ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Previous
Next

LITERATURE QUESTIONS

RESTORATION EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DRAMA

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
In Voltaire’s “Socrates, ” Socrates defends himself with the following speech. What is the essential point of the speech? SOCRATES: “Always beware of turning religion into metaphysics: Morality is its essence. Adore and stop disputing. If our ancestors had said that the Supreme God had descended into the arms of Alcmene, of Danae, of Semele, and that he had children with them, our ancestors were imagining dangerous fables. It’s insulting to the Divinity to pretend that he had committed with a woman in whatever manner it might be what we would call amongst men an adultery. That’s discouraging to the rest of men to say that to be a great man, one must be born from the mysterious coupling with one of your wives or daughters. Miltiades, Cimon, Themistocles, Arisitides, that you persecuted were perhaps worth more than Perseus, Herakles and Bacchus. There being no other way to be the children of this God than by trying to please him, and by being just. Deserve that title by never rendering iniquitous judgments.”
A
We should obey the gods by acting like them.
B
We should just love one another.
C
Faith and reason should be kept separate so that we can think clearly.
D
The ludicrous stories about the gods prove that they do not exist.
E
Socrates thinks that all religions are too obsessed with sex.
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -Political satire is the use of humor and exaggeration to criticize or ridicule aspects of government and public affairs. The effect of this kind of satire rests on the use of allusion, a reference to a well-known person, event, or thing, and caricature, which exaggerates some feature of what is being referenced.

Detailed explanation-2: -Why did playwrights such as John Dryden and Nicholas Rowe write about subjects from the distant past? Because the Puritans were on the lookout for any reason to shut down the theaters again, artists looked to the past because it was “safe."

Detailed explanation-3: -At last, sentenced to die, Socrates awoke in an Athenian jail to find Crito quietly watching over him, armed with plans for an escape and decampment to Thessaly. He demurred, in his insistent, philosophical way. The only rescue Socrates ever sought was from ignorance and vice.

There is 1 question to complete.
Previous
Next