Bertolt Brech
1. Apart from Bertolt Brecht others who have influenced Epic theatre are:
1) Erwin Piscator and Antonin Artaud
2) Martin Esslin and Max Reinhardt
3) Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt
4) Constantin Stanislavski and Max Reinhardt
Answer: 3
2. Bertolt Brecht’s concept of theatre was influenced by :
(A) Irwin Piscator
(B) Antonin Artaud
(C) Peter Brook
(D) Eugino Barba
Answer: A
3. Who of the following playwrights rejects the Aristotelian concept of tragic play as imitation of reality ?
(A) G.B. Shaw
(B) Arthur Miller
(C) Bertolt Brecht
(D) John Galsworthy
Answer: C
4. Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children presents the war-torn Europe as its protagonist as she follows troops with her canteenwagon. What is the real name of Mother Courage ?
1. Paula Danckert
2. Anna Fierling
3. Jane Vanstone
4. Jani Lauzon
Answer: 2
5. In Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, which song does Yvette sing to Mother Courage and Kattrin?
(1) “The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth”
(2) “The Fraternization Song”
(3) “The Song of the Great Capitulation”
(4) “The Memorial Song”
Answer: 2
6. Bertolt Brecht’s concept of alienation was a rejection of the idea that realism was the only mode of art a critique of capitalist society should produce. Alienation is best described as
(1) making the audience feel that they do not belong.
(2) distancing artistic conventions to prevent an emotional catharsis.
(3) scripting unnatural behaviour on stage.
(4) a rejection of capitalism or the market.
Answer: 2
7. Bertolt Brecht’s Epic Theatre
(a) turns the spectator into an observer
(b) wears down the spectator’s capacity for action
(c) relies on argument
(d) presents man as a process
(A) (a) and (d) are correct; (b) and (c) are incorrect.
(B) (a), (c) and (d) are correct; (b) is wrong.
(C) (b) and (d) are correct; (a) and (c) are incorrect.
(D) (a), (b) and (c) are correct; (d) is incorrect.
Answer: B
8. What term did Bertolt Brecht use for his mode of drama-writing to distinguish it from traditional theatre?
A- epic theatre
B- . kitchen-sink theatre
C- . musical theatre
D- proletarian theatre
Answer: A
Thomas Mann
1. Which one of the following words best describes the heroes of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Mark Twain’s The Adventure: of Tom Sawyer and Thomas Mann’s The Confessions: of Felix Krull”?
1. Ficelle
2. Picaro
3. Mannequin
4. Philanderer
Answer: 2
2. Who in his preface to Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent makes the following remark?
“the achievement of modern art is that it has ceased to recognize the categories of tragic and comic or the dramatic classifications ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’, and views of life as tragicomedy.”
(1) August Strindberg
(2) Luigi Pirandello
(3) D.H. Lawrence
(4) Thomas Mann
Answer: 4
3. Thomas Mann described the theme of one of his fictional works as “the fascination of death, the triumph of disorder in a life founded on order.” Which of his works was he referring to?
(1) Buddenbrooks
(2) Death in Venice
(3) The Magic Mountain
(4) Doctor Faustus
Answer: 2
4. In the opening pages of one of Thomas Mann’s novels we can see space itself becoming a form of time : “Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive unattached state.”
Which is the novel?
(1) Doctor Faustus
(2) Death in Venice
(3) The Confessions of Felix Krull
(4) The Magic Mountain
Answer: 4
5. Why does Girish Karnad base his play Hayavadana on Thomas Mann’s Transposed Heads ?
(A) It is a mock-heroic transcription of the original Sanskrit tales.
(B) It is concerned with materialism.
(C) It deals with domestic strife.
(D) It deals with ancient times.
Answer: A
6. Which of the following statements about Thomas Mann’s novels is true ?
a. Buddenbrooks is a family saga set in the early decades of the twentieth century.
b. Aschenbach, the writer protagonist in Death in Venice, is preoccupied with classicism, especially with classical ideals of male beauty.
c. In his second winter at the sanatorium, Hans Castorp, protagonist of The Magic Mountain gets lost in a blizzard during a solitary skiing expedition.
d. Adrian Leverkuhn, the modern day Faustus in Mann’s Doctor Faustus is a musician.
The right combination according to the code is :
(1) Only (a) and (c) are correct
(2) Only (b) and (d) are correct
(3) (b), (c) and (d) are correct
(4) (a), (b) and (d) are correct
Answer: 3
7. Which one of the following words best describes the heroes of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Mark Twain’s The Adventure: of Tom Sawyer and Thomas Mann’s The Confessions: of Felix Krull”?
1. Ficelle
2. Picaro
3. Mannequin
4. Philanderer
Answer: 2
8. Which of these plays by Girish Karnad shares its theme with Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads?
A. Tale Danda
B. Yayati
C. Nagamandala
D. Hayavadana
Answer: D
Franz Kafka
1. The enigmatic castle which K. attempts to reach in vain in Franz Kafka’s Castle belongs to
1. Count Westwest
2. Count Aloofwest
3. Count Eastwest
4. Count Stangewest
Answer: 1
2. In Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa one morning found himself changed in his bed to a monstrous kind of vermin. The most difficult thing for Samsa was :
(1) to look at his image in the mirror
(2) to remember what happened the day before
(3) to communicate with anyone
(4) to brush his teeth
Answer: 3
3. Which work by Franz Kafka is also known as The Man Who Disappeared?
(1) The Castle
(2) “Metamorphosis”
(3) “In the Penal Colony”
(4) Amerika
Answer: 4
Gunter Grass
1. As Gunter Grass’s novel The Tin Drum opens we find Oskar Matzerath
(1) on the war front entertaining the soldiers as part of a band of dwarfs.
(2) in a mental hospital writing his story.
(3) admitted in a hospital after his fatal fall in the wine cellar.
(4) watching a ball in which the young ladies ignore his presence.
Answer: 2
2. Günter Grass’s Tin Drum is part of a trilogy known as the Danzig trilogy.
The other two novels are :
(A) The Flounder and Dog Years
(B) The Rat and Cat and Mouse
(C) Cat and Mouse and Dog Years
(D) Crabwalk and The Rat
Answer: C