English 2323: British Literature II

Ms. Esther Marie Guenat

Victorian Period Exam
Part I: Authors and their works
Fill in the blank with the letter of the best answer.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.

The poem
Browning
Pied Beauty
Feminism
Victoria
Eliot
Coketown

H. The Windhover
I. Tennyson
J. Porphyrias Lover
K. Industrialization
L. Elizabeth
M. Dickens
N. The Lotus Eaters

O. Sonnets of the Portuguese

P. The novel
Q. Rossetti
R. Hopkins
S. Darwin
T. Barrett Browning
U. Goblin Market

____1. This poet succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate of Britain and wrote the elegy In Memoriam.
____2. This poets verse novel, Aurora Leigh, was the first work in English in which the heroine herself is an author.
____3. This writer, known for her fiction and prose, used a pen name instead of her own.
____4. This economic issue caused an increase in urban job prospects.
____5. This poet is known for his fantastical cast of characters.
____6. This poet wasnt published until 29 years after his death, mainly because he felt that the notoriety of poetry
conflicted with his work as a priest.
____7. This devotional poets works are often compared to the form of Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
____8. This author of Hard Times wrote novels that reflected the struggles of the Victorian people.
____9. This collection chronicles Elizabeth Barrett Brownings relationship with Robert Browning.
____10. This dramatic monologue is one of two poems published as the Madhouse Cells due to the speakers
unstable personality.
____11. The it form of literature of the Victorian Period.
____12. This devotional poem uses instances of sprung rhythm, an experiment with rhythm and meter developed by
the poet.
____13. This poem follows a specific episode from Homers Odyssey.
____14. This poem by Hopkins is essentially about unity in nature, glorifying God.
____15. This queen reigned from 1837 to 1901.
____16. This poem, the poets most famous, is at first glance a simple, allegorical fable but is actually a work that
addresses many issues of the Victorian period.
____17. This work, from Hard Times, is a fictional but realistic portrayal of the suffering of humanity due to
industrialization.
____18. This author of The Descent of Man caused quite a stir in the Victorian Age with his scientific discoveries and
theories.

Part II: Multiple Choice

19. Which rulers reign marks the approximate beginning and end of the Victorian era?
a. King Henry VIII
b. Queen Victoria
c. King John
d. Queen Elizabeth I
e. Both c and d
20. Which city became the perceived center of Western civilization by the middle of the nineteenth century?
a. New York
b. Tokyo.
c. Paris.
d. London
e. Amsterdam
21. By 1890, what percentage of the earths population was subject to Queen Victoria?
a. 15%
b. 55%
c. 25%
d. 95%
e. 60%
22. What did Thomas Carlyle mean by Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe?
a. Britain's preeminence as a global power will depend on mastery of foreign languages.
b. Even a foreign author is better than a homegrown scoundrel.
c. Abandon the introspection of the Romantics and turn to the higher moral purpose found in Goethe.
d. In a carefully veiled critique of the monarchy, Byron and Goethe stand in symbolically for Queen
Victoria and Charles Darwin respectively
23. To whom did the Reform Bill of 1832 extend the vote on parliamentary representation?
a. women
b. working classes
c. lower middle classes
d. conservative landowners
24. Elizabeth Barrett's poem The Cry of the Children is concerned with which major issue attendant on the
Time of Troubles during the 1830s and 1840s?
a. child labor
b. womens suffrage
c. insurrections in the colonies
d. Chartism
25. Who were the "Two Nations" referred to in the subtitle of Disraeli's Sybil (1845)?
a. Anglicans and Methodists
b. the rich and the poor
c. Britain and Germany
d. England and Ireland
26. Which of the following novelists best represents the mid-Victorian period's contentment with the burgeoning
economic prosperity and decreased restiveness over social and political change?
a. Dickens
b. Ruskin
c. Trollope
d. Thackeray
e. Wilde
27. Which of the following best defines Utilitarianism?
a. a farming technique aimed at maximizing productivity with the fewest tools
b. a moral arithmetic, which states that all humans aim to maximize the greatest pleasure to the
greatest number

c.
d.
e.

a critical methodology stating that all words have a single meaningful function within a given piece
of literature
a philosophy dictating that we should only keep what we use on a daily basis
Blakes apocalyptic visions

28. Which of the following terms is defined as the application of a scientific attitude of mind toward studying the
Bible, seen as a mere text of history and not an infallibly sacred document?
a. New Criticism
b. Higher Criticism
c. Critical Inquiry
d. New Historicism
e. Scientific Bibliology
29. Which of the following discoveries, theories, and events contributed to Victorians feeling less like they were
a uniquely special, central species in the universe and more isolated?
a. geology
b. evolution
c. discoveries in astronomy about stellar distances
d. all of the above
30. Which of the following contributed to the growing awareness in the Late Victorian Period of the immense
human, economic, and political costs of running an empire?
a. the India Mutiny in 1857
b. the Boer War in the south of Africa
c. the Jamaica Rebellion in 1865
d. the Irish Question
e. all of the above
31. Which best describes the general feeling expressed in literature during the last decade of the Victorian era?
a. studied melancholy and aestheticism
b. sincere earnestness and Protestant zeal
c. raucous celebration mixed with self-congratulatory sophistication
d. paranoid introspection and cryptic dissent
32. Which of the following acts were not passed during the Victorian era?
a. a series of Factory Acts
b. the Custody Act
c. the Women's Suffrage Act
d. the Married Women's Property Rights Acts
e. the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act
33. What did Victorian journalists mean by terming certain women "surplus" or "redundant"?
a. They remained unmarried due to a population imbalance between the sexes.
b. Their willingness to work for low wages resulted in a surplus of textiles, causing them to drop in
price.
c. They were women writers who wrote frequently about similar topics.
d. They were divorced.
e. They prostituted themselves as a way to make money in a market economy that didn't provide
extensive job opportunities to women
34. Late in her life, Elizabeth Barrett Browning became involved with what countrys national politics?
a. Spain
b. England
c. Portugal
d. Italy
35. Eliot is often considered the greatest English ___________ .
a. historian
b. scientist
c. realist
d. atheist

Part III: Fill in the blank/Short-Short Answer/True*False

36. True or False? Robert Browning was sometimes referred to as Mrs. Brownings husband.
37. True or False? Though he gained notoriety later in life, Browning wasnt considered an equal to Tennyson.
38. True or False? The lives of Eliots characters are not viewed as from a point of view that is experienced and mature.
39. Browning is known for his use and exploration of what literary element?
40. Around the age of 21, much to her fathers dismay, George Eliot decided she could no longer believe in _________.
41. In all of Eliots novels, all of her characters are tested by situations in which they have to make a decision. This
represents a recurring theme of ____________ .
42. True or False? Tennyson is not considered one of the major poets of the English language.
43. True or False? Many of Brownings poems are unstable, and its difficult to discern the relationship of the poet to
his speaker.
44. True or False? The future is considered Tennysons great subject throughout his poetry.
45. True or False? Gerard Manley Hopkins developed the concepts of inscape and instress.
46. True or False? Rossetti governed herself by strict, religious principles her entire life.
47. True or False? Darwins theories of evolution were immediately accepted and celebrated in the Victorian period.
48. True or False? Hopkinss later poems are all about beauty and being closer to the presence of God.
49. True or False? Women gained the right to vote in the Victorian period.
50. ______________ was practically universal at the end of the Victorian period.
Part IV: Poems Match the poem titles with the appropriate quotations
A. Porphyrias Lover
B. Cry of the Children
C. The Lotus Eaters

D. No worst there is none

E. Lady of Shalott
F. My Last Duchess

G. Goblin Market
H. The Windhover
I. As Kingfishers Catch Fire

J. Pied Beauty

51. Their offers should not charm us/Their evil gifts would harm us
52. Like an angel, singing clearly, / Oer the stream of Camelot
53. Alas, the wretched children! / they are seeking / Death in life, as best to have!
54. Selvesgoes itself; myself it speaks and spells, / Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
55. I gave commands / Then all smiles stopped together / There she stands / As if alive.
56. Pitch past pitch of grief, / More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
57. And all night long we have not stirred / And yet God has not said a word.
58. And all at once they sang, Our island home / Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.
59. With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; / He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
60. Shine, and blue-beak embers, ah my dear, / Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Part V: Short Essay

Drawing from your knowledge of the Victorian Period, write a character analysis of Bathsheba Everdene from
the film Far From the Madding Crowd and how her character represents womens issues of the time period.
Your essay should include an introduction with a specific thesis statement conveying your interpretation what
the character represents, at least one body paragraph that adequately supports your thesis using examples from
the film/story, and a conclusion summating your point. Remember, specificity is key, and you should be as
thorough as possible in your support of your thesis.