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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Bloom characterize the end of "Measure for Measure"?
(a) Resplendently happy.
(b) Miserable.
(c) Barely happy.
(d) A concession to necessity.

2. What does Iachino want from Imogen?
(a) To marry her.
(b) To seduce her or see her killed.
(c) To convince her to betray her husband's political power.
(d) To make her queen.

3. What character does Bloom say follows Shakespeare's "Pericles"?
(a) Hawthorne's Hester Prynne.
(b) Milton's Satan.
(c) Milton's Adam.
(d) Melville's Ahab.

4. Whose riddle does Pericles solve at the beginning of the play?
(a) The Delphic Oracle's.
(b) The Sibyl's.
(c) The Sphinx'.
(d) King Antioch's.

5. What does Bloom say is the heart of "Antony and Cleopatra"?
(a) The battle between love and politics.
(b) The battle between East and West.
(c) The battle between the sexes.
(d) The battle between Rome and Egypt.

6. Whose philosophy does Bloom say Iago embodies?
(a) Aristotle's.
(b) Plato's.
(c) Nietzsche's.
(d) Hegel's.

7. How does Helena conceive Bertram's child?
(a) By tricking him.
(b) She marries him.
(c) She is raped by him.
(d) She seduces him.

8. Whom does Shakespeare attack in "Timon of Athens"?
(a) Nietzsche.
(b) Christopher Marlowe.
(c) Alcibiades.
(d) Geoffrey Chaucer.

9. What important character does Bloom say Iago influenced?
(a) Emerson's Transparent Eyeball.
(b) Milton's Satan.
(c) Melville's Ahab.
(d) Whitman's Self.

10. How does Bloom characterize Theseus in "Two Noble Kinsmen"?
(a) Shakespeare's last poetic voice.
(b) The summit of Shakespeare's poetic philosophy.
(c) An illegitimate child of Shakespeare's genius.
(d) Shakespeare's dying gasp.

11. What does Bloom say Thebes in "Two Noble Kinsmen" refers to?
(a) London in 1609.
(b) Athens in 431.
(c) London in 1613.
(d) Paris in 1599.

12. What gives "Winter's Tale" its supernatural quality, according to Bloom?
(a) Polixenes' ubiquity.
(b) Hermione's resurrection.
(c) Leontes' visions.
(d) Leontes' madness.

13. Why does Bloom say "Timon of Athens" was never performed?
(a) Shakespeare felt the play was too personal.
(b) Shakespeare used the play to denounce contemporary London.
(c) Shakespeare died before he finished it.
(d) Shakespeare's patron was offended by the play.

14. What pleased Ben Jonson about Shakespeare's "Henry VIII"?
(a) Its improvement on history.
(b) Its praise of the royal line.
(c) Its exposure of royal corruption.
(d) Its departure from historical facts.

15. What was Wilkins' role in "Pericles"?
(a) He wrote the first two acts.
(b) He wrote the play on which Shakespeare based his 'Pericles'.
(c) He wrote the whole play.
(d) He made substantive changes to the only surviving manuscript of the play.

Short Answer Questions

1. For whom did Cressida betray Troilus?

2. How does Bloom say Ben Jonson saw Thersites?

3. What was John Fletcher's role in "Henry VIII", according to Bloom?

4. Who whom does Fluellen compare Henry V?

5. How does Auden describe Iago?

(see the answer keys)

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