"Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" (1751)

Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" (1751) was an immensely popular meditation on mortality that had a major influence on the early Romantics. The work has led Thomas Gray to be classified among the pre-Romantic Graveyard Poets.

"Elegy" is almost guaranteed to show up on the GRE Literature exam. Read this full text at least three times.

The poem is in four-line stanzas (ABAB), iambic pentameter.

Associate the following quotes with "Elegy:"

1. "Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest / Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."

2. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

3. "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife"

The Lucy poems (1789-1801)

William Wordsworth's Lucy poems (1789-1801) are five short lyrics originally published in the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads alongside the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The Lucy poems were central in establishing the early popularity of Romantic poetry, and one or more is almost guaranteed to appear on the GRE Literature exam. It's almost worth memorizing them. (Luckily, each mentions Lucy at or near the end.)

1. "Strange fits of passion I have known"
2. "She dwelt among the untrodden ways"
3. "I travelled among unknown men"
4. "Three years she grew in sun and shower"
5. "A slumber did my spirit seal"

John Skelton (1460?-1529)

John Skelton (1460?-1529) was one of the first major poets to write in Early Modern English.

For the GRE Literature exam, all you need to know is that he lent his name to "skeltonic" or "skeltonical" verse, which is a term for rhymed couplets of irregular meter used for comic effect.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was a British Victorian poet and humanist critic.

Besides familiarity with "Dover Beach" (his most famous poem), for the GRE Literature Exam, it's enough to know that he was a Classicist with a special fondness for the Greeks, his critical works often have moral or ethical overtones, many of his critical works deal with strongly personal themes, and he liked to bash philistines.

1. "Dover Beach"
-Often seen as an early example of modern sentiments.
-Laments the loss of (religious) faith.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was an English Victorian poet and one of the most popular English poets of all time. Example of his work, often identifiable by its classical and Arthurian influences, are almost guaranteed to show up on the GRE Literature test.

For the test, associate the following works with Tennyson. For In Memoriam A.H.H, a summary and an excerpt will suffice; poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "Ulysses"
-An imagined epilogue to Homer's Odyssey; in blank verse
2. "Break, break, break"
3. "The Lotos-Eaters"
-Spenserian stanzas; an episode from Homer's Odyssey
4. In Memoriam A.H.H.
-The "In Memoriam" stanza: ABBA iambic tetrameter
5. "The Lady of Shalott"
-Arthurian
6. "Mariana"
7. "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
-Probably his most popular, but unlikely to appear on the exam.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Robert Burns (1759-1796) was a Scottish poet influential in the beginnings of the Romantic movement. He wrote poems in English, Scots, and Scottish dialect. Outside of Scottish and literary circles, he is best known as the author of "Auld Lang Syne."

Don't spend too much time on Burns--if you see Scottish-looking spellings, and Burns is a choice, pick him. However, it is worth at least skimming the following poems before the GRE Literature exam, and some of them are quite fun to read.

1. "A Red, Red Rose"
2. "Tam O'Shanter: A Tale"
-long; written in Scots; link goes to summary
3. "Ae Fond Kiss"
-Written in Scottish dialect
4. "Scots Wha Hae"
-Written in Scots; was an unofficial national anthem of Scotland

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1722-1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1722-1834) was a major British Romantic poet and a close friend of William Wordsworth. He and Wordsworth are both considered "Lake Poets."

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following works with Coleridge. Works in bold should be read twice. For the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and the Biographia Literaria, a summary will suffice.

1. "Frost at Midnight"
2. "On Donne's Poetry"
3. "Kubla Khan"
4. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
-In ballad stanzas.
5. Biographia Literaria

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1884-1889)

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1884-1889) was a British Victorian poet. He converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest. He has been more popular in the 20th century than he was in the 19th.

He's known for formal experimentation, especially with prosody. His sprung rhythm gives his works a very unique sound.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following works with Gerard Manley Hopkins. Poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "Carrion Comfort"
2. "The Windhover, to Christ our Lord"
3. "Pied Beauty"
4. "Spring & Fall"
5. "Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend"

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a modern American poet. The GRE folks will occasionally expect you to know that, like contemporary Wallace Stevens, he wasn't a professional poet--Williams was a pediatrician.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following works with William Carlos Williams. Read each poem at least once; poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "Spring and all"
2. "Aspodel, that greeny flower" (excerpt)
3. "Tract"
4. "The Red Wheelbarrow"
5. "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a major American modernist poet. The GRE folks will expect you to know that he worked for an insurance company in Hartford--he wasn't a professional poet.

*Wallace Stevens is almost guaranteed to appear on the exam.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following works with Wallace Stevens. Each poem should be read at least once; poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
2. "The Anecdote of the Jar"
3. "The Emperor of Ice Cream"
4. "The Snow Man"

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner. His work usually features colloquial language and depictions of rural life in early 20th century New England coupled with complex social or philosophical themes.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following works with Robert Frost. Read each poem at least once; poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "Mending Wall"
2. "Design"
3. "Meeting and Passing"
4. "Mowing"
5. "Spring Pools"
6. "Once by the Pacific" (sonnet in 7 couplets)

("Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Road Not Taken" are usually considered too well-known for inclusion on the GRE Literature exam.)

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was an American poet and two-time Pulitzer prize winner--once for his poetry and once for a biography of Lincoln.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate the following poems with Carl Sandburg. Read each poem at least once before the test.

1. "Chicago"
-epithet: "hog butcher for the world"
-looks more like a Ginsburg poem than a typical Frost poem
2. "Fog"

Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

Robert Lowell (1917-1977) was a major postwar American poet and the founder of the confessionalist school. He taught Anne Sexton & Sylvia Plath; he was friends with, but often criticized by, Elizabeth Bishop.

Robert Lowell is slightly more likely than other late-20th-century American poets to appear on the GRE Literature exam. Read the poems below at least once; poems in bold should be read at least twice.

1. "The Drunken Fisherman"
2. "Skunk Hour (for Elizabeth Bishop)"
3. "Mr. Edwards and the Spider"
-A reference to the colonial American preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards.

John Milton (1608-1674)

John Milton (1608-1674) was a major English poet and writer of the Commonwealth period. He is guaranteed to show up on the GRE Literature exam.

His two most important works are also his longest & most famous:

1. Paradise Lost
-Distinctive style: Latinate, syntactically-complex, heavily-enjambed blank verse
2. Areopagitica (treatise against censorship)

If you're doing any heavy reading to prepare for the GRE, and you haven't read them before, these should be on your list. You can get both in one volume if you buy the Norton Critical Edition.

Otherwise, you can rely on summaries and a sense of the styles of the works.

One or two of the following works may also appear on the exam. The poems listed in bold are particularly likely to show up. Read the short works at least once. For the long ones, simply read the summaries.

1. "On Shakespeare"
2. "When I Consider How My Life Is Spent"
-On Milton's blindness
3. "How Soon Hath Time"
4. "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont" (sonnet)
5. Comus
-An early masque; young girl seduced by supernatural being
6. Of Education
-A treatise in support of the liberal arts
7. Samson Agonistes
-Play; Hebrew Samson, after betrayal by Delilah
8. Lycidas (long--read excerpts)
-Most famous example of the pastoral elegy; to colleague Edward King
9. Paradise Regained
-The sequel to Paradise Lost; temptation of Christ; not terribly important

Thomas Carew (1595-1640)

Thomas Carew (1595-1640) was an English Cavalier poet, whose works were usually typically sexual.

However, his one work likely to appear on the GRE Literature exam is an exception:

"An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. John Donne"

Because the GRE is in love with poems about other poets, read this one at least twice.

Post-1945 American Poetry

In general, the GRE Literature test does not weight post-1945 literature heavily. The poets below are most likely to appear in a process-of-elimination ID section. It's enough to recognize the names and read the listed poems at least once. (Poems in bold should be read multiple times.)

1. Sylvia Plath
-"Daddy"
-"The Mirror"
2. John Berryman
3. Amiri Baraka
-"Poem for Half-White College Student"
4. Anne Sexton
-"The Truth the Dead Know"
5. Elizabeth Bishop
-"One Art"
6. Robert Lowell (link to GRE Lit Blog post)
7. Gwendolyn Brooks
-"The Mother"
-"Gay Chaps at the Bar"
-"We Real Cool"

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was a Welsh-born modernist poet. He also wrote short stories and scripts. One or two of the poems below are almost guaranteed to show up on the GRE Literature test.

For the test, associate the following works with Dylan Thomas. Poems in bold should be read at least twice before the exam.

1. "Do not go gentle into that good night"
-Know that this poem is a villanelle.
2. "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"
3. "Fern Hill"
-Known for its very lush imagery.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Andrew Marvell (1621-1628) was an English metaphysical poet and a contemporary of John Donne's.

For the GRE Literature test, associate the following works with Andrew Marvell. Works in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "To his Coy Mistress"
2. "The Definition of Love"
3. "On Milton's Paradise Lost"
4. The "Mower" poems
-"The Mower, against Gardens"
-"Damon the Mower"
-"The Mower to the Glo-worms"
-"The Mower's Song"
-"The Garden"
5. "An Horatian Ode: Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"

John Dryden (1631-1700)

John Dryden (1631-1700) was a poet, critic, and playwright in Restoration England.

For the GRE Literature exam, associate Dryden with the works below. For "Absalom & Achitophel" and All For Love, simply read summaries plus one or two short excerpts. Poems in bold should be read multiple times before the exam.

1. "MacFlecknoe" (Wikipedia--link to full text at bottom)
2. "Absalom & Achitophel"
3. "Epigram on Milton"
4. "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day"
5. "All For Love" (Antony & Cleopatra)

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was an American-born modernist poet who spent most of his career in the United Kingdom. He is one of the foremost figures of modernism.

Associate the following works with T.S. Eliot. For The Waste Land and Four Quartets, read a short excerpt to get a feel for the style of the work. Read the other poems at least once before the exam. The quotes listed below are especially likely to appear on the test.

1. The Waste Land
"April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land"
2. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Let us go then, you and I, / when the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table"
3. Four Quartets
"Time present and time past . . . all time is unredeemable"
4. "The Journey of the Maji"
-Written after Eliot's conversion to Christianity