English Literature MCQs: Period-Wise Guide from Old English to Modern Era (With Answers)

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A Period-wise Guide to English Literature MCQs

For Students and Literature Enthusiasts

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction

  2. Old English Period (450–1066)

  3. Restoration Period (1660–1700)

  4. Neo-Classical Period (1660–1798)

  5. The Age of Johnson (1740–1790)

  6. Age of Romanticism (1798–1837)

  7. Victorian Period (1837–1901)

  8. Modern Period (1901–1945)

  9. Post-Modern Period (1945–Present)

  10. Conclusion

Introduction

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are a quick and effective way to assess knowledge in English literature. Whether you’re preparing for UGC NET- JUNE 2025, STET, SET, GATE,  competitive exams, university tests, or just brushing up on your literary history, understanding the major periods and their characteristics is essential. Let’s break down these periods and explore typical MCQs that may come your way.

English literature MCQ | Period Wise | Old English to Modern Era

Old English Period (450–1066)

Overview

  • Also known as the Anglo-Saxon Period.

  • Dominated by epic poetry, religious verse, and heroic tales.

  • Beowulf is the most celebrated work.

English Literature MCQs | Old English Period

Q1. Who is the hero of the Old English epic Beowulf?
A) Grendel
B) Hrothgar
C) Beowulf
D) Wiglaf
Answer: C) Beowulf

Q2. The Old English period ended with which historical event?
A) Norman Conquest
B) The Great Fire of London
C) Battle of Hastings
D) Signing of the Magna Carta
Answer: C) Battle of Hastings

Q3. When did Augustine arrived in Britain?

A) 549 A.D.
B) 597 A.D.
C) 759 A.D.
D) 571 A.D.
Answer: B)  597 A.D.

 Q4. Which Anglo-Saxon poem celebrates defeat in war ?

A) Judith
B) The Phoenix 
C)  'The Battle of Maldon'
D) The Owl and the Nightingale
Answer: C)  

Q5. The Old English poem "The Owl and the Nightingale' is attributed to-

A) Thomas Dales
B) Wulfstan
C) Beowulf
D) Nicholas de Guildford
Answer: D)

Q6. In which Anglo-Saxon poem is a female warrior the protagonist? who is the poet?

A) Judith
B) The Phoenix 
C)  'The Battle of Maldon'
D) The Owl and the Nightingale
Answer: A) 

Q7. When did the Norman conquest take place?

A) 1016
B) 1066
C) 1600
D) 1060
Answer: B)


Q8. Who is the last Anglo-Saxon king ?

Answer: Harold who died at Battle of Hasting in 1066.

For more Old English Literature MCQs CLICK HERE

Restoration Period (1660–1700)

Overview

  • Marked by the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II.

  • Satirical comedies and heroic dramas flourished.

  • Notable writers: John Dryden, Aphra Behn, William Congreve, George Etherege, Samuel Butler, John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys etc. 

English Literature MCQs | Restoration Period

Q1. Who is known as the father of English criticism and prominent Restoration poet?
A) John Milton
B) John Dryden
C) Alexander Pope
D) Samuel Johnson
Answer: B) John Dryden

Q2. Which of these is a typical Restoration genre?
A) Comedy of Manners
B) Romantic Epic
C) Mystery Novel
D) Gothic Fiction
Answer: A) Comedy of Manners

Neo-Classical Period (1660–1798)

Overview

  • Valued order, decorum, and reason.

  • Influenced by classical Greek and Roman texts.

  • Major figures: Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Joseph Addison, Richard Steel, Edward Young etc.

English Literature MCQs | Neo-Classical Period

Q1. Which writer is associated with The Rape of the Lock?
A) Samuel Johnson
B) Alexander Pope
C) William Blake
D) Thomas Gray
Answer: B) Alexander Pope

Q2. The Neo-Classical period emphasized:
A) Emotion
B) Nature
C) Reason and Order
D) Mysticism
Answer: C) Reason and Order

Q3.The first phase of industrial revolution was -

A) 1750-1850           
B) 1660-1700
C) 1700-1785
D) 1785-1838
Answer: A) 1750-1850

Q4.The peterloo massacre took place -

A) 1719, Aug 16         
B) 1819, Aug 16
C) 1819, Aug 18         
D) 1719, Aug 18

Answer: B) 1819, Aug 16

Q5. The author of  "The marriage of Heaven and Hell" and 'The Book of Thell'  is ____.

a. Wordsworth               
b. Robert Burns
c. Blake                     
d. Thomas Gray
Answer: A) William Blake

Q6.How many poems were included in the first publication of "Lyrical Ballads"-

A) 32   Poems                                 
B) 19   Poems
C) 18   Poems                                  
D) 23   Poems
Answer: D) 23 Poems

Q7. "The Lyrical Ballads" opens with -

A) Kubla Khan                             
B) The Prelude
C) The Rime of Ancient Mariner
D) Tintern Abbey

Answer: C) The Rime of Ancient Mariner

Q8. Who wrote the poem "Thalaba"-

A) Wordsworth               
B) S. T. Coleridge
C) P. B. Shelley               
D) Southey
Answer: D)Southey

Q9. Which poem begins with the famous line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever"-

a. Tintern abbey           
b. Endymion
c. Adonais                   
d. Kabla khan
Answer: Endymion

Q10. Who wrote "Luci" poems -

a. Wordsworth             
b. Southey
c. Scott.                             
d. Donne
Answer: Wordsworth

Q11. Who brought the concept of 'Negative Capability'-

a. Wordsworth
b. Coleridge
c. Keats
d. Shelley
Answer: Keats

Q12. Shelley was expelled from the Oxford University due to the publication of -


a. The revolt of Islam
b. Necessity of Atheism
c. The triumph of life
d. The mosque of Anarchy
Answer: Necessity of Atheism

Q13. Edward Gibbon was the first historian of England who wrote in a literary manner. His greatest historical work is _______.


A. Lives of Poet
B. The Decline of the Roman Empire
C. The Village
D. The Rambler
Answer:. The Decline of the Roman Empire

Q14. The Royal Society established in England in _____.

A) 1660
B) 1662
C) 1558
D) 1559

Answer: 1662

Q15. The dramatic literature of Eighteenth century was not of a high order. One of the reasons of the decline of drama during this period was ____

A) The death of Queen Anne in 1714
B) American Revolution in 1775-1783
C) Act of Licensing in 1737
D) Beginning of Seven Years War in 1756.

Answer: Act of Licensing in 1737

Q16. Who among the followings becomes the first Hanoverian king in 1714?

A) William III
B) James II
C) George I
D) George II
Answer: George I

Q17. George III succeeded the throne in ___.

A) 1727
B) 1714
C) 1702
D) 1760
Answer: 1760

The Age of Johnson (1740–1790)

Overview

  • Named after Samuel Johnson, famous for his dictionary.

  • Transitional phase between Neo-Classical and Romanticism.

  • Themes of morality, reflection, and urban life.

English Literature MCQs | The Age of Johnson

Q1. Samuel Johnson is best known for:
A) Writing Pamela
B) Compiling an English dictionary
C) Discovering Shakespeare's plays
D) Translating The Aeneid
Answer: B) Compiling an English dictionary

Q2. Lives of the Poets was written by:
A) Alexander Pope
B) John Dryden
C) Samuel Johnson
D) Thomas Gray
Answer: C) Samuel Johnson

Age of Romanticism (1798–1837)

Overview

  • Emphasized emotion, nature, and individualism.

  • Notable poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats.

English Literature MCQs | Age of Romanticism

Q1. Lyrical Ballads is associated with which poets?
A) Wordsworth and Coleridge
B) Byron and Shelley
C) Keats and Byron
D) Blake and Wordsworth
Answer: A) Wordsworth and Coleridge

Q2. Which of the following is a theme of Romanticism?
A) Industrialization
B) Scientific progress
C) Nature and Emotion
D) Urbanization
Answer: C) Nature and Emotion

Victorian Period (1837–1901)

Overview

  • Named after Queen Victoria.

  • Literature focused on social issues, industrialization, and morality.

  • Famous writers: Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, George Eliot, W. M. Thackeray etc.

English Literature MCQs | Victorian Period

Q1. Charles Dickens's novels often depict:
A) Rural landscapes
B) Courtly love
C) Urban poverty and social injustice
D) Medieval legends
Answer: C) Urban poverty and social injustice

Q2. Who wrote Jane Eyre?
A) Emily Brontë
B) Charlotte Brontë
C) Anne Brontë
D) Mary Shelley
Answer: B) Charlotte Brontë

Q3. The first novel of Charles Dickens is _____.

A. Hard Times
B. A Tale of Two Cities
C. Oliver Twist
D. The Pickwick Papers

Answer: D

Q4. The Wessex novels are associated with _____.

A. Charles Dickens
B. Thomas Hardy
C. Wilkie Collins
D. Anthony Trollope

Answer: B

Q5. Mary Ann Evans was the pseudonym of _____.

A. George Eliot
B. Jane Austen
C. Mary Montagu
D. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Answer: A

Q6.  The Great Western Railway opened in _____.

A. 1850
B. 1815
C. 1838
D. 1859

Answer: C

Q7. The London Library was established in _____.

A.1833
B. 1848
C. 1844
D. 1841

Answer: D

Q8. Heathcliff is the main character in the novel _

a) Wuthering Heights
b) Middlemarch
c) Vilette
d) Jane Eyre

Answer: A

Q9. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights was published in _____.

A. 1847
B. 1848
C. 1859
D. 1865

Answer: A

Q10. The Suez Canal was opened in _____.

A. 1850
B. 1851
C. 1866
D. 1869

Answer: D

Q11. Which of the following novels is set against the backdrop of the French Revolution?

A. A Tale of Two Cities
B. Hard Times
C. Middlemarch
D. Tancred

Answer: A

Q12. `The Parish Boy`s Progress` is the subtitle of Dicken`s ___

a) David Copperfield
b) The Tale of Two Cities
c) The Pickwick Papers
d) Oliver Twist

Answer: D

Q13. Sophia is the important character in Dickens` ____

a) Hard Times
b) Our Mutual Friend
c) Bleak House
d) The Old Curiosity Shop

Answer: D

Q14. Eliot`s first novel, `Adam Bede` is a ___

a) autobiographical novel
b) historical novel
c) gothic novel
d) pastoral novel

Answer: D

Q15. `A Study of Provincial Life' is the subtitle of ____

a) Eliot's '' Middlemarch''
b) Elizabeth Gaskell's '' North and South''
c) Dickens' ''' Bildungsroman ''
d) Charlotte Brote's ' Jane Eyre '

Answer: A

Q16. 'The Paris Sketch Book', 'The Book of Snobs'  'The Rose and the Ring' are written by __

a) George Meredith
b) W. M. Thackeray
c) Anne Bronte
d) Emily Bronte

Answer: B

Q17. Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyer' was published in _

a) 1846
b) 1856
c) 1847
d) 1857

Answer: C

Q18. 'Agnes Grey' is the novel of _

a) Anne Bronte
b) Emily Bronte
C) Charlotte Brontee
d) Charles Dickens

Answer: A

Q19. Among the followings who was the British Prime Minister?

a) George Meredith
b) Benjamin Disraeli
c) Anthony Trollope
d) Charles Kingsley

Answer: B

Q20. 'Vanity Fair', which subtitled 'A Novel Without a Hero', is a satirical novel of manners. The title of the novel is derived from  __

a) Dryden's 'An Essay oF Dramatic Poesy
b) Samuel Butler's 'Hudibras'
c) John Banyan's 'Pilgrim`s Progress'
d) Chaucer's 'Book of the Duchess'

Answer: C

Q21. Who is the author of The Blessed Damozel ?

(a) Christina Rossetti
(b) D.G.Rossetti
(c) Morris
(d) Swinburne
Answer: B

Q22.  Aurora Leigh was written by_

 (a) D. G. Rossetti
(b) Elizabeth Barret Browning
(c) Anne Bronte
(d) Robert Browning
Answer: B

Q23. Among the following who was appointed as private secretary to Lord Lansdowne in 1847?

A. Mathew Arnold
B. Robert Browning
C. Tennyson
D. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Answer: A

Q24. In which year Arnold was appointed as 'Professor of Poetry' at Oxford ?

A. 1856
B. 1857
C. 1858
D. 1859
Answer: B

Who wrote the biography 'Queen Victoria' ?

A. John Keats
B. James Boswell
C. Walter Scott
D. Lytton Strachey
Answer: D

Get the list of Victorian Writers and their literary works in English Literature Click Here

Modern Period (1901–1945)

Overview

  • Marked by experimentation in style and form.

  • Major themes: alienation, existentialism, disillusionment.

  • Key writers: T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf.

English Literature MCQs | Modern Period

Important Writers in Modern Age:

  • Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
  • George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
  • W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) 
  • John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
  • George Moore (1857-1933)
  • George Gissing (1857-1903)
  • Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
  • H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
  • Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
  • Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
  • Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)
  • Samuel Butler (1835-1902) etc.


Q1. The Waste Land was written by:
A) W.B. Yeats
B) T.S. Eliot
C) Ezra Pound
D) James Joyce
Answer: B) T.S. Eliot

Q2. Stream of consciousness is a narrative technique used by:
A) Virginia Woolf
B) Thomas Hardy
C) Robert Browning
D) Oscar Wilde
Answer: A) Virginia Woolf

Q3. Who  among  the  following  wrote  the  unfinished  epic The  Cantos? 

(A) James  Joyce 
(B) Virginia  Woolf 
(C) Ezra  Pound 
(D) T.S.  Eliot 

Answer: C


Q4.   T.  S  Eliot’s The  Waste  Land  has-? 

(A) 4 
(B) 5 
(C) 6 
(D) 7  parts. 

Answer: B


Q5. To  whom  the  slogan  “Make  It  New”  is  widely  attributed? 

(A) D.H.  Lawrence 
(B) Joseph  Conrad 
(C) Gertrude  Stein 
(D) Ezra  Pound 
Answer: D


Q6. Who  is  the  “chocolate  cream  soldier”  in  G.B.  Shaw’s Arms  and  the  Man? 

(A) Sergius 
(B) Major  Petkoff 
(C) Bluntschli 
(D) Nicola 
Answer: C


Q7. Who  used  term  “dissociation  of  sensibility”  first? 

(A) T.S  Eliot 
(B) E.M  Forster 
(C) W.B.  Yeats 
(D) G.B.  Shaw 
Answer: A


Q8. Choose  the  correct  chronological  order: 

(A) A  Passage  to  India-Mrs.  Dalloway-Ulysses  -  Pointed  Roofs 
(B) A  Passage  to  India-Ulysses  -  Pointed  Roofs  -Mrs.  Dalloway 
(C) Mrs.  Dalloway-Ulysses  -  Pointed  Roofs  -A  Passage  to  India 
(D) Pointed  Roofs-Ulysses-A  Passage  to  India-  Mrs.  Dalloway 
Answer: D


Q9. Who  wrote  the  novel Nineteen  Eighty-Four? 

(A) George  Orwell 
(B) Dorothy  Richardson 
(C) D.H.  Lawrence 
(D) E.M.  Forster 
Answer: A


Q10. Which  of  the  following  is  not  a  modernist  movement? 

(A) Expressionism 
(B) Surrealism 
(C) Realism 
(D) Humanism
Answer: C


Q11. Which  movement  is  connected  to  the  slogan  ‘Art  for  Art’s  Sake? 

(A) Futurism 
(B) Cubism 
(C) Aestheticism 
(D) Imagism 
Answer: C


Q12. How  many  short  stories  are  there  in  James  Joyce’s Dubliners? 

(A) 14 
(B) 15 
(C) 16 
(D) 17 
Answer: B


Q13. Principles  of  Literary  Criticism  is  written  by: 

(A) I.A.  Richards 
(B) William  Empson 
(C) Allen  Tate 
(D) Cleanth  Brook 
Answer: A

Q14. The  main  character  of  the  play The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World  is 

(A) Shawn  Keogh 

(B) Margaret  Flaherty 

(C) Michael  James  Flaherty 

(D) Christy  Mahon 

Answer: D

Q15. Who  among  the  following  was  NOT  a  part  of  the  ‘Imagist’  movement? 

(A) Ezra  Pound 
(B) Richard  Aldington 
(C) Hilda  Doolittle 
(D) Virginia  Woolf
Answer: D

Q16. Of  Human  Bondage  is  written  by  : 

(A) Oscar  Wilde 
(B) Henry  James 
(C) Somerset  Maugham 
(D) Joseph  Conrad 
Answer: C

Q17.James  Joyce  was  a 

(A) a  film  director 
(B) a  singer 
(C) a  novelist 
(D) a  scientist 
Answer: C


Q18.The  term  ‘lost  generation’  was  coined  by 

(A) Virginia  Woolf 
(B) Dorothy  Richardson 
(C) Gertrude  Stein 
(D) W.H.  Auden 
Answer: C

Q19. D.  H.  Lawrence’s Sons  and  Lovers  published  in 

(A) 1913 
(B) 1914 
(C) 1915 
(D) 1916 
Answer: A

Q20. The Criterion  by  T.S.  Eliot  is  a

(A) Journal 
(B) Book 
(C) Poem 
(D) Magazine
Answer: D

Q21. The  character  Stephen  Dedalus  appears  in  which  of  the  two  works  of  James Joyce? 

(A) A  Portrait  of  the  Artist  as  a  Young  Man  and Finnegan’s  Wake 
(B) A  Portrait  of  the  Artist  as  a  Young  Man  and Ulysses 
(C) Finnegan’s  Wake  and Dubliners
(D) Ulysses  and Dubliners
Answer: B


To get the list of Modern Period writers and their literary works CLICK HERE

Post-Modern Period (1945–Present)

Overview

  • Marked by experimentation in style and form.

  • Major themes: alienation, existentialism, disillusionment.

  • Key writers: 

English Literature MCQs | Post-Modern Period



Conclusion

Understanding literature period-wise helps in decoding the evolution of thought, style, and thematic focus in English literature. Whether you're preparing for exams or simply love literature, this MCQ-oriented breakdown will sharpen your recall and appreciation of each era.


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