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CLEP English Literature practice questions

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Question 1Middle Ages

In the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims are described as gathering at which location before setting out?

  1. The White Hart in Winchester
  2. The Tabard Inn in Southwark Correct answer.
  3. The Angel at Canterbury
  4. The Bell in Oxford

Explanation

Chaucer opens the General Prologue by placing the narrator at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, where the company assembles before riding toward Canterbury. The inn belongs to the Host, Harry Bailly, who later proposes the storytelling contest.

Question 2Middle Ages

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, what color is the mysterious knight who rides into Arthur's hall?

  1. Silver
  2. Scarlet
  3. Green Correct answer.
  4. Black

Explanation

The intruder is entirely green in hair, skin, and clothing, and his horse is green as well. This striking color links him to nature, fertility, and the otherworld, and it gives the poem its usual modern title.

Question 3Middle Ages

Which medieval English work is a dream vision in which the narrator searches for the meaning of a series of allegorical dreams about a lady and a garden?

  1. The Romance of the Rose Correct answer.
  2. The Owl and the Nightingale
  3. The Book of the Duchess
  4. Piers Plowman

Explanation

The Romance of the Rose is a dream vision set in a walled garden where the lover seeks the Rose, an allegory of his lady. Its French original by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun was partly translated into Middle English, and it shaped later English dream poems.

Question 4Middle Ages

In Piers Plowman, the figure of Piers is best described as which kind of character?

  1. A plowman who becomes a guide to truth and salvation Correct answer.
  2. A wandering minstrel who tells romances
  3. A corrupt friar who sells indulgences
  4. A courtly knight serving a feudal lord

Explanation

Piers begins as an honest agricultural laborer but grows into a symbolic guide who leads the folk toward Truth and later becomes associated with Christ. His transformation lets Langland connect ordinary labor with spiritual authority.

Question 5Middle Ages

Which form does the Pearl poet use for Pearl, with stanzas linked by repeated refrain words?

  1. Prose interspersed with Latin hymns
  2. Alliterative long lines without rhyme
  3. Rhymed stanzas with a recurring refrain word Correct answer.
  4. Blank verse in iambic pentameter

Explanation

Pearl is built of rhymed stanzas of twelve lines that end with a refrain, and each stanza's key word is echoed at the start of the next stanza. This intricate linking, together with alliteration, makes the poem one of the most technically elaborate Middle English works.

Question 6Middle Ages

In Everyman, what does the protagonist learn about the companions he first trusts, such as Fellowship and Goods?

  1. They abandon him when he must make his final journey Correct answer.
  2. They betray him to the authorities
  3. They will accompany him only if he pays them
  4. They prove more loyal than Good Deeds

Explanation

Everyman discovers that Fellowship, Kindred, and Goods all refuse to go with him to death, since each is bound to the world. Only Good Deeds, and the knowledge and confession that strengthen her, can accompany him before God.

Question 7Middle Ages

Which feature most clearly marks Everyman as a morality play rather than a mystery play?

  1. It is performed in Latin by clergy
  2. It presents allegorical figures representing abstract qualities Correct answer.
  3. It dramatizes biblical episodes such as the Nativity
  4. It retells the life of a saint

Explanation

Morality plays stage abstractions such as Fellowship, Goods, and Good Deeds to teach a moral lesson about the soul's salvation. Mystery plays dramatize scriptural events, and saint plays dramatize a saint's life, so allegorical personification is the distinguishing feature here.

Question 8Middle Ages

In the morality-play tradition, the character who tempts the protagonist toward sin is conventionally called which figure?

  1. The Vice Correct answer.
  2. The Messenger
  3. The Doctor
  4. The Expositor

Explanation

The Vice is the conventional tempter and mischief-maker of late medieval and Tudor morality drama, often a comic and disruptive figure. The Expositor explains the action, while the Messenger and Doctor frame the play rather than tempt the hero.

Question 9Middle Ages

In the Wakefield Master's Second Shepherds' Pageant, what does the comic sheep-stealing episode with Mak ultimately serve to do?

  1. Set up a contrast with the true Lamb born at Bethlehem Correct answer.
  2. Satirize the legal courts of Wakefield
  3. Mock the shepherds' poverty as deserved
  4. Replace the Nativity with a secular farce

Explanation

Mak hides a stolen sheep and passes it off as a newborn child, and the shepherds discover the trick. The absurd parody of a birth prepares for the genuine birth of Christ, whose adoration follows the farce.

Question 10Middle Ages

What is the usual term for the four-line stanza form used in many Middle English lyrics, rhyming abab?

  1. Heroic couplet
  2. Ballad stanza Correct answer.
  3. Ottava rima
  4. Rhyme royal

Explanation

The ballad stanza consists of four lines rhyming abab, often alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. It is the staple form of popular narrative song and appears in many Middle English lyrics and later ballads.

Question 11Middle Ages

The Middle English lyric beginning 'Sumer is icumen in' is best known for which quality?

  1. Its lament for a dead patron
  2. Its account of a sea voyage
  3. Its attack on the friars
  4. Its celebration of the arrival of spring Correct answer.

Explanation

The lyric welcomes summer with birdsong, blooming plants, and the lowing of cattle, making it one of the earliest English nature lyrics. Its refrain 'Lhude sing cuccu' celebrates seasonal renewal rather than mourning or satire.

Question 12Middle Ages

In Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, what is the main source of the story?

  1. Boccaccio's Il Filostrato Correct answer.
  2. Dante's Divine Comedy
  3. Virgil's Aeneid
  4. Ovid's Metamorphoses

Explanation

Chaucer adapts Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, expanding and deepening the psychological portrayal of the lovers. The Trojan setting derives from classical legend, but the immediate narrative source is Boccaccio's poem.

Question 13Middle Ages

Which description best fits the genre of The Book of the Duchess?

  1. A prose treatise on the seven deadly sins
  2. A fabliau about a tricked carpenter
  3. A verse translation of a French romance
  4. A dream vision elegy consoling a bereaved lover Correct answer.

Explanation

Chaucer's poem presents a narrator who dreams of a mourning knight and learns that the knight has lost his lady. The consolation offered to the bereaved figure is generally read as elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster.

Question 14Middle Ages

In the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath is identified by which detail concerning her marriages?

  1. She has had five husbands and seeks a sixth Correct answer.
  2. She has never married and vows chastity
  3. She is widowed once and remains loyal
  4. She is a nun who left her convent

Explanation

Chaucer says she has had five husbands at the church door and welcomes a sixth, which sets up her later defense of marriage and marital authority. Her cloth-making skill and pilgrimage travels make her one of the most vivid figures in the Prologue.

Question 15Middle Ages

In the General Prologue, how does Chaucer present the Parson?

  1. As a wealthy cleric who neglects his parish
  2. As a worldly monk who prefers hunting
  3. As a summoner who takes bribes
  4. As a poor but devout priest who teaches and visits his flock Correct answer.

Explanation

The Parson is poor in goods but rich in holy thought and work, preaching and visiting his parishioners on foot in all weather. He contrasts sharply with the worldly clergy elsewhere in the Prologue.

Question 16Middle Ages

In The Canterbury Tales, which tale is a beast fable about a rooster named Chauntecleer?

  1. The Pardoner's Tale
  2. The Franklin's Tale
  3. The Nun's Priest's Tale Correct answer.
  4. The Reeve's Tale

Explanation

The Nun's Priest's Tale recounts the dream and near-capture of the rooster Chauntecleer by the fox Daun Russell. It is a mock-heroic beast fable that plays with dream lore and flattery.

Question 17Middle Ages

In the Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale, the Wife cites which authority to argue for experience over written texts?

  1. The Bible alone, rejecting all other books
  2. The teachings of the Pardoner
  3. The decrees of the Church councils
  4. Her own experience of five marriages Correct answer.

Explanation

She opens by claiming that experience, backed by her five husbands, gives her the right to speak about marriage against clerical authority. She does cite scripture and Jerome, but she uses them to argue her own case rather than to submit to them.

Question 18Middle Ages

Which statement accurately describes the alliterative verse form of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

  1. Each stanza is a sonnet in the Petrarchan pattern
  2. Each line has four stresses and is linked by alliteration, often with a bob and wheel stanza ending Correct answer.
  3. Each line has exactly eight syllables with no alliteration
  4. Each line is a rhymed pentameter couplet

Explanation

The poem uses the alliterative long line of four stressed positions, with alliteration binding the halves, and closes its stanzas with a short bob and a rhymed wheel. This form belongs to the West Midland alliterative revival and is not syllabic or rhymed throughout.

Question 19Middle Ages

Which medieval English work presents a debate between two birds over the merits of asceticism and worldly pleasure?

  1. The House of Fame
  2. The Parliament of Fowls
  3. The Owl and the Nightingale Correct answer.
  4. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale

Explanation

The Owl and the Nightingale sets a solemn, ascetic owl against a lively, amorous nightingale in a formal debate. The poem uses the bird dispute to explore serious questions of love, religion, and judgment.

Question 20Middle Ages

In Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, which image does she famously use to describe the created world in relation to God?

  1. A great fortress
  2. A burning ship
  3. A golden crown
  4. A hazelnut Correct answer.

Explanation

Julian describes being shown a small thing like a hazelnut and understands that it is the whole created world, which exists only because God loves it. The image expresses the contingency and smallness of creation beside divine love.

Question 2116th and early 17th Century

In Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, what does Faustus initially ask Mephistopheles to provide him, before the demon explains the limits of his power?

  1. A wife Correct answer.
  2. A map of the world
  3. A book of magic
  4. A suit of armor

Explanation

Early in the play Faustus demands a wife, and Mephistopheles deflects by offering a devil dressed as a woman, since marriage is a sacrament unavailable to the damned. This episode foreshadows the pattern in which Faustus's grand ambitions collapse into trivial requests.

Question 2216th and early 17th Century

Which feature most distinguishes the revenge tragedy as practiced by Thomas Kyd and later adapted by Shakespeare and others in the late sixteenth century?

  1. A ghost demanding vengeance and a revenger who delays Correct answer.
  2. A pastoral setting with shepherds and nymphs
  3. A chorus of citizens commenting on the action
  4. A plot resolved by a royal marriage

Explanation

The revenge tragedy typically involves a ghost urging vengeance and a protagonist whose procrastination structures the plot, as in The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet. This pattern distinguishes the genre from comedy or pastoral romance.

Question 2316th and early 17th Century

In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I, whom does the Redcrosse Knight accompany and later abandon before his encounter with Duessa?

  1. Gloriana
  2. Belphoebe
  3. Britomart
  4. Una Correct answer.

Explanation

Redcrosse travels with Una, the lady representing truth and the true church, and is separated from her through the deceptions of Archimago. His later alliance with Duessa marks his moral error before his restoration.

Question 2416th and early 17th Century

A student argues that the allegory in Book I of The Faerie Queene operates on more than one level at once. Which observation best supports this claim?

  1. The poem uses only one consistent level of meaning from canto to canto
  2. The characters are historical persons identifiable with named courtiers
  3. Redcrosse can be read simultaneously as an individual knight, as a representative of holiness, and as England or Everyman Correct answer.
  4. The allegory is confined to the poem's dedicatory sonnets

Explanation

Spenser's allegory is famously multiple, allowing a single figure to signify a moral virtue, a psychological state, and a national or ecclesiastical identity at once. This layered signification is what critics call the poem's 'dark conceit.'

Question 2516th and early 17th Century

Which metrical form did Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, introduce into English poetry and Shakespeare later perfect in his sonnets?

  1. The blank verse line Correct answer.
  2. The ballad stanza
  3. The Spenserian stanza
  4. The Italian sonnet

Explanation

Surrey is credited with pioneering English blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, in his translation of the Aeneid, a form later central to Elizabethan drama. The sonnet form he used was the English or Shakespearean pattern, not the Italian one.

Question 2616th and early 17th Century

In Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, what is the central tension that drives the sonnet sequence?

  1. The speaker's grief over the death of a patron
  2. The speaker's desire for Stella conflicts with his professed idealism and with her virtue Correct answer.
  3. The speaker's rivalry with a fellow poet for royal patronage
  4. The speaker's conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism

Explanation

Sidney's sequence dramatizes the speaker's frustrated desire for Stella and his self-aware struggle between passion and virtue. The famous opening sonnet presents him as 'loving in truth' yet seeking rhetorical invention to woo her.

Question 2716th and early 17th Century

Which poem by John Donne uses a compass as an extended conceit to describe the union of two lovers?

  1. The Sun Rising
  2. Batter my heart, three-personed God
  3. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Correct answer.
  4. The Flea

Explanation

'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' compares the lovers' souls to the twin legs of a compass, one fixed and one circling back to it. The conceit argues for spiritual union despite physical separation.

Question 2816th and early 17th Century

Which best describes the metaphysical conceit as practiced by Donne and his followers?

  1. An elaborate, often startling comparison drawn from science, geography, or everyday objects Correct answer.
  2. A brief pastoral simile in the classical manner
  3. A rhyming couplet that closes a sonnet
  4. A stock comparison inherited from Petrarchan convention

Explanation

The metaphysical conceit yokes together apparently dissimilar ideas through an extended and intellectually ingenious comparison, frequently drawing on contemporary learning. Its wit and argumentative force distinguish it from conventional Petrarchan imagery.

Question 2916th and early 17th Century

In Ben Jonson's Volpone, what stratagem drives the plot?

  1. Volpone feigns mortal illness so that legacy-hunters will offer him gifts Correct answer.
  2. Volpone stages a masque to expose court corruption
  3. Volpone disguises himself as a woman to seduce a merchant's wife
  4. Volpone forges a will naming himself heir to a nobleman

Explanation

Volpone pretends to be dying so that would-be heirs shower him with gifts in hope of inheriting his fortune. The dupes' greed, orchestrated with Mosca, drives the comic action toward its judgment scene.

Question 3016th and early 17th Century

In The Alchemist, what circumstance allows Subtle, Face, and Doll Common to operate their con game?

  1. The household has been inherited by a naive young heir
  2. A royal proclamation has outlawed alchemy in London
  3. Lovewit has left London to escape the plague, leaving Face in charge of the house Correct answer.
  4. A fire has destroyed the neighboring properties

Explanation

Lovewit's absence from London during a plague season gives Face access to the house, which the trio turns into a site for fleecing gullible clients. The return of the master precipitates the play's crisis and resolution.

Question 3116th and early 17th Century

Which description best characterizes the 'country house poem' as exemplified by Jonson's 'To Penshurst'?

  1. A poem lamenting the decay of a ruined aristocratic manor
  2. A poem praising an estate as a model of natural abundance and virtuous hospitality Correct answer.
  3. A poem describing a royal progress through rural villages
  4. A poem celebrating the commercial wealth of a city merchant

Explanation

The country house poem celebrates an estate whose land yields freely and whose owner practices generous hospitality, contrasting virtuous rural order with courtly excess. 'To Penshurst' is the model for the genre.

Question 3216th and early 17th Century

In Shakespeare's sonnets, what does the speaker urge the 'fair youth' to do in the early 'procreation' sonnets?

  1. Preserve his beauty by refusing all human contact
  2. Marry and have children so that his beauty will survive in his offspring Correct answer.
  3. Return the poet's love without delay
  4. Abandon poetry for a life at court

Explanation

The opening sequence of the sonnets argues that the young man should reproduce so his beauty is perpetuated in a child. This 'increase' theme gives way later to the claim that the poet's verse will preserve him.

Question 3316th and early 17th Century

Which line from a Shakespeare sonnet uses a seasonal metaphor to describe the approach of old age?

  1. 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'
  2. 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments'
  3. 'That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang' Correct answer.
  4. 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'

Explanation

Sonnet 73 opens with autumnal imagery of yellowing leaves to figure the speaker's aging, developing the metaphor across the quatrains. The other lines open sonnets built on different central comparisons.

Question 3416th and early 17th Century

In Hamlet, what does the Ghost tell Hamlet about his death?

  1. That he was poisoned at a banquet by the queen
  2. That he was murdered by Claudius pouring poison into his ear Correct answer.
  3. That he was killed in battle by Fortinbras's father
  4. That he died of a sudden illness brought on by grief

Explanation

The Ghost reveals that Claudius poured poison into his ear while he slept in the orchard, and demands revenge. This revelation imposes the revenge obligation that structures the play.

Question 3516th and early 17th Century

In King Lear, which character speaks the lines beginning 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport'?

  1. Edgar
  2. Gloucester Correct answer.
  3. Edmund
  4. Kent

Explanation

Gloucester speaks these lines after being blinded, expressing a bleak view of divine indifference. The image of boys killing flies crystallizes the play's vision of cosmic cruelty.

Question 3616th and early 17th Century

Which play by Shakespeare is generally classified as a 'problem play' for its bitter treatment of sexual jealousy and its unresolved ending?

  1. All's Well That Ends Well Correct answer.
  2. Much Ado About Nothing
  3. A Midsummer Night's Dream
  4. Twelfth Night

Explanation

All's Well That Ends Well, along with Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, is often grouped among the problem plays for its troubling ethics and ambiguous resolution. The other options are festive comedies.

Question 3716th and early 17th Century

In The Tempest, how does Prospero first treat Caliban, and what does this reveal about colonial themes in the play?

  1. Prospero grants Caliban full rule of the island after teaching him letters
  2. Prospero initially teaches him language but later enslaves him, dramatizing the colonizer's ambivalent relation to the native Correct answer.
  3. Prospero never speaks to Caliban directly until the final scene
  4. Prospero treats Caliban as a free servant whose labor is voluntary

Explanation

Prospero recalls teaching Caliban language before their relations soured, and thereafter holds him in servitude, an arc that critics read as a figure for colonial domination and cultural imposition. Caliban's retort about learning language to curse marks the ambivalence.

Question 3816th and early 17th Century

Which feature marks the 'blazon' as it appears in Elizabethan love poetry?

  1. A prayer addressed to a pagan deity
  2. A dialogue between two shepherds about love
  3. A catalogue itemizing the beloved's physical features one by one Correct answer.
  4. A lament for a dead lover

Explanation

The blazon is a rhetorical catalogue that enumerates the beloved's features, often comparing them to precious materials. Shakespeare parodies the convention in Sonnet 130.

Question 3916th and early 17th Century

In Thomas Nashe's 'A Litany in Time of Plague,' the refrain 'I am sick, I must die. / Lord, have mercy on us!' serves which function?

  1. It announces the speaker's recovery from illness
  2. It shifts the poem from religious to erotic subject matter
  3. It provides comic relief by mocking the plague victims
  4. It reinforces the poem's insistence on mortality and the need for divine mercy Correct answer.

Explanation

The refrain returns after each stanza's reminders of death and worldly vanity, driving home mortality and the plea for mercy. Its repetition creates a liturgical, almost incantatory effect.

Question 4016th and early 17th Century

Which work by Sir Thomas More, written in Latin and published in 1516, describes an ideal commonwealth and gave English a word for an impossible political ideal?

  1. Utopia Correct answer.
  2. Paradise Lost
  3. The Prince
  4. The Book of the Courtier

Explanation

More's Utopia describes a fictional island society organized on rational and communal lines, and its title, punning on 'no place,' supplied the term utopia. It belongs to the humanist literature of the early sixteenth century.

Question 4116th and early 17th Century

Which statement accurately describes the sonnet form that Surrey and Shakespeare used, as distinct from the Petrarchan form?

  1. It comprises a single fourteen-line stanza without a fixed rhyme scheme
  2. It comprises two quatrains followed by two tercets in terza rima
  3. It comprises three quatrains and a closing couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg Correct answer.
  4. It comprises an octave and a sestet, rhyming abbaabba followed by a variable sestet

Explanation

The English sonnet arranges its fourteen lines as three quatrains and a final couplet, allowing the argument to develop in stages before the epigrammatic close. The Petrarchan pattern instead divides into octave and sestet.

Question 4216th and early 17th Century

In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, how does Faustus's final soliloquy end?

  1. He repents and is saved at the last moment
  2. He calls on the hills to hide him and is carried off by devils Correct answer.
  3. He is rescued by a group of scholars who pray for him
  4. He kills Mephistopheles and reclaims his soul

Explanation

In his last hour Faustus appeals to the elements to conceal him and to Christ for mercy, but he is torn apart by devils as the clock strikes twelve. The scholars later find his body, confirming damnation.

Question 4316th and early 17th Century

Which feature most clearly marks John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi as a Jacobean tragedy of the private sphere?

  1. Its plot is resolved by a masque and a wedding
  2. Its hero is a prince whose fall affects the whole state
  3. Its conflict arises from a family's surveillance and punishment of a widow's secret marriage Correct answer.
  4. Its action turns on a war between rival kingdoms

Explanation

The Duchess's brothers, especially Ferdinand, spy on and punish her remarriage to Antonio, making domestic and familial control the engine of the tragedy. The play's horror is intimate rather than national.

Question 4416th and early 17th Century

In George Herbert's 'The Altar,' the shape of the poem on the page functions in what way?

  1. It imitates an altar, making the visual form part of the devotional meaning Correct answer.
  2. It reproduces the rhyme scheme of a sonnet
  3. It conceals an acrostic spelling the poet's name
  4. It marks the poem as a translation from Latin

Explanation

Herbert's shaped or pattern poem arranges its lines so that the printed text resembles an altar, joining visual form to devotional content. The broken altar of the opening is repaired by Christ's sacrifice in the close.

Question 4516th and early 17th Century

Which of the following best describes the effect of iambic pentameter in Elizabethan dramatic blank verse?

  1. It enforces a rigid sing-song regularity that actors were trained to preserve
  2. It requires every line to end with a rhymed couplet
  3. It approximates the natural rhythm of English speech while remaining flexible enough for varied dramatic registers Correct answer.
  4. It limits each line to exactly ten syllables with no substitutions permitted

Explanation

Blank verse in iambic pentameter gave dramatists a line close to spoken English that could be varied with pauses, enjambment, and substitutions. This flexibility allowed it to carry both elevated and colloquial speech.

Question 4616th and early 17th Century

In Book I of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, the Redcrosse Knight is accompanied by Una, who represents truth. Which character deceives the knight by impersonating Una?

  1. Duessa Correct answer.
  2. Belphoebe
  3. Gloriana
  4. Britomart

Explanation

Duessa, whose name suggests duplicity, is a sorceress who disguises herself as Una to mislead Redcrosse. She embodies falsehood and is later unmasked, revealing her grotesque true form. The other characters are virtuous figures associated with different books of the poem.

Question 4716th and early 17th Century

In Book I of The Faerie Queene, the Redcrosse Knight is accompanied by Una, who represents truth. Which character deceives the knight by impersonating Una?

  1. Gloriana
  2. Duessa Correct answer.
  3. Britomart
  4. Belphoebe

Explanation

Duessa, whose name suggests duplicity, is a sorceress who disguises herself as Una to mislead Redcrosse. She embodies falsehood and is later unmasked, revealing her grotesque true form. The other characters are virtuous figures associated with different books of the poem.

Question 4816th and early 17th Century

In Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, what does Faustus ask Mephistopheles to provide for him, and what does this request reveal about his character?

  1. A wife, because he desires companionship and domestic comfort. Correct answer.
  2. A suit of armor, because he wants to become a knight and win military glory.
  3. A map of the world, because he intends to conquer foreign lands.
  4. A book of spells to summon demons, showing his ambition to control supernatural forces.

Explanation

Faustus asks for a wife, but Mephistopheles dismisses marriage as a trivial ceremony and instead offers him a devil dressed as a woman. This episode shows Faustus's persistent longing for ordinary human comforts even after selling his soul, revealing the tension between his grand ambitions and his mundane desires.

Question 4916th and early 17th Century

In Book I of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, the Redcrosse Knight is accompanied by Una, who represents truth. Which character deceives the Redcrosse Knight by impersonating Una and leading him astray?

  1. Error
  2. Lucifera
  3. Duessa Correct answer.
  4. Britomart

Explanation

Duessa is a sorceress who disguises herself as Una and leads the Redcrosse Knight into falsehood and captivity. Her deception embodies the poem's allegorical conflict between truth and falsehood, contrasting with Una's steadfast virtue.

Question 5016th and early 17th Century

In John Donne's 'The Sun Rising,' the speaker addresses the sun as a 'busy old fool' and later claims, 'She's all states, and all princes, I, / Nothing else is.' Which statement best describes the effect of this conceit?

  1. It implies that the speaker is a monarch who has abdicated his throne for love.
  2. It reduces the lovers to insignificant figures compared with the vastness of the cosmos.
  3. It suggests that the lovers' private world is more real and important than the public world of politics and astronomy. Correct answer.
  4. It argues that the sun's warmth is necessary for the lovers' survival and must be respected.

Explanation

Donne's conceit transforms the lovers' bedroom into a microcosm that outshines the sun and contains all kingdoms, so that the public world of 'states' and 'princes' becomes merely a reflection of their private union. The hyperbolic wit asserts the supremacy of love over worldly power and cosmic order.