So You Think You Know English Literature [by David Lehman]

(1) When Shakespeare wrote about “bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” he was referring to
(a) the indomitable will of the British people
(b) the lamentable condition of churches in the south of England
(c) Autumn
(d) his old age and impending death
(e) trees

(2) One of Milton’s sonnets concludes, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” The subject of the sonnet is
(a) the wait staff in London’s legendarily overpriced restaurants
(b) the attendants at the Last Supper
(c) the mob cheering the beheading of King Charles
(d) blindness, his
(e) death, his wife’s

(3) “The soul selects her own society” and the lines that follow were written by
(a) a man
(b) a woman
(c)  the child (e.g., “the child is father to the man”)
(d) Tennyson
(e) Magna Carta

(4) According to T. S. Eliot, which of the months is “cruelest”?
(a)  November
(b) "A drear-nighted December"
(c) “All seasons are cruel to the craftsman who would do a good job.”
(d) “Midwinter spring”
(e) Free verse

(5) Match the novel and the character:
Pride and Prejudice                   Isabel Archer
Crime and Punishment              Hiawatha
War and Peace                          Venus
The Power and the Glory           Beyonce
The Naked and the Dead           Queequeeg

Tune in tomorrow for yesterday's answers and more of the same! -- DL

Comments

[Elle]

I'll take a stab:
1) c, e
2) d
3) b
4) e
5) Jane Austen, Dostoyevski, Tolsoy, Henry James, Melville?