GRE Literature in English (REA) (57 page)

 

177.
(D)

The speaker is Molly Bloom. These are the final words in the third and final section of Joyce's
Ulysses
. The section is an extended, unpunctuated, inner monologue representing Molly Bloom's stream-of-consciousness. This style distinguishes the text from the thoughts or expressions of any of the other heroines.

 

178.
(A)

The subject of this sonnet by John Milton is the massacre of the Waldenses, a Protestant sect that had separated from the Catholic church in the twelfth century. They lived principally in the Alps, along the border between France and Italy.

 

179.
(D)

The lines illustrate enjambment, the running over syntactically of a sentence from one line to the next without any pause of punctuation, and with the sentence, clause, or phrase ending in the middle of the next phrase. Thus there is enjambment in the first line of the poem in the relative clause “whose bones/Lie scattered...” which carries over from the first verse to the second. There is not enjambment, however, in the second verse since the relative clause comes to a close at the end of the verse: “...on the Alpine mounts cold...” Lines 8-10 do not illustrate irony (A), since Milton is not saying one thing and meaning something else. It is not synesthesia (B), which is the mixing of senses. It is not litotes (C), which is understatement. It is not sprung rhythm (E), since the meter is standard iambic pentameter.

 

180.
(A)

The quote is taken from
The Scarlet Letter
, Chapter 1, and describes Roger Chillingworth. The sharp psychological descriptions of characters is a trademark of Hawthorne.

 

181.
(A)

It has often been said of Stephen Crane (from whose writing the passage is taken) that he used the devices of Impressionism to produce Naturalistic novels, which are characterized by an attempt to be accurate as well as somewhat selective in the relation of otherwise commonplace details.

 

182.
(D)

“Sing, Heavenly Muse” introduces the governing verb in the opening sentence. Urania, the muse of sacred poetry, is invoked to help the poet produce his great work: his “adventurous song” that intends to “soar” above the traditional home of the muses—“the Aonian mount, Mount Helicon.”

 

183.
(A)

Milton's passage is characterized by unrhymed iambic pentameter lines—blank verse. (B) is characterized by lack of rhyme
and
lack of meter. (C) refers to four-foot lines while this passage has five-foot lines. (D) is a type of rhyme pattern, and (E) refers to the manner in which the same word can fit two different linguistic patterns.

 

184.
(B)

The passage is completed in this way. As Melville says in the sentences before, “I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.” Even not knowing this, it is obvious that the speaker desires escape from the familiar, which eliminates (E) and his restlessness dictates action as a response, eliminating (D) and (A). (C), of course, is taken from Twain's
Huckleberry Finn
.

 

185.
(D)

In the first half of Archibald MacLeish's poem, sensations of smell, sight, and touch (apples, light, water) are presented; in the second, loss (hands reaching out, no verbal response, ghostly memories). What is presented is the frustration of a person much in contact with his physical world, but grieving terribly over some other person's absence.

 

186.
(C)

The poem has a modest message, even though it deals with the wrenching problem of human loss. (A) and (D) are more extreme in their possibilities; the poet only metaphoricallywishes he were dead; there does not seem any real hope that the absent one will return. (B) is more the secondary message of the poem: pain in the presence of pleasure is particularly frustrating. The passage of the seasons, however, does not seem to be what he is waiting for. The poet primarily longs for the “cold light” of truth; if he only knew the explanation for the absence, the “why” behind the other's departure or death, then he might be able to endure the guilt of his survival, able to experience the sensations of life.

 

187.
(D)

Self-indulgence, rather than being ultimately destructive, can and does lead to a truer understanding of divine love (“For nothing can be sole or whole/ That has not been rent”). The wordplay on “sole” underscores this, as well as the statement that “love has pitched his mansion in/ The place of excrement.”

 

188.
(A)

The juxtaposition of violence and seeming indifference is the hallmark of much of Camus' writing. Here it is exaggerated to make the speaker seem like a particularly demented human monster.

 

189.
(D)

The obvious American setting here, the arrival by train, and the attention to natural imagery, all are indications of this parody of one of America's best writers of life on the prairies.

 

190.
(C)

There is a psychological intensity here that is characteristic of Hardy—a concentration on involved motive and conscience.

 

191.
(D)

From psychoanalysis, free association involves the seemingly haphazard recollection of associated images, from which a pattern of concern may emerge.

 

192.
(C)

The author states in the sentence following, “But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition.”

 

193.
(D)

The passage is taken from Boswell's
Life of Samuel Johnson
. The man being described certainly exhibits some of Johnson's most famous characteristics, notably his strong opinions and his eloquence in defending those opinions.

 

194.
(D)

This last line from Swift's “A Description of a City Shower” is a simile that compares the rain generated from the Southern clouds (in the previous lines), to the sickness of a drunkard. Similes are comparative devices that employ the word “like” or “as.”

 

195.
(B)

“When the evening is spread out against the sky/like a patient etherized upon a table” is from Eliot. Swift's simile has often been pointed to as the inspiration for Eliot's famous comparison.

 

196.
(D)

Chekhov's concentration on Olenka's pitiful plight (“She was absolutely alone,” “how awful it is not to have any opinions”) indicates a sympathetic attitude. However, he does not make Olenka a noble martyr; rather she is a wretched creature doomed to derive meaning solely through her relationships with men. Chekhov is pitying, but he never respects her profound misery.

 

197.
(B)

Clearly Olenka has an “understanding” of the world around her intuitively, but she is unable to formulate any opinion on her own. She has always been dependent on others for meaning—her father, Kukin, Pustovalov, or the veterinary surgeon. Chekhov does not imply that her social condition or her focus on the mundane is the cause of her inability to communicate. Rather, her isolation from the sources of her ideas has left her alone and opinionless.

 

198.
(B)

The subject has violated the formal behavior required of his gentlemanly station. In the next paragraph, the author states: “For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.”

 

199.
(B)

Considered a corruption of Pater's beliefs as stated in
The Renaissance
, this practice became popular in the 1890s, much to Pater's dismay. Pater was a leading critic at the time, a proponent of aesthetics and the phrase “art for art's sake.”

 

200.
(D)

“Of Adam's blood” is the important phrase here, indicating that the noun of which the poet speaks is a descendant and, being “wretched,” could easily be followed by the description “brat”—an annoying child.

 

201.
(D)

The rather depressing commentaries about the life the young child is embarking upon are actually common to lullabies (“Down will come baby, cradle and all,” etc.). There is no touching the theme of love in this work, so (A) and (B) can be readily eliminated. A lay (E) has eight syllables in a line.

 

202.
(C)

“Whan [animals] cometh to the world they dooth hemself some good/Al but the wrecche brol (wretched brat) of Adames blood.” Man is destined to suffer because of Original Sin. The other four choices are basically non sequiturs.

 

203.
(A)

Suffering is the legacy of Original Sin: we all sorrow in this world. The little child will soon find itself suffering “as thine eldren dide.”

 

204.
(C)

It is not that tradition or the conditions of the world dictate human misery, but that it is preordained because of Adam's Fall. The desire to make the child sleep, is so that the child may forget for a moment about its destined sorrow.

 

205.
(B)

The speaker wears a literal black veil to symbolize the isolation we all endure. Only when someone “shows his inmost heart” to another will the speaker's belief become monstrous. Although a “black veil” seems to be a pretty obvious symbol for death, the fact that it is worn “on every visage” might convince one not to choose (A).

 

206.
(A)

References to “slave” and “Freedom” are important markers from which to identify the event for which this poem served as a rallying cry.

 

207.
(C)

The didactic nature of this poem is evident from the first stanza, and reflects the political involvement of its author, James Russell Lowell, in
The Present Crisis
. While some elements of the other choices exist in the selection, they are not consistent throughout, and, therefore, do not govern or control the stanza.

 

208.
(C)

Mencken, here in this passage from
The Novel
, gives almost no judgmental statement—his attitude here is more the reporter. Thus, while the writer may have been aware of the hollowness of her original work, Mencken does not agree with her until the following paragraphs, wherein he praises
My Antonia
for its “accurate representation.”

 

209.
(D)

This quote refers to Willa Cather.

 

210.
(C)

This is best classified as an extended simile, with “tears” being compared (using “as”) to sails, dawn, and kisses. Note that the constant repetition of “as” makes (C) a better answer than (A).

 

211.
(C)

The poet is certainly capable of experiencing intense emotion (witness the welling up of tears for no particular reason, which is the situation in the poem). Yet, he recalls not just the people, but more especially, the intense emotions of the past, most of which cannot be repeated (e.g., “first love” ).

 

212.
(E)

The reader, even today, is moved by the pain of the poet and the suddenness with which it descended on him as he found himself reflecting on the intense emotions of the past (indeed, first there were tears, and then, recollection). In many ways this is similar to the singular “peak experience” typical of Wordsworth's Romantic philosophy.

 

213.
(E)

It is characterized by unrhymed iambic pentameter—the medium of much reflective verse—especially in the nineteenth century. Accentual verse (C) is based on a fixed number of stressed syllables in a line, while free verse (D) has no rhyme but also has no fixed meter.

 

214.
(C)

Juliet was married by Friar Laurence only two scenes before, but she has not seen Romeo since, nor consummated their new relationship.