic exploration of Romantic themes, whereas the futurists incorporate ironic evocations of the classical tradition in their poetry.

D. The Waste Land focuses on the personal connection between poet and speaker, whereas the futurists focus on an impersonal connection between humans and industry.

33. Which of the following political themes was explored by American Objectivist poets ?
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A. American attitudes toward Jews and Israel

B. Slavery

C. Capitalism and social inequalities

D. All of these answers
34. Which of the following statements does NOT characterize the poet e. e. cummings ?
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A. Ivy League educated

B. Active pacifist during both world wars

C. Popularized the use of free verse

D. A private and self-effacing person
35. Which of the following poets would most likely be categorized as a modernist poet ?
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A. George Herbert

B. John Greenleaf Whittier

C. William Carlos Williams

D. Robert Browning

36. How can we live in this fear says one./From day to day says another. ?
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A. Fear of the failure of a segregated educational system

B. Fear of global nuclear war

C. Fear of the AIDs crisis

D. Fear of the economic Great Depression

37. What was the primary significance of The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson ?
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A. It established an authoritative and unquestionable canon of African American poetry.

B. It provided literary criticism on African American poetry.

C. It presented African American writers to a previously indifferent white audience.

D. It inspired Harlem Renaissance writers to establish a tradition of African American poetry.
38. Which of the following was NOT a prominent theme of American and English modernist poetry ?
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A. The approval of the norms and values of bourgeois culture

B. The search for a new poetic language and the idea that language can be reinvented by poets

C. The quest to describe objects with precision and without emotion

D. The idea that the self is neither unitary nor permanently stable

39. According to Professor Hammer, which of the following is the central question explored by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land ?
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A. How can a shared world be created out of the fundamentally different and private experiences of individual people?

B. Given the diversity of the worlds poetic traditions, can there be a universal language of poetic symbolism?

C. Is authentic poetry possible in the aftermath of the carnage of World War I?

D. Given that each person experiences trauma differently, is it possible for all to understand the modern world as a shared waste land?

40. Which of the following traditions was an important influence on Louis Zukofskys poetry ?
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A. Kabalistic Judaism

B. British Neo-Classicism

C. Taoism

D. American Romanticism

41. Ezra Pounds Cantos may be called a modernist epic, though its form ultimately defies classification. Pounds poem alludes to which of the following epic poems ?
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A. The Aeneid

B. The Odyssey

C. The Mahabharata

D. Paradise Lost

42. Rupert Brookes The Soldier opens with the following lines: If I should die, think only this of me:/That theres some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England. Which of the following statements best describes these lines and Brookes poem as a whole ?
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A. These lines and the poem as a whole use both the political concept of a nation and the spiritual concept of eternity to give meaning to soldiers deaths on the battlefield.

B. These lines and the poem as a whole are primarily concerned with the extension of Britains imperial power.

C. These lines and the poem as a whole seek to directly express the horrors of war.

D. These lines and the poem as a whole rely on assonance to magnify the critique of war expressed in the poem.

43. WorldWar I drastically changed the political and cultural climate in Europe. Which of the following was NOT among the changes brought about by World War I ?
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A. In the course of World War I, the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia.

B. Germany was defeated and blamed for causing the war.

C. Successful parliamentary democracies were established throughout the continent and remained stable until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

D. By the end of the 1920s, almost every state that had participated in World War I faced an economic depression and political upheavals.

44. In T.S. Eliots essay called Tradition and Individual Talent, he argues that the progress of an artist consists of which of the following ?
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A. Continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality

B. Continual transformation of the personality

C. Continual identification with the past

D. Continual expansion of the personality and its diverse elements

45. Ezra Pounds Canto XIV opens with the line Io venni in luogo dogni luce muto [I came to a place devoid of light]. This creates a connection between the Canto and which of the following works ?
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A. Goethes Faust

B. Miltons Paradise Lost

C. Dantes Divine Comedy

D. Thomas Manns Doctor Faustus
46. Which of the following events increased the appeal of communism among American intellectuals both black and white in the years between 1918 and 1939 ?
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A. Hitlers invasion of Poland in 1939

B. The Great Depression

C. World War I

D. The Russian Civil War

47. Which of the following writers wrote about trench warfare during the Great War ?
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A. All of these answers

B. Siegfried Sassoon

C. Isaac Rosenberg

D. Wilfred Owen

48. Which of the following was an important influence on Charles Reznikoffs shift away from romantic rhetoric ?
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A. His study of ancient history

B. His study of law

C. His study of medicine

D. His study of Sanskrit

49. Professor Hammer argues that Marianne Moores poem England suggests which of the following ?
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A. Moores particular kind of combative American cultural nationalism

B. Moores harsh critique of the carnage of World War I

C. Moores emotional and aesthetic attachment to England

D. Moores interest in Englands civilizing mission in the world

50. Which of the following literary devices is most prominent in Gertrude Steins poem New ?
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A. Metaphor and allusion

B. Circumlocution

C. Assonance and word repetition

D. Simile