GRE Literature in English (REA) Read Online Free PDF

imperialism and postcolonial theory. The main characters are the exiled Duke of Milan, Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and a “deformed slave,” Caliban. Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban are the sole inhabitants of an enchanted island, where Prospero practices magic and schemes to regain his dukedom by orchestrating the shipwreck of his usurping brother. By the play’s end, he does regain his position and marries his daughter to the son of the King of Naples. Caliban is native to the island, and in a few important formulations, makes an early, eloquent case against colonialism.
    Drill Questions
    From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April (dress’d in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 5
Of different flowers in odor and hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose, 10
They were sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
The referent of “these” in line 14 is
birds.
stories.
flowers.
colors.
winter and spring.
The author of this poem also wrote
“The Faerie Queene.”
Paradise Lost.
Pamphilia to Amphilanthus.
The Winter’s Tale.
“To His Coy Mistress.”
    The Restoration and Eighteenth Century
    This period is notable for its stage comedies and for its great works of satire. The major figures are John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson, but we also mention a few other notable writers who have surfaced on past administrations of the Subject Test.
    Â 
    Â 
    WYCHERLY AND CONGREVE
    Â 
    Exemplars of the Restoration comedy, William Wycherly and William Congreve produced comedies of manners and witty language use, highly charged with sexual and scatological innuendo. Wycherly is best known for The Country-Wife , and Congreve for The Way of the World . You should familiarize yourself with one of these to enable you to recognize the tone of these plays, as well as the type of character name that is often a give-away of this genre. Examples include Mrs. Pinchwife in The Country-Wife and Mincing in The Way of the World.
    Â 
    Â 
    JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER
    Â 
    Although he wrote on a number of subjects, Rochester is best known for his sexual poems that are shockingly explicit even by today’s standards. It is unlikely that ETS would actually quote from him because of this, but he is significant as an example of the “court wits” that surrounded Charles II, and as an indicator of the decadence that characterizes much of the lore about the Restoration period.
    Â 
    Â 
    JOHN DRYDEN
    Â 
    Dryden was a prolific writer, but ETS is mainly concerned with his poem “Absalom and Achitophel.” Look over this poem to get a feel for its verse style and its content. It is a complex political allegory that uses biblical figures and events to stand in for a political crisis current in Dryden’s time. His other work popular with ETS is “Mac Flecknoe,” a mock epic that attacks Dryden’s contemporary, the poet Thomas Shadwell. You should be able to identify the mock epic as a form, and be able to recognize this poem in particular. The mock epic (employed by Pope for ‘The Rape of the Lock,“) is characterized by use of elaborate and grandiose language typical of the epic to describe mundane things and trivial events.
    Â 
    Â 
    JONATHAN SWIFT
    Â 
    Swift is best known for two works: the satirical tract A Modest Proposal , and his longer work, Gulliver’s Travels . A Modest Proposal is easy to recognize; in a precise and confident tone, it advocates the wholesale slaughter and consumption of poor children in