Who is the author of the play Pygmalion?
- A.Oscar Wilde
- B.George Bernard Shaw
- C.Christopher Marlowe
- D.Ben Jonson
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. Pygmalion, in which a professor of phonetics trains a flower girl to speak like a duchess, is his most widely known play, and his others include Arms and the Man, Man and Superman and Saint Joan. A is wrong because Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan, comedies of manners from an earlier generation. C is wrong because Christopher Marlowe belongs to the Elizabethan age and wrote Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine. D is wrong because Ben Jonson, a contemporary and rival of Shakespeare, wrote Volpone and Every Man in His Humour. Note that the musical and film versions of Pygmalion carry a different title, which is why some candidates fail to connect the play with Shaw.
Read the full article: Famous Plays and Dramatists: Exam Notes and Lists
Practice Questions
View allThe Sanskrit play Mrichchhakatika, known in English as The Little Clay Cart, was written by
- A.Kalidasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Bhasa
- D.Bhavabhuti
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Mrichchhakatika is a ten-act play about the love of a poor Brahmin merchant for a courtesan, set against a palace revolution, and its English title The Little Clay Cart comes from a toy cart that appears in the story.
Read the full explanation →Mudrarakshasa, the play dealing with Chanakya and the rise of Chandragupta Maurya, was written by
- A.Kautilya
- B.Vishakhadatta
- C.Banabhatta
- D.Kalhana
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Mudrarakshasa is a political drama whose plot turns on the statecraft of Chanakya as he brings down the Nandas and places Chandragupta Maurya on the throne, and historians use it as a literary source for that change of dynasty.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a play written by Kalidasa?
- A.Meghaduta
- B.Vikramorvashiyam
- C.Ratnavali
- D.Uttararamacharita
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It tells the story of King Pururavas and the celestial nymph Urvashi.
Read the full explanation →The Sanskrit play Swapnavasavadattam was composed by
- A.Bhasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Vishakhadatta
- D.Rajashekhara
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Swapnavasavadattam, the dream of Vasavadatta, turns on King Udayana and his queen and is regarded as his finest work; Urubhanga and Pratima Nataka are also his.
Read the full explanation →The Natyashastra, the oldest Indian treatise on dramaturgy, is ascribed to
- A.Panini
- B.Bharata
- C.Patanjali
- D.Abhinavagupta
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The Natyashastra lays down the rules of the stage, of acting, gesture, music and stagecraft, and gives the theory of rasa, the set of aesthetic moods a performance is meant to create in its audience; it is the foundation of all later Indian dramatic and dance theory.
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