UNIT–1: DRAMA
Previous Year Questions related to Drama, Playwrights, Dramatic Characters, Stage Directions, Theatres, Dramatic Forms .
1. Identify the person who sets himself up as the ‘Knight’ with a pestle rather than a sword in the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle.
Options:
(A) Ralph (B) Tim (C) George (D) Squire
Correct Answer: (A) Ralph
Explanation:
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a satirical play by Beaumont and Fletcher. Ralph, an apprentice, imagines himself as a knight armed with a pestle instead of a sword — the central comic device of the play.
2. The following is the stage-description of an opening scene of a famous modern play:
A basement room. Two beds, flat against the back wall. A serving hatch, closed, between the beds. A door to the kitchen and lavatory, left. A door to a passage, right.
Identify the play.
Options:
(A) The Importance of Being Earnest
(B) Travesties
(C) The Dumb Waiter
(D) Look Back in Anger
Correct Answer: (C) The Dumb Waiter
Explanation:
This exact stage setting describes Harold Pinter’s play The Dumb Waiter, known for its minimalist, claustrophobic basement space where two hitmen wait for orders.
3. Match the Shakespearean Actors with their Historical Periods:
I. David Garrick
II. John Gielgud
III. Henry Irving
IV. Thomas Betterton
Options:
- The 19th century
- The 18th century
- The Restoration
- The 20th century
Correct Combination: (A) 2 4 1 3
Explanation:
- David Garrick → 18th century
- John Gielgud → 20th century
- Henry Irving → 19th century
- Thomas Betterton → Restoration stage (17th century)
4. Identify the important theatres of the Elizabethan period:
Options include Peacock, Globe, Swan, Grand.
Correct Answer: (2) (b) Globe and (c) Swan
Explanation:
The Globe Theatre and Swan Theatre were major performance venues for Elizabethan drama. Peacock and Grand are not part of this period’s theatre history.
5. Feste is a clown in:
(A) Twelfth Night
(B) As You Like It
(C) The Taming of the Shrew
(D) Much Ado About Nothing
Correct Answer: (A) Twelfth Night
Explanation:
Feste is the wise and musical clown of Twelfth Night, known for witty wordplay and songs.
6. Which play by Tom Stoppard has a play within the play?
(A) Enter a Free Man
(B) The Real Inspector Hound
(C) Jumpers
(D) Night and Day
Correct Answer: (B) The Real Inspector Hound
Explanation:
The Real Inspector Hound is a parody of theatre critics and uses a layered metatheatrical structure involving a play inside a play.
7. What is the occupation of Max’s son, Lenny, in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming?
(A) boxer (B) butcher (C) pimp (D) cab driver
Correct Answer: (C) pimp
Explanation:
Lenny is portrayed as a manipulative and morally ambiguous pimp, central to the play’s power dynamics.
8. Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, originally in Kannada, has been translated into English by:
(A) U.R. Ananthamurthy
(B) By the playwright himself
(C) G.S. Amur
(D) A.K. Ramanujan
Correct Answer: (B) By the playwright himself
Explanation:
Karnad translated several of his own plays, including Hayavadana, into English, ensuring fidelity to his themes of mythology and identity.
9. Which of the following lines by Shakespeare is repeated several times in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway?
(1) “If music be the food of love, play on.”
(2) “Fear no more the heat of the sun…”
(3) “Those are pearls that were his eyes.”
(4) “There is a tide in the affairs of man.”
Correct Answer: (2) “Fear no more the heat of the sun…”
Explanation:
Woolf repeatedly invokes this line from Cymbeline as a motif representing death, comfort and resignation.
10. Which among the following recent novels is a retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone?
(1) Home Fire
(2) Elmet
(3) Swing Time
(4) Exit West
Correct Answer: (1) Home Fire
Explanation:
Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire reimagines Antigone in a contemporary British-Muslim context.
11. Which of the following pairs is correctly matched regarding the use of language in drama?
(A) Christopher Marlowe – Prose mixed with verse
(B) Ben Jonson – Poetic Realism
(C) T. S. Eliot – Modern Verse Drama
(D) Samuel Beckett – Comedy of Manners
Correct Answer: (C) T. S. Eliot – Modern Verse Drama
Explanation:
T. S. Eliot revived verse drama in the 20th century (e.g., Murder in the Cathedral).
Marlowe is known for pure blank verse, Jonson for moral satire, and Beckett for Absurdism, not Comedy of Manners.
12. In The Duchess of Malfi, the central tragedy arises mainly from:
(A) Duchess’s ambition for political power
(B) Her defiance of patriarchal authority through remarriage
(C) A conspiracy between Ferdinand and Antonio
(D) Malfi’s civil rebellion and war
Correct Answer: (B) Her defiance of patriarchal authority through remarriage
Explanation:
The Duchess secretly marries Antonio, defying her brothers who forbid her remarriage.
This act of independence triggers the entire revenge tragedy, reflecting Jacobean anxieties about female agency.
13. Which of the following plays best represents the “Drama of Ideas,” where the plot is driven primarily by intellectual debate rather than external action?
(A) The Importance of Being Earnest
(B) Waiting for Godot
(C) Pygmalion
(D) Volpone
Correct Answer: (C) Pygmalion
Explanation:
George Bernard Shaw’s Drama of Ideas uses characters as platforms for debating social issues such as class, language, and identity.
The other plays represent aesthetic comedy (Wilde), absurdism (Beckett), and satire (Jonson).
14. Identify the movement associated with the following characteristics:
“Fragmented narrative, minimal plot progression, repetition of dialogue, and focus on existential uncertainty.”**
(A) Political Realism
(B) Theatre of the Absurd
(C) Social Drama
(D) Comedy of Manners
Correct Answer: (B) Theatre of the Absurd)
Explanation:
These features define Absurdist drama, especially in the works of Beckett, where traditional plot and logical communication break down, revealing the meaninglessness of existence.
15. Which of the following accurately distinguishes Restoration Comedy from 18th-century Anti-Sentimental Comedy?
(A) Restoration Comedy is moralistic; Anti-Sentimental Comedy is licentious
(B) Restoration Comedy focuses on wit and urban sophistication; Anti-Sentimental Comedy restores humour and exposes false sentiment
(C) Restoration Comedy emphasizes family emotions; Anti-Sentimental Comedy ridicules aristocratic society
(D) Restoration Comedy was written only by women; Anti-Sentimental Comedy only by men
Correct Answer: (B)
Explanation:
- Restoration Comedy (Congreve, Wycherley) celebrates wit, flirtation, and social games.
- Anti-Sentimental Comedy (Goldsmith, Sheridan) pushes back against moralizing and false sentiment, reviving genuine humour and lively plotting.