1. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as _____?
A: ) the King's Men
B: ) the Globe theatre
C: ) Black Friars
D: ) the Globe Club
springline- Correct option: A:) the King's Men
2. Shakespeare’s first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially ____?
A: ) Thomas Kyd
B: ) William James
C: ) James Joyce
D: ) Mark Twain
springline- Correct option: A:) Thomas Kyd
3. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a ____?
A: ) Greek story
B: ) folk story
C: ) historical story
D: ) fairy tales
springline- Correct option: B:) folk story
4. Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar—based on Whose work of translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama in 1579?
A: ) Oscar Wilde
B: ) William James
C: ) Sir Thomas North
D: ) Jane Austen
springline- Correct option: C:) Sir Thomas North
5. In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called ‘problem plays‘ Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies is______?
A: ) Othello
B: ) Hamlet
C: ) Tempest
D: ) Antonio and Cleopatra
springline- Correct option: B:) Hamlet
6. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to Whom, ‘the play...offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty’ ?
A: ) T.S. Eliot
B: ) Frank Kermode
C: ) Walter Pater
D: ) John Dryden
springline- Correct option: B:) Frank Kermode
7. In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and ____?
A: ) Julius Caesar
B: ) The Tempest
C: ) Hamlet
D: ) Coriolanus
springline- Correct option: D:) Coriolanus
8. In Shakespeare’s final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with _____?
A: ) Sigmund Freud
B: ) John Fletcher
C: ) Terry Eagleton
D: ) T.E. Hulme
springline- Correct option: B:) John Fletcher
9. After 1608, the plays of Shakespeare’s performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604, and 31 October 1605, including two performances of _______?
A: ) The Midsummer Night Dreams
B: ) Antonio and Cleopatra
C: ) The Merchant of Venice
D: ) Macbeth
springline- Correct option: C:) The Merchant of Venice
10. In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on sexual themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley who is a_____?
A: ) Earl of March
B: ) Earl of Southampton
C: ) Earl of Surrey
D: ) Earl of Norse
springline- Correct option: B:) Earl of Southampton
11. Most scholars accepted that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. When two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission?
A: ) 1596
B: ) 1597
C: ) 1598
D: ) 1599
springline- Correct option: D:) 1599
12. Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared. Who had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's ‘sugred Sonnets among his private friends ?
A: ) W.H. Auden
B: ) Chinua Achebe
C: ) Francis Meres
D: ) Walter Pater
springline- Correct option: C:) Francis Meres
13. In sonnet, Shakespeare seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the ‘dark lady’), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the ‘fair youth’). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial ‘I’ who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Who believed that with the sonnets ‘Shakespeare unlocked his heart’ ?
A: ) T.S. Eliot
B: ) Edgar Allen Poe
C: ) John Dryden
D: ) Wordsworth
springline- Correct option: D:) Wordsworth
14. Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and _____?
A: ) Hamlet
B: ) Othello
C: ) Antonio and Cleopatra
D: ) Macbeth
springline- Correct option: A:) Hamlet
15. After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic Who described this style as ‘more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical’ ?
A: ) I.A. Richards
B: ) Samuel Johnson
C: ) A. C. Bradley
D: ) Sandra Gilbert
springline- Correct option: C:) A. C. Bradley
16. As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. In Shakespeare's late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre. Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and _____?
A: ) Thomas Kyd
B: ) Holinshed
C: ) Robert Greene
D: ) John Fletcher
springline- Correct option: B:) Holinshed
17. Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre. Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Which had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events, but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds ?
A: ) Dramas
B: ) Sonnets
C: ) Soliloquies
D: ) melo dramas
springline- Correct option: C:) Soliloquies
18. Shakespeare’s work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Who described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as ‘feeble variations on Shakespearean themes’ ?
A: ) John Webster
B: ) Thomas Dekker
C: ) George Chapman
D: ) George Steiner
springline- Correct option: D:) George Steiner
19. Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville's soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by _______?
A: ) Othello
B: ) The Tempest
C: ) King Lear
D: ) Macbeth
springline- Correct option: C:) Macbeth
20. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, even translated Macbeth into German. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular, that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature. Henry Fuseli who was a friend of______?
A: ) Charles Lamb
B: ) Ben Jonson
C: ) Mathew Arnold
D: ) William Blake
springline- Correct option: D:) William Blake
21. Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type. Expressions such as ‘with bated breath’ in Merchant of Venice and ‘a foregone conclusion’ in_______?
A: ) Othello
B: ) Hamlet
C: ) Antonio and Cleopatra
D: ) The Tempest
springline- Correct option: A:) Othello
22. Shakespeare's influence extends far beyond his native England and the English language. His reception in Germany was particularly significant; as early as the 18th century Shakespeare was widely translated and popularised in Germany, and gradually became a ‘classic of the German Weimar era;’ Who was the first to produce complete translations of Shakespeare's plays in any language ?
A: ) Philip Massinger
B: ) Christoph Martin Wieland
C: ) George Peele
D: ) Thomas Lodge
springline- Correct option: B:) Christoph Martin Wieland
23. The authors of the Parnassus plays at St John's College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower, and Spenser. In the First Folio, Who called Shakespeare the ‘Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage’, although he had remarked elsewhere that ‘Shakespeare wanted art’ (lacked skill) ?
A: ) Ben Jonson
B: ) John Dryden
C: ) John Keats
D: ) P.B. Shelley
springline- Correct option: A:) Ben Jonson
24. Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Who rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, ‘I admire him, but I love Shakespeare ?
A: ) Dr. Johnson
B: ) John Keats
C: ) John Dryden
D: ) Shelley
springline- Correct option: C:) John Dryden
25. For several decades, Rymer's view held sway; but during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation. When, he was firmly enshrined as the national poet ?
A: ) 1700
B: ) 1800
C: ) 1750
D: ) 1850
springline- Correct option: B:) 1800
26. In the 18th and 19th centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of ___?
A: ) German Romanticism
B: ) Italian Romanticism
C: ) Roman Romanticism
D: ) England Romanticism
springline- Correct option: A:) German Romanticism
27. The Victorians produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale. The playwright and critic Who mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as ‘bardolatry‘, claiming that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete ?
A: ) Charles Dickenson
B: ) Thomas Lodge
C: ) George Bernard Shaw
D: ) Daniel Defoe
springline- Correct option: C:) George Bernard Shaw
28. In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances, and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies, Dowden's term is often used. When Frederick S. Boas coined the term ‘problem plays‘ to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and Hamlet ?
A: ) 1892
B: ) 1894
C: ) 1895
D: ) 1896
springline- Correct option: D:) 1896
29. By the 1980s, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, feminism, New Historicism, African-American studies, and queer studies. Comparing Shakespeare's accomplishments to those of leading figures in philosophy and theology, Who wrote: ‘Shakespeare was larger than Plato and than ,St. Augustine. He encloses us because we see with his fundamental perceptions ?
A: ) I.A. Richards
B: ) W.H. Auden
C: ) Harold Bloom
D: ) T.S. Eliot
springline- Correct option: C:) Harold Bloom
30. The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant-garde. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. Who argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's ‘primitiveness’ in fact made him truly modern ?
A: ) Mathew Arnold
B: ) T.S. Eliot
C: ) John Dryden
D: ) Wordsworth
springline- Correct option: B:) T.S. Eliot