Literature Past Questions And Answers
Read the poem and answer the question
Sleep, O sleep
With thy Rod of Incantation
Charm my Imagination,
Then, only then, I cease to weep
By thy power,
The virgin, by Time O' ertaken,
For Years forlorn, forsaken,
Enjoys the happy Hour.
What's to sleep?
'Tis a visionary Blessing;
A dream that's past expressing;
Our utmost Wish possessing;
So may I always keep.
''Sleep'' in the poem is an example of
- A. alliteration
- B. assonance
- C. onomatopoeia
- D. pun
Literature is studied as a subject at school because
- A. it exposes students to the realities of life
- B. it provides entertainment
- C. it merely gives additional work to students
- D. it teaches the use of words
Who is the speaker?
- A. Demetrius
- B. Egeus
- C. Hermia
- D. Theseus
Read the extract and answer the question
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a dammed ghost that we have seen.....
(Act 1, Scene Two, Lines 73-77)
The character being addressed is
- A. Gertrude
- B. Ophelia
- C. Horatio
- D. Claudius
A dramatic performance without words is
- A. mime
- B. an aside
- C. a monologue
- D. a soliloguy
A sonnet is made up of a rhyming sestet and two
- A. rhyming couplets
- B. rhyming quatrains
- C. rhyming lines
- D. rhyming stanzas
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet
Read the extract and answer the question
It is here,......thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good,
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom d: the foul practice
Hath turn'd itself on me; lo; here I lie,
(Act 5, Scene Two, Lines 298-303)
The speaker is
- A. Fortinbras
- B. Guildenstern
- C. Laertes
- D. Hamlet
This question i based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed.) Poems of Black Africa, E.K. Senanu and T. Vincent (ed.)Selection of African Poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.) A Pageant of Longer Poems.
'And when He looks at the grimy coating,
Caking off your emaciated skin,...'
These lines from Richard Ntiru's 'The Pauper' describe
- A. the texture of the pauper's skin
- B. the coat the pauper was wearing
- C. the effect of the surroundings
- D. poverty and dirt
This question is based on Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood.
The attitude of Nnu Ego when she was told that her Chi would not give her a child is one of
- A. indifference
- B. despair
- C. apathy
- D. hope
This question is based on General Literary Principles
Monometer is a
- A. single meter of Coleridge's poem, 'Christabel'
- B. line repeated in the first syllable of a word
- C. single foot used in John Milton's sonnets
- D. line of verse consisting of a metrical foot