What literary work best captures a sense of the political turmoil particularly regarding the issue of religion just after the Restoration?
(A) Gay’s Beggar’s Opera
(B) Butler’s Hudibras
(C) Pope’s Dunciad
(D) Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
Answer: (D)
Dryden’s dramatization of Paradise Lost is entitled
(A) All for Love
(B) The State of Innocence
(C) Annus Mirabilis
(D) Religio Medici
Answer: (B)
The first official royal Poet Laureate in English literary history was _______.
(A) Ben Jonson
(B) William Davenant
(C) John Dryden
(D) Thomas Shadwell
Answer: C
The Hind and the Panther Transvers’d to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse is a satire on
(A) Alexander Pope
(B) Jonathan Swift
(C) John Dryden
(D) Samuel Butler
Answer: C
John Dryden described a major English poet as “a rough diamond, and must first be polished ere he shines …..” Identify him:
(1) Geoffrey Chaucer
(2) John Gower
(3) George Herbert
(4) Robert Ilerrick
Answer: 1
The Medall, a poem written by John Dryden in 1681, is sub-titled
(1) A Satire against Sedition
(2) A Satire against Tyranny
(3) A Satire against Greed
(4) A Satire against Apostasy
Answer: 1
One of the following statements about the eponymous saint of Dryden’s “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” is incorrect. Identify that Statement.
1.St. Cecilia’s was a Roman Lady, an early Christian martyr.
2.St. Cecilia’s was an Armenian devotee of the Christian Faith.
3.St. Cecilia’s festival is celebrated on 22 November in England.
4.St. Cecilia’s was a patroness of music who was fabled to have invented the organ.
Answer: 2
John Dryden in his heroic tragedy All for Love takes the story of Shakespeare’s
(A) Troilus and Cressida
(B) The Merchant of Venice
(C) Antony and Cleopatra
(D) Measure for Measure
Answer: (C)
In An Essay of Dramatic Poesy whom does John Dryden refer to as “the most learned and judicious Writer which any Theater ever had” ?
(1) John Webster
(2) Christopher Marlowe
(3) Ben Jonson
(4) William Shakespeare
Answer: 3
John Dryden’s Absalom and Achotophel a
(A) religious tract
(B) political allegory
(C) comic verse epic
(D) comedy
Answer: (B)
Which of the following statements on John Dryden is incorrect ?
(a) John Milton and John Dryden were contemporaries.
(b) Dryden was a Royalist, while Milton fiercely opposed monarchy.
(c) Dryden wrote a play on the Mughal Emperor Humayun.
(d) Dryden was appointed the Poet Laureate of England in 1668.
(A) (a) is incorrect.
(B) (d) is incorrect.
(C) (c) is incorrect.
(D) (b) and (c) are incorrect.
Answer: C
In John Dryden’s Essay on Dramatic Poesy Neander defends the English invention of __________.
(1) romantic comedy
(2) action tragedy
(3) tragi-comedy
(4) morality plays
Answer: 3
John Dryden’s two philosophico-religious poems are
I Absalom and Achitophel
II. A Layman’s Faith
III. Annus Mirabilis
IV. The Hind and the Panther
The right combination according to the code is
(1) I and II
(2) III and I
(3) II and III
(4) II and IV