1.Samuel Johnson’s Lives of Poets (1781) was originally a series of introductions to the poets he wrote for a group of London publishers. They were collected as:
(A) Lives of English Poets: Critical and Biographical Essays.
(B) Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of English Poets.
(C) Notes, Biographical and Critical, on the Works of English Poets.
(D) Lives of English Poets: Biographical and Critical Notes.
Answer: (B)
2.Samuel Johnson’s “Dissertation upon Poetry” is part of which of his following works?
(1) the final section of his preface to Shakespeare
(2) a chapter of his novel Rasselas
(3) the epilogue of his Lives of Poets
(4) one of his Rambler essays
Answer: 2
3. In imitation of which classical poet did Samuel Johnson write his London and The Vanity of Human Wishes?
1. Horace
2. Homer
3. Juvenal
4. Tasso
Answer: 3
4.Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the English Poets combines the following except
(1) analytical criticism
(2) literary history
(3) personal biography
(4) Socratic dialogue
Answer: 4
5.Shakespeare famously neglects to observe Aristotle’s rules concerning the three dramatic unities, and Samuel Johnson undertakes to defend Shakespeare from these criticisms in his Preface to Shakespeare. Which of the Aristotelian dramatic unities does Johnson believe Shakespeare to observe most successfully?
(1) Time
(2) Place
(3) Action
(4) Johnson does not feel that the Aristotelian dramatic unities are important
Answer: 3
6.Who among the following translated Homer?
(1) Thomas Gray
(2) Samuel Johnson
(3) Oliver Goldsmith
(4) Alexander Pope
Answer: 4
7.Match the following :
1. Peter Ackroyd
2. James Boswell
3. Samuel Johnson
4. Richard Ellman
I. James Joyce
II. T. S. Eliot
III. Life of Johnson
IV. Lives of Poets
(A) I-3, II-4, III-1, IV-2
(B) I-4, II-1, III-2, IV-3
I I-1, II-2, III-3, IV-4
(D) I-2, II-3, III-1, IV-4
Answer: (B)
8.Samuel Johnson wrote London in imitation of ……………
(1) Horace
(2) Ovid
(3) Juvenal
(4) Moschus
Answer: 3
9.Samuel Johnson’s use of the term “metaphysical” in a piece of criticism was ………….
(1) approving
(2) disapproving
(3) positive
(4) accidental
Answer: 2
10.Samuel Johnson denounced the metaphysical poets saying, “About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets”. In the biography of which of the following poets in his Lives of Poets did Johnson make this remark ?
(1) John Dryden
(2) Thomas Parnell
(3) Abraham Cowley
(4) Alexander Pope
Answer: 3
11.Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief., was Samuel Johnson’s criticism of a famous poem. Which poem was it?
(1) P.B. Shelley’s “Adonais”
(2) Philip Sidney`s “Astrophel and Stella”
(3) Thomas Gray`s “Elegy Written on a Country Churchyard”
(4) John Miltion`s “Lycidas”
Answer: 4
12.Published in 1604, the first monolingual English Dictionary was
(1) Nathaniel Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
(2) Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language
(3) Robert Cawdrey’s Table Alphabetical
(4) Thomas Blount’s Glossographia
Answer: 3
13.“No man is truly great, who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. Nothing can be said to be great that has a distinct limit, or that borders on something evidently greater than itself. Besides, what is short lived and pampered into mere notoriety, is of a gross and vulgar quality in itself.” This passage describing the quality of greatness is taken from
(A) “Of studies” by Francis Bacon
(B) “The Indian Jugglers” by William Hazlitt
(C) Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson
(D) An Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden
Answer: B
14.“I suffered from impaired eye-sight, depression and poverty and left Oxford without a degree. After a period as a teacher and my marriage to a widow twice my age, I left for London, to begin writing for a magazine, I produced my own journal.” Choose the correct answer, identifying the writer, the magazine and the journal.
(1)John Milton, The Examiner’s Magazine, London Magazine
(2)Joseph Addison, The Freeholder, The Tatler
(3)Richard Steele, The Guardian, The Spectator
(4)Samuel Johnson, The Gentlemen’s Magazine, The Rambler
Answer: 4