00085--[Matthew Arnold]Which is higher between creative faculty and critical faculty?

                             

            Arnold holds the view that the creative faculty is better and higher than critical faculty.  But the issue is not so simple as it appears to be on the surface.  The fact is that creative faculty and critical faculty are interdependent on each other.  One cannot exist without the other.  It is true that creative power 'is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so by man's finding in it his true happiness.'  Great poetry has the power 'to please, to move, to elevate'.  Critical literature subsists on creative literature.  Creative literature is the foundation upon which critical literature is built, Arnold further says that 'for the creation of a mater-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment'.

            This brings us to the other side of the issue.  Who creates 'the power of the moment'?  It is the critic.  No man, however gifted, can produce a great literary work without a proper intellectual atmosphere around him.  This proper atmosphere for the creation of a great creative work is prepared by the critic.  It is the basic and most important function of the critic to make 'a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true ideas'.  The creative artist is enabled to produce his great works in the background and with the aid of this atmosphere which Arnold calls 'the power of the moment'.  A such the creative and the critical faculties are complementary to each other, neither is better or higher than the other.

00084--Discuss Matthew Arnold's Concept of Grand Style.

Discussing the essential ingredients of Grand style, Arnold says that Grand Style 'arises in poetry when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or severity a serious subject'.  The grand style issues from rapidity of movement, plainness and directness of language, nobility of nature and simple lucidity of mind.  It is the same thing that Longinus calls sublimity.  There can be no sublimity without sublime thoughts, and sublime emotions issuing from a sublime heart.  There can be no sublimity without the sublimity of the soul.

Great thoughts and great words issue only from great minds.  At the same time the subject treated therein also should be serious and grand enough to bear the weight of the grand style.  A trivial subject cannot bear the weight of grand style.  The subjects fit for treatment in grand  style must "powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections; to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time".  There are universal subjects that cannot be bound down by any limits of time or place.  They are fundamental  with human nature sublimely elevated.  The action or situation to be treated under grand style must have the power 'to please, to move, to elevate'.  The greatest practitioners of grand style are Homer in Greek, Dante in Latin, and Milton in English.  Arnold advises the modern poets to study and analyse their style and subject matter if they seek to develop grand style in their own writings.

00083--[Matthew Arnold]-On what type of subjects can great poetry be written?

            
All art is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no more serious problem than how to make men happy.  Only the right art creates the highest enjoyment.  In order to achieve this end, the first problem that comes before a poet is to choose a subject fit for high poetry.  What can be those subjects?  Arnold himself replies:  "Those certainly, which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections; to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time."

            The modernness or antiquity of a subject has nothing to do with its fitness for poetical representation.  Its fitness depends upon its inherent qualities.  The date or the age of an action signifies  nothing.  The action or situation itself, its appeal to permanent human feelings, its power to please, to move, and to elevate - these are the basic requisitions of the subject fit for high class poetry.  Whether past or present the subject should be excellent because without an excellent subject excellent poetry cannot be written.  Quoting Aristotle, Arnold says, "All depends upon the subject:  Choose a fitting subject, penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situation; this done, everything else will follow."

            A trivial subject cannot be raised to poetic excellence only by the art and craft of the poet.  Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats and all other great poets were able to write excellent poetry because they were able to choose excellent subjects to write upon.  The proper choice of subject is, therefore, a matter of prime importance for a great poet.

00176--“The Function of Criticism” by T.S.Eliot

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“The Function of Criticism” was written by Eliot as the result of a literary controversy in 1919.  A famous romantic critic Middleton Murray published an essay challenging Eliot’s views, in his essay “Romanticism and Tradition”.  This essay “Function of Criticism” is a replay to the essay written by Murray.

Eliot begins his essay stating or repeating his views which he had already expressed in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”.  Eliot repeats that there is a close bond [relation] between the present and the past in the world of literature, as in the other fields of life.  We cannot claim any any superiority which is our own.  In other words we continue the work of the past.  But it does not mean total dependence.  Eliot calls the bond a kind of tradition.  All literary works from the time of the ancient masters Homer to the present generation form a single tradition.  A writer’s significance or importance is measured in relation to this tradition. 

By criticism Eliot means the analysis of literary works.  Criticism can never be an autotelic [directed towards an end in itself] activity.  This is because criticism is always about something.  So that ‘something’ is to be considered.  The main aim of criticism is the clear explanation of literary texts and the correction of taste.  But often critics try to differ from one another.  This happens because of their prejudices and eccentricities.  Eliot holds the view that critics should conform and co-operate in the common pursuit, of true excellence.  The result of differences in reviews is that criticism has become like a Sunday park, full of orators competing with each other to attract more audience.  Even in this troubled situation, there are some critics who are useful.  It is on the basis of their works that Eliot intends to establish the aims and methods of criticism.

In the second part of his essay on ‘the Function of Criticism’ Eliot mentions Middleton Murray’s views on Classicism and Romanticism.  Murray makes a clear distinction between the two and states that one cannot be Romanticist as well as a Classicist at once.  Eliot does not agree with this view of Murray.  Murray seems to make it a national or a racial problem, suggesting that the genius of the French is classic and that of the English is romantic.

Eliot does not agree with the view of Murray who says that the English as a nation are romantics, humourists and non-conformists.  Eliot does not agree with Murray who says that the French are naturally classical. 

In the last part of the essay Eliot discusses the problem of criticism in all its manifold aspects.  He makes fun of Matthew Arnold who rather bluntly distinguished between the critical and the creative activities.  Eliot blames Arnold for not considering that criticism is of great importance, in the process of creation itself.  In Eliot’s view an author’s self criticism is the best kind of criticism.  It is the self criticism of one’s own composition.  He says that some writers are better creative and superior to others, only because their critical faculty is superior.  They are able to criticize their own composition even at the time of composing them.  The result is that they corrected and refined.  He does not agree with the view that the great artist is an unconscious artist.  He argues that critical activities and creative activities cannot be separated.  The most important qualification of a critic is that he must have a very highly developed sense of fact.  Eliot agrees that it is a rare gift.  Eliot does not think highly of ‘interpreting’ an anchor.  The critic must be able to give an insight into a text.  He argues that impressionistic criticism is false and misleading.

00189--UGC-NET, English Literature Objective Type Question Answers 51 to 60

51) Marlowe's tragedies are:
A. tragedies of noble men
B. love tragedies
C. one-man tragedies
D. revenge plays
Answer: …………………………….
52)  Who coined the phrase, "Marlowe's mighty line"?
A.  Ben Jonson
B.  Samuel Johnson
C.  R.L. Stevenson
D.  Richard Steele
Answer: ………………………………..
53)      Out of the four chief dialects that flourished in the pre-Chaucerian period, the one that became the standard English in Chaucer's time is:
A. the Northern
B. the East-Midland
C. the West-Midland
D. the Southern
Answer: ……………………..
54)      Which of the following statements is incor­rect regarding medieval literature?
A. Allegory was frequent and usual
B. The dream-vision convention was preva­lent
C. Chaucer exploited the dream-vision con­vention in The Canterbury Tales.
D. There was often an undercurrent of moral and dialectic strain.
Answer: …………………………………..
55) In Prologue and Canterbury Tales Chaucer employed the
A. Ottawa Rhyme
B. Rhyme Royal
C. Heroic Couplet
D. Both A and C
Answer: …………………………………………..
56) Chaucer has been criticized for presenting an incomplete picture of his times, because
A. he overemphasizes the rights of the lower class
B. he exaggerates the courtly benevolence
C. he writes for the court and cultivated clas­ses and neglects the suffering of the poor
D. he supports the Lolland and the Peas­ant Revolution too fervently
Answer: …………………………………………..
57) Which of the following are correctly matched?
a. Captain Singleton                1. a sailor
b. Moll Flanders                      2. a prostitute
c. Colonel Jack                           3. a valiant solider
d. Cavalier                              4. a prince
A. Only a-1 and b-2
B. Only b-2
C. Only c-3 and d-4
D. Only d-4
Answer: ………………….

58) " Lunatics, lovers, and poets all are ruled by their overactive imaginations. " These words of Shakespeare are taken from:
A. Love's Labor Lost
B.  Hamlet
C. Henry IV
D. Midsummer Night's Dream
Answer:……………………………………
59)       An author sums up the human condition thus, "human life is everywhere a state, in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed." Who said this and where?
A. Alexander Pope - Essay on Man
B.  Oliver Goldsmith - The Vicar of Wakefield
C.  Albert Camus - The Stranger
D.  Dr. Johnson – Rasselas
Answer: …………………………..

60)       “Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ''tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lo.st in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. Ii cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.”

A.      T.S.Eliot

B.      Alexander Pope

C.      P.B.Shelley

D.     Matthew Arnold

Answer: …………………………………………

51- C

52- A

53- B

54- C

55- C

56- C

57-A

58-D

59-D

60-A

01704--Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival is a term sometimes applied to the period of Irish literature in English (c.1885-1939) now more often referred to as the Irish Literary Revival or Renaissance. There are other similar terms: Celtic Renaissance, Celtic Dawn, and Celtic Twilight. These Celtic titles are misleading as descriptions of the broader Irish Revival, but they indicate a significant factor in the early phase of the movement: Celticism involves an idea of Irishness based on fanciful notions of innate racial character outlined by the English critic Matthew Arnold in On the Study of Celtic Literature (1866), in which Celtic traits are said to include delicacy, charm, spirituality, and ineffectual sentimentality. This image of Irishness was adopted in part by W. B. Yeats in his attempt to create a distinctively Irish literature with his dreamy early verse and with The Celtic Twilight (1893), a collection of stories based on Irish folklore and fairy-tales. 

00315--LIONEL TRILLING and his works

LIONEL TRILLING

1.Matthew Arnold 2.E.M. Forster 3.The Middle of the Journey [novel of ideas] 4.The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society 5.Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture 6.The Opposing Self: Nine Essays in Criticism 7.Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning 8.Sincerity and Authenticity 9.Mind in the Modern World ( 10.Prefaces to the Experience of Literature 11.Speaking of Literature and Society

01729--classicism

Classicism is an attitude to literature that is guided by admiration of the qualities of formal balance, proportion, decorum, and restraint attributed to the major works of ancient Greek and Roman literature ('the classics') in preference to the irregularities of later vernacular literatures, and especially (since about 1800) to the artistic liberties proclaimed by romanticism. A classic is a work of the highest class, and has also been taken to mean a work suitable for study in school classes. During and since the renaissance, these overlapping meanings came to be applied to the writings of major Greek and Roman authors from Homer to Juvenal, which were regarded as unsurpassed models of excellence. The adjective classical, usually applied to this body of writings, has since been extended to outstandingly creative periods of other literatures: the 17th century may be regarded as the classical age of French literature, and the 19th century the classical period of the Western novel, while the finest fiction of the United States in the mid-19th century from Cooper to Twain was referred to by D. H. Lawrence as Classic American Literature (despite the opposition between 'classical' and 'romantic' views of art, a romantic work can now still be a classic). A classical style or approach to literary composition is usually one that imitates Greek or Roman models in subject-matter (e.g. Greek legends) or in form (by the adoption of GENRES like TRAGEDY, EPic, ODE, or verse SATIRE), or both. As a literary doctrine, classicism holds that the writer must be governed by rules, models, or conventions, rather than by wayward inspiration: in its most strictly codified form in the 17th and 18th centuries (see neoclassicism), it required the observance of rules derived from Aristotle's Poetics (4th century BCE) and Horace's Ars Poetica (c.20 BCE), principally those of decorum and the dramatic unities. The dominant tendency of French literature in the 17th and 18th centuries, classicism in a weaker form also characterized the augustan age in England; the later German classicism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was distinguished by its exclusive interest in Greek models, as opposed to the Roman bias of French and English classicisms. After the end of the 18th century, 'classical' came to be contrasted with 'romantic' in an opposition of increasingly generalized terms embracing moods and attitudes as well as characteristics of actual works. While partisans of Romanticism associated the classical with the rigidly artificial and the romantic with the freely creative, the classicists condemned romantic self-expression as eccentric self-indulgence, in the name of classical sanity and order. The great German writer]. W. von Goethe summarized his conversion to classical principles by defining the classical as healthy, the romantic as sickly. Since then, literary classicism has often been less a matter of imitating Greek and Roman models than of resisting the claims of Romanticism and all that it may be thought to stand for (Protestantism, liberalism, democracy, anarchy): the critical doctrines of Matthew Arnold and more especially of T. S. Eliot are classicist in this sense of reacting against the Romantic principle of unrestrained self expression. 

00188--UGC-NET, English Literature Objective Type Question Answers 41 to 50 [English Literature free notes]

41)  “ Hudibras” is:

1. an English mock heroic and narrative poem

2. from the 17th century

3. written by Samuel Butler

4. from the 18^th century

A. Only  1, 3 and 4

B. Only 1 and 3

C. Only 1, 2 and 3

D. Only 1 and 4

Answer: ………………………

42) Match A with B

                        A                                                          B

a. The Prelude                                                 1. T.S.Eliot

b. Preludes                                                      2. Wordsworth

c. Ode On The Nativity                                   3. Matthew Arnold

d. Tristram and Iscult                                      4. Milton

A. a-4, b-3, c-1, d-2

B. a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2

C. a-3, b-2, c-1, d-4

D. a-2, b-1, c-4, d-3

Answer: ………………………………….

43)      “Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colors; but at the same time it is very much straitened and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects.”

This is taken from:

A.      The Study of Poetry

B.      The Salon of 1859

C.      Studies in the History of the Renaissance

D.     On the Pleasures of the Imagination

Answer: ………………………….

44) Match A with B

                        A                                                          B

a. Thyrsis                                             1. Elegy on John Keats

b. In Memoriam                                  2. Elegy on Hugh Clough

c. Adonias                                            3. Elegy on Edward King

d. Lycidas                                            4. Elegy on Henry Hallam

A. a-1, b-4, c-2, d-3

B. a-2, b-4, c-3, d-1

C. a-3, b-1, c-4, d-1

D. a-2, b-4, c-1, d-3

Answer: ……………………………

45)      Match A with B

            A                                              B

a.  Autolycus                             1.  Aldous Huxley

b.  Mark Twain                         2. Samuel Cemens

c. George Eliot                        3. Mary Ann Evans

d. Elia                                                  4. Charles Lamb

A.      a-1, b-2, c-3, d-4

B.      a-2, b-1, c-4, d-3

C.      a-3, b-2, c-1, d-4

D.     a-4, b-3, c-2, d-1

Answer: …………………………………….

46) Cynewulf is :

1. one of the 12 Anglo-Saxon poets

2. an epic

3. a parody of Beowulf

4. the author of ‘Juliana’ and ‘Elene’

A. Only 1

B. Only 1, 2 and 3

C. Only 3

D. Only 1 and 4

Answer: ……………………………………

47)      “Having thus explained a few of my reasons for writing in verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and endeavored to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same time been treating a subject of general interest; and for this reason a few words shall be added with reference solely to these particular poems, and to some defects which will probably be found in them. I am sensible that my associations must have sometimes been particular instead of general, and that, consequently, giving to things a false importance, I may have sometimes written upon unworthy subjects; but I am less apprehensive on this account, than that my language may frequently have suffered from those arbitrary connections of feelings and ideas with particular words and phrases, from which no man can altogether protect himself.”

This is taken from:

A.      An Essay on Criticism

B.      Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads

C.      Biographia Literaria

D.     A Defense of Poetry

Answer: …………………….

48) According to Longinus which are the sources of sublimity that cannot be cultivated?

1.      Dignity of Composition

2.      Appropriate use of Figures

3.      Capacity for strong emotion

4.      Nobility of Diction

5.      Grandeure of Thought

A.      Only 1, 2, and 5

B.      Only 3 and 4

C.      Only 2, 4 and 5

D.     Only 3 and 5

Answer: ……………………………………..

49) According to S.T. Coleridge:

1.      Primary imagination has the “esemplastic” power.

2.      On the way to the supernatural from natural if the poet fails to carry on he ends up as a “materialist”.

3.      Allegory is superior to symbol.

4.        Being an ‘organic whole’ is the quality of good poetry.

A.      Only 2, 3 and 4

B.      Only 1, 2 and 3

C.      Only 2 and 4

D.     1, 2, 3 and 4

Answer: ……………………………

50) Who translated the “Seafarer”?

A.      A.L. Tennyson

B.      Ezra Pound

C.      T.S.Eliot

D.     Sylvia Plath

Answer: …………………………

ANSWERS:

41-C

42- D

43-D

44-D

45-A

46-D

47-B

48-D

49-C

50-B

00190--UGC-NET, English Literature Objective Type Question Answers 61 to 75

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61)      “…the error of evaluating a poem by its effects—especially its emotional effects—upon the reader” is:

A.      Affective Fallacy

B.      Intentional Fallacy

C.      Both A and B

D.     Pathetic Fallacy

Answer: …………………………………………

62)      Match A with B

                        A                                             B

a. Robert Penn Warren                   1. Ode to the Confederate Dead

b. Allen Tate                                     2. Understanding Poetry

c. John Crowe Ransom              3. Literary Criticism: A Short History

d. W.K. Wimsatt                                       4. The New Criticism

A.      a-4, b-3, c-1, d-2

B.      a-2, b-4, c-3, d-1

C.      a-2, b-1, c-4, d-3

D.     a-1, d-4, c-2, d-3

Answer: ……………………………………………

63)      Marlowe’s all four great tragedies share two features in common.  Which are they?

1.      Magic Realism

2.      Theme of overreaching

3.      Blank Verse

4.      Romantic presentation

A.      Only 1, 2 and 3

B.      Only 3 and 4

C.      Only 2, 3 and 4

D.     Only 2 and 3

Answer: ………………………………………..

64) Who said that the writer should be “outside the whale”, because otherwise, the state or society could swallow the writer up, as the whale had swallowed Jonah.

A.      Andrew Marvell

B.      S.T.Coleridge

C.      T.S.Eliot

D.     George Orwell

Answer: ……………………………..

65) “I have used similitude.” Who said this about his which work?

A.      Thomas Hobbes about ‘Leviathan’.

B.      Bunyan about ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’

C.      Milton about ‘Paradise Lost’

D.     Alexander Pope about ‘The Dunciad’

Answer: …………………………………

66)   Which of the following is wrong?

A.      Jonathan Swift—A Modest Proposal—Pamphlet—1728

B.      Samuel Johnson—The Vanity of Human Wishes—Imitation of Juvenal’s 10^th satire

C.      Robinson Crusoe—Friday—Colonialism

D.     Henry Feilding—Tom Jones—Story of a foundling

Answer: ……………………………………….

67) The two gentlemen in the Two Gentlemen of Verona are
(a) Douglas and Calvin
(b) Valentine and Protons
(c) Henry Bailey and Davenant
(d) Lovelace and Herrick
Answer: …………………………….
68) Who popularized the inductive method for arriving at a conclusion through his Novum Organum?
(a) Ben Jonson
(b) Francis Bacon
(c) Addison and Steele
(d) Dr. Johnson
Answer: …………………….
69)  Thomas Hardy’s life and career are obliquely depicted in:
A. The Return of the Native
B. Jude the Obscure
C. Tess of the d’ Urbervilles
D. The Mayor of Casterbridge
Answer: …………………………….
70) Which of the following statements is/are wrong based on the novel “Heart of Darkness”?
1. Kurtz pretends to be mad.
2. The novel opens on the mouth of the Thames.
3. Marlow is the hero-narrator of the tale
4. Chinu Achebe denounced this novel as “bloody racist”.

A. Only 1
B. Only 2
C. Only 3 and4
D. Only 4
Answer: ………………….

71)       “The humblest craftsman over near the Aemilian school will model fingernails and imitate waving hair in bronze; but the total work will be unhappy because he does not know how to represent it as a unified whole. I should no more wish to be like him, if I desired to compose something, than to be praised for my dark hair and eyes and yet go through life with my nose turned awry. You who write, take a subject equal to your powers, and consider at length how much your shoulders can bear. Neither proper words nor lucid order will be lacking to the writer who chooses a subject within his powers. The excellence and charm of the arrangement, I believe, consists in the ability to say only what needs to be said at the time, deferring or omitting many points for the moment. The author of the long-promised poem must accept and reject as he proceeds.”

Horace here:

A.      Gives advice

B.      Criticises

C.      Evaluates

D.     Inspires

Answer: ……………………..

72)      “The ancient poets animated all sensible objects with gods or geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive.

“And particularly they studied the genius of each city and country, placing it under its mental deity.

“Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, and enslaved the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began priesthood; choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.

“And at length they pronounced that the gods had ordered such things.

“Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.

                                    ……………….

Who speaks here?

A.      Addison

B.      Matthew Arnold

C.      William Blake

D.     Alexander Pope

Answer: ………………………………….

73)      “I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement especially in literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously-I mean negative capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge.”

This is taken:

A.  from Letter to Benjamin Bailey.

A.      from Letter to George and Thomas Keats .

B.      from Letter to John Taylor .

C.      from Letter to Richard Woodhouse.

Answer: ……………………..

74)      Well, we are all condamnes. as Victor Hugo says: "les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort avec des sursis indejinis ":  we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest in art and song. For our one chance is in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. High passions give one this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, political or religious enthusiasm. or the "enthusiasm of humanity." Only, be sure it is passion, that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.

This is from:

A. Is There a Text in This Class?

B. The Contingency of Language

C. Studies in the History of the Renaissance

D. The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles

Answer: ………………………….

75)            Or, after dark, will dubious women come

               To make their children touch a particular stone;

               Pick simples for a cancer; or on some

               Advised night see walking a dead one?

               Power of some sort will go on

               In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;

               But superstition, like belief, must die,

               And what remains when disbelief has gone?

This is taken from Philip Larkin’s 

A.      The Less Deceived

B.      An Arundel Tomb

C.      Church Going

D.     Toads

Answer: …………………………….

ANSWERS:

61-A
62-C
63-D
64-D
65-B
66-A
67-B
68-B
69-B
70-A
71-A
72-C
73-B
74-C
75-C