1. John Donne is, in some sense, the originator of metaphysical poetry. But who is most closely associated with the “founding” of neoclassical poetry?

a)William Wordsworth
b)Alexander Pope
c)Ben Jonson
d)George Herbert

2. Which of the following is not generally considered to be a neoclassical poet?

a)John Dryden
b)Henry Vaughan
c)Alexander Pope
d)Ben Jonson

3. Which of the following is not a common feature of neoclassical poetry?

a)Imitation of classical forms and allusion to mythology
b)An effort to represent human nature
c)Use of the rhymed couplet
d)Fantastic comparisons

4. Neoclassicists tended to view poetry as the result of genius overflowing from the mind out onto the page. They also considered poetry to be an expression of the individual, inner self.

a)True
b)False

5. Most neoclassical poets viewed the world in terms of a strictly ordered hierarchy. What was this hierarchy called?

a)The Way of the World
b)The Foundational Ladder
c)The Order of Angels
d)The Great Chain of Being

6. He wrote both religious and secular poetry. One of his poems urged virgins to make the most of their time.

a)Ben Jonson
b)Alexander Pope
c)Robert Herrick
d)John Dryden

7. Why didn’t Alexander Pope attend an English university?

a)He lived in Italy until the age of 27
b)Asthma, headaches, and spinal deformity made him an invalid
c)He was a Catholic, and therefore forbidden from attending
d)He just wasn’t bright enough

8. Alexander Pope coined many a modern day cliché. Which of the following did not originate with him?

a)To err is human, to forgive divine
b)Let not the sun go down upon your wrath
c)A little learning is a dangerous thing
d)Fools rush in where angels fear to tread


9. John Dryden wrote “Absalom and Achitophel.” Who was Achitophel, historically speaking?

a)King David’s son
b)A Judge of Israel
c)Bathsheba’s first husband
d)Absalom’s advisor

10. Who did Dryden use Absalom to represent, allegorically, in his satire “Absalom and Achitophel”?

a)The Duke of Monmouth
b)Charles II
c)The Earl of Shaftesbury
d)Cromwell

11. Complete this famous quote by John Dryden: “Who think too little, and who talk too ____”

a)often
b)long
c)much
d)fast

12. What Pope poem begins, “In these deep solitudes and awful cells, / Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells, / And ever-musing melancholy reigns; / What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?”

a)The Rape of the Lock
b)Solitude: An Ode
c)The Dunciad
d)Eloisa to Abelard

13. Pope made money by selling subscriptions to his translation of this classical epic.

a)The Bahagavad Gita
b)The Odyssey
c)The Illiad
d)The Aeneid

14. This famous neoclassical poet wrote on profound themes such as death, but he also had a lighter side. He once wrote an ode to a cat drowned in a tub of gold fishes.

a)Alexander Pope
b)William Collins
c)Thomas Gray
d)Ben Jonson

15. His “To Penthurst” is considered to be one of the primary texts of the neoclassical movement.

a)Sir John Denham
b)Ben Jonson
c)Thomas Carew
d)John Dryden

16. Sir John Denham commemorated this poet, referring to him as “Old Chaucer” who, “like the morning star”, descends “to the shades,” so that “Darkness again the Age invades.”

a)William Shakespeare
b)John Donne
c)Abraham Cowley
d)John Dryden

17. What mock epic begins: “What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things”?

a)Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe”
b)Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”
c)Pope’s “The Dunciad”
d)Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel”

18.When the Parliament, controlled by the puritans, took power in England, one of the acts that greatly influenced Literature of that time was


1)c
2)b
3)d
4)b
5)d
6)c
7)c
8)b
9)d
10)a
11)c
12)d
13)c
14)c
15)b
16)c
17)b
18)a