M.A. Degree in English Language and Literature

MODEL QUESTION PAPER

Paper 1 – Chaucer to the Elizabethan Age

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following choosing one from each section: -

Section A

1.Let endless peace your steadfast hearts accord,

And blessed plenty wait upon your board,

And let your bed with pleasures chaste abound,

That fruitful issue may to you afford,

Which may your foes confound,

And make your joys redound

Upon your bridal day, which is not long:

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

2.The phœnix riddle hath more wit

By us; we two being one, are it.

So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.

We die and rise the same, and prove

Mysterious by this love.

Section B

3. O, what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,
Is promis'd to the studious artizan!

4.On God, whom Faustus hath abjured! on God, whom Faustus
hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would weep! but the devil draws in
my tears. Gush forth blood, instead of tears! yea, life and soul!
O, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands; but see, they
hold them, they hold them!

(2 x 5 = 10)

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words: -

5. The Wife of Bath’s character

6. Morality Plays

7. Donne’s religious poetry

8. The English Sonnet

9. Bacon’s aphoristic style

10. The nature of the Interlude

11. The themes of Sir Patrick Spens

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any section:

Section A

12. Compare the ideals of courtly love in the Knight’s Tale with those in the Wife of Bath’s Tale.

13. Trace the typical characteristics of metaphysical poetry in the poems prescribed for study.

Section B

14. Examine how Sidney attempts to reassert the fundamental importance of literature to society in

general as well as to other creative and intellectual endeavours.

15. Utopia has often been described as a society based entirely on Humanist thought. Discuss.

16. Analyze The Spanish Tragedy as a typical Revenge Play.

Section C

17. Comment on the sociopolitical background of Chaucer’s England.

18.Trace the flowering of the Renaissance in English literature.

19. Examine the nature of Elizabethan romantic drama.

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper II – Shakespeare

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following choosing one from each section:

Section A

1.To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

2. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Section B

3. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

4.And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

(2 x 5 = 10)

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:

5. Imagery in the Sonnets

6. The symbolism of Yorick’s skull

7. Antony’s decline

8. Shakespeare’s Fools.

9. References to water in The Tempest

10. The theme of love in the Sonnets

11. The Elizabethan Theatre

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any section:

Section A

12.Discuss how the play treats the idea of suicide morally, religiously, and aesthetically, with

particularattention to Hamlet’s two important statements about suicide.

13. ExamineAs You Like It as an example of pastoral literature.

14. Discuss the portrayal of beauty in theSonnets.

Section B

15. Contrast the characters of Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony.

16. AnalyzeCaliban’s “the isle is full of noises” speech.

17. Examine Shakespeare’s The Tempest from a postcolonial perspective.

Section C

18. Evaluate Shakespeare’s plays as a reflection of Elizabethan society.

19. Discuss the features of Shakespearean tragedy.

20. Examine the nature of Shakespearean criticism in the twentieth century.

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper III – The Augustan Age

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following choosing one from each section:

Section A

  1. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

  1. At his right hand our youngAscaniussat
    Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.
    His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,
    And lambent dullness play’d around his face.

Section B

  1. What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don’t become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, ’tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
  1. What the devil signifies right, when your honour is concerned? Do you think Achilles, or my little Alexander the Great, ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul, they drew their broad- swords, and left the lazy sons of peace to settle the justice of it.

(2 x 5 = 10)

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:

5.How are the Child-Speaker, the Lamb, and Christ in “The Lamb” set inrelation to one another?

6. What are the symbols used by Burns to express love in the poem, “A Red Red Rose”?

7. Mention some of the most striking formal and technical features ofTristramShandy.

8. Contribution of Addison and Steele to the Periodical essay.

9. Write a short note on the epistolary method employed in Pamela.

10. How is Mr.Hardcastle different from his wife?

11. Delineate the two characters in the poem “Auld LangSyne”?

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any section:

Section A

12. Analyze the character of Satan with special reference to his persuasive skills.

13. Can “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” be considered as a plea for genuine poetry? Discuss.

Section B

14.How does Johnson defend Shakespeare’s violation of the three unities in Prefaceto

Shakespeare?

15. John Morley calls the “Letter to a Noble Lord” “the most splendid repartee in the English

language.” Critically analyze the essay in the light of this statement.

16. Examine TheRivals as an anti-sentimental comedy.

Section C

17.Why is the eighteenth century referred to as “an age of prose, reason and good sense”?

18. Trace the rise of the novel during the Augustan Age.

19.It was in comedy that dramatists of the Restoration excelled. Discuss.

(3 x15 = 45)

Paper IV - The Romantic Period

Time: 3 HoursMaximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following choosing one from each section:-

Section A

  1. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe

abundant recompense.

  1. Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear.

Section B

3. Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily missed all that train

of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments.

4. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and fuses each into each, by that

synthetic and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of

imagination.

(2 x 5 = 10)

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:-

5. Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

6. Odes of Keats

7. Kubla Khan as a celebration of creativity

8. Autobiographical element in Lamb’s essays.

9. Mary Wollstonecraft’s reasons for women’s subjugation.

10. Historical Novel

11. Gothic Novel

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any

section:-

Section A

12. Outline Wordsworth’s Philosophical musings in Tintern Abbey

13. Medievalism in The Eve of St Agnes.

Section B

14. Sketch the character of Bridget Elia in “Mackery End in Hertfordshire”.

15. “A poem must have an organic unity in the sense that, our pleasure in the whole

develops cumulatively out of the appreciation of the parts.” Explain with reference to

Coleridge’s BiographiaLiteraria.

16. “Frankenstein swings between hope and despair”. Explain.

Section C

17. Characteristic features of Romantic Poetry

18. Prose writers of the Romantic Age.

19. Contributions of the novelists of the Romantic Period

(3 x 15 = 45 )

Paper V – The Victorian Age

Time: 3 HoursMaximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following, choosing one from each section:-

Section A

  1. There is no joy but calm!

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

  1. But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar

Retreating to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Section B

  1. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit: touch it and the bloom is gone.
  1. Modern no less than ancient history supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed history would be quite unreadable.

(2 x 5 = 10)

II Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:-

  1. The Pre-Raphaelites
  2. Religious imagery in The Blessed Damozel
  3. Significance of the subtitle of The Windhover
  4. Dramatic Monologue
  5. Psychological novel
  6. Victorian Compromise
  7. Dramatists of the Transitional period

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any

section:-

Section A

  1. Elaborate on the major themes in Fra Lippo Lippi.
  2. How does Morris combine history and fiction to create fantasy and realism in his poem Haystack in the Floods?

Section B

  1. What is the concept of culture according to Arnold? Explain the various factors that make culture.
  2. Discuss A Tale of Two Cities as a Historical Novel.
  3. Examine the statement that the chief merit of the play The Importance of BeingEarnestrests with its sparkling dialogue, teeming with wit.

Section C

  1. Elaborate on some of the salient features of Victorian poetry.
  2. The contribution of the major novelists of the Victorian Period.
  3. Dramatists of the Victorian Period

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper VI – The Twentieth Century

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following, choosing one from each section:-

Section A

  1. Son of Man

You cannot say or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the Sun beats,

And the dead trees give no shelter, the cricket no relief

And the dry stone no sound of water.

  1. Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold:

Mere anarchy is loosed on the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned. (2 x 5 = 10)

Section B

  1. All the love and affection has vanished from the face of this world.
  2. One understands the value of things only in its absence.

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:-

  1. War Poets
  2. Theme of “Thought Fox”
  3. Stream of Consciousness
  4. The four kinds of meaning of I. A. Richards
  5. The Theatre of the Absurd
  6. Celtic Twilight
  7. Character of Lulu

(4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any

section:-

Section A

  1. The Waste Land expresses the disillusionment of the Post-War generation in Europe”. Discuss
  2. Comment on the irony in Larkin’s poem Church Going

Section B

  1. “No poet, no artist of any art, has complete meaning alone.” Discuss with reference to

T.S. Eliot’s Tradition and Individual Talent

  1. Analyze Stephen’s conflicts which lead him to choose the life of an artist in Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
  1. The Birthday Party reflects the plight of the artist in modern society. Discuss.

Section C

  1. The Influence of the Symbolist Movement on English poetry.
  2. Post-War Fiction
  3. Examine the major trends and influences that shaped early twentieth century drama.

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper VII – Indian Writing in English

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Write critical notes on any two of the following choosing one from each section:

Section – A

1.In the morning when she is gone

you will be alone like the stone benches

in the park, and would have forgotten

her whispers in the noises of the city.

2. Pushpa Miss is never saying no.

Whatever I or anybody is asking
she is always saying yes,
and today she is going
to improve her prospect
and we are wishing her bon voyage.

Section – B

3. History is not made only in statecraft; its lasting results are produced in the ranks of

learned men. That’s where you belong . . . . Not in the market of corpses.

4. If justice was as simple as you think or logic as beautiful as I had hoped, life would have

been so much clearer. I have been chasing these words now for five years and now I don’t

know if I am pursuing a mirage or fleeing a shadow.

(2 x 5 = 10)

II. Answer any four of the following each in about 300 words:-

5. The theme of “Our Casuarina Tree”

6. Memories of the tsunami in TishaniDoshi’s “The Day We Went to the Sea”.

7. The Rasa theory as exemplified by G. B. Mohan Thampi.

8. Symbolism in The Great Indian Novel.

9. The Moor’s Last Sigh as a parody of the family saga novel.

10. Class divide and conflict in Kanyadaan.

11. Social concerns in “The Breast Giver”. (4 x 5 = 20)

III. Write essays in about four pages each, on any three of the following, not omitting any section: -

Section – A

12. Examine the contributions of Kamala Das and TishaniDoshi to Indian Poetry in English.

13. How does Song 1 of Gitanjali become the harbinger of a tale of life from cradle to birth?

Section – B

14. Attempt a critique of Ramanujan’s work “Is there an Indian Way of Thinking?”

15. Discuss The Moor’s Last Sigh as a parody of the family saga.

16. Examine the irony underlying the title of the play Kanyadaan.

Section – C

17. Trace the flowering of Indian Nationalism in Indian writing in English.

18. Examine the contributions of Nissim Ezekiel and Dom Moraes to Indian poetry.

19. Elucidate the recent trends in Indian writing in English.

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper VIII – Literary Theory I

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Answer any six of the following each in about 300 words:

  1. Binary opposites
  2. Langue and parole
  3. Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic poles in structuralism
  4. Logocentrism
  5. Free play
  6. Transcendental signified in Derrida
  7. Oedipus complex
  8. Repression
  9. The structure of the unconscious according to Freud
  10. Patriarchy
  11. French Feminism
  12. Gynocriticism

(6 x 5 = 30)

II. Write essays in about four pages each on any three of the following:

  1. Elaborate on Saussure’s contributions on structuralism.
  2. What is a sign system? Why do we say that languages are systems of signs?
  3. Explain Derrida’s concept of “differance” as discussed in “Structure, Signand Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences.”
  4. Discuss the fundamental similarities and differences between structuralist and post-structuralist thought.
  5. Explain Lacan’s “mirror stage” as discussed in “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Foundation of I as Revealed in Psychoanalysis Experience.”
  6. Explain the nature of imaginary and symbolic in Lacan.
  7. Discuss the key concepts in Showalter.
  8. Elaborate on Showalter’s discussion on feminine, feminist and female stages in women’s writing.

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper IX – Linguistics and Structure of the English Language

Time: 3 hours Maximum marks: 75

I. Answer Question 1 and any five of the following each in about 300 words:-

  1. Transcribe the following passage into phonemic script:

It is a very remarkable fact that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts. On the other hand, there is no animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same.

  1. Langue and parole
  2. Environment and distribution
  3. Free and bound morphemes
  4. The problems of the Structuralist Paradigm
  5. Passivization Transformation
  6. Singulary and Double-based transformations
  7. The difference between phonetics and phonology
  8. Supra-segmental features of pronunciation
  9. Word stress and sentence stress
  10. Communicative competence
  11. Motivation and aptitude (6 x 5 = 30)

II. Write essays in about four pages each on any three of the following:-

  1. Linguistics is the scientific study of language as a symbolic system of systems. Discuss.
  2. Examine the differences between human language and systems of animal communication.
  3. Elaborate the fallacies of Traditional Grammar.
  4. How is Structural Grammar an improvement on Traditional Grammar?
  5. Examine the problems of the Structuralist paradigm and explain how T. G. Grammar is superior to it.
  6. Write an essay on Immediate Constituent Analysis.
  7. What are the basic premises of Sociolinguistics?
  8. Discuss the regional and social varieties of English, with particular reference to Indian English.

Paper X – Literary Theory II

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Answer any six of the following each in about 300 words:

  1. Base and super structure
  2. Commodification
  3. Reification
  4. Historicism
  5. Discourse
  6. Textuality
  7. Colonialism
  8. Hybridity
  9. Eurocentrism
  10. Cyborg
  11. Ideology
  12. Representation

(6x5= 30)

II. Write essays in about four pages each on any three of the following:

  1. Explain Raymond Williams’ notions of literature as discussed in “Literature.”
  2. What are the basic assumptions in Marxist cultural theory?
  3. How does Foucault address the relationship between author and the text in “What is an Author?”
  4. What are the basic tenets in New Historicism?
  5. What are the basic assumptions discussed in Said’s “Orientalism?”
  6. Elaborate on Said’s contributions on postcolonial theory.
  7. What are the major transformations in an information age are as discussed in Castells’ “Network Society: from Knowledge to Policy.”
  8. What are the major characteristics of the new age of information?

(3 x 15 = 45)

Paper XI. Elective 1: European Drama

Time: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 75

I. Answer any six of the following each in about 300 words:

  1. Chorus in Oedipus Rex.
  2. Delphian Oracle.
  3. Tiresias.
  4. Mrs. Alving as a feminist prototype.
  5. Social criticism in Ghosts.
  6. Anna Fierling and her family.
  7. Songs in Mother Courage and Her Children.
  8. The literary debate in The Frogs.
  9. The dramatic significance of the ‘invisible’ characters in The Cherry Orchard.
  10. The role of Hippolytus.
  11. Six Characters in Search of an Author as a commentary on the decay of European society.
  12. The major concern in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.

(6 x 5 = 30)