In reading Ibsen's A Doll's House today, one may find it hard to imagine how daring it seemed at the time it was written one hundred years ago. Its theme, the emancipation of a woman, makes it seem almost contemporary and without doubt a play relevant for all time.
In Act I, there are many clues that hint at the kind of marriage Nora and Torvald have. It seems that Nora is a doll controlled by Torvald. She relies on him for everything, from movements to thoughts, much like a puppet who is dependent on its puppet master for all of its actions. The most obvious example of Torvald's physical control over Nora is his teaching her the tarantella. Nora pretends that she needs Torvald to teach her every move in order to relearn the dance. The reader knows this is an act, and it shows her submissiveness to Torvald. After he teaches her the dance, he proclaims "When I saw you turn and sway in the tarantella--my blood was pounding till I couldn't stand it" showing how he is more interested in Nora physically than emotionally. When Nora responds by saying, "Go away, Torvald! Leave me alone. I don't want all this", Torvald asks "Aren't I your husband?" By saying this, he is implying that one of Nora's duties as his wife is to give him physical pleasure at his command. Torvald also does not trust Nora with money, which exemplifies Torvald's treating Nora as a child. On a rare occasion when Torvald gives Nora some money, he is concerned that she will waste it on candy and pastry. Nora's duties, in general, are restricted to caring for the children, doing housework, and working on her needlepoint. A problem with her responsibilities is that her most important obligation is to please Torvald, making her role similar to that of a slave. She too becomes a prey to the existing norms of a patriarchal society.
Many of Ibsen's works are problem plays in which he leaves the conclusion up to the reader. The problem in A Doll's House lies not only with Torvald, but with the entire Victorian society. Females were confined in every way imaginable. When Torvald does not immediately offer to help Nora after Krogstad threatens to expose her, Nora realizes that there is a problem. By waiting until after he discovers that his social status will suffer no harm, Torvald reveals his true feelings which put appearance, both social and physical, ahead of the wife whom he says he loves. This revelation is what prompts Nora to walk out on Torvald. When Torvald tries to reconcile with Nora, she explains to him how she had been treated like a child all her life; her father had treated her much the same way Torvald does. Both male superiority figures not only denied her the right to think and act the way she wished, but limited her happiness. Nora describes her feelings as "always merry, never happy." When Nora finally slams the door and leaves, she is not only slamming it on Torvald, but also on everything else that has happened in her past which curtailed her growth into a mature woman.
In today's society, many women are in a situation similar to that of Nora. Although many people have accepted women as being equal, there are still people in modern society who are doing their best to suppress the feminist revolution. People ranging from conservative radio-show hosts who complain about "flaming femi-nazis," to women who use their "feminine charm" to accomplish what they want are the ones who hold the female gender back. Both of these mindsets are expressed in A Doll's House. Torvald is an example of today's stereotypical man, who is only interested in his appearance and the amount of control he has over a person, and does not care about the feelings of others. Nora, on the other hand, is a typical example of the woman who plays to a man's desires. She makes Torvald think he is much smarter and stronger than he actually is. However, when Nora slams the door, and Torvald is no longer exposed to her manipulative nature, he realizes what true love and equality are, and that they cannot be achieved with people like Nora and himself together. If everyone in the modern world were to view males and females as completely equal, and if neither men nor women used the power that society gives them based on their sex, then, and only then, could true equality exist in our world.
The central issues are: 1. The rejection of the “master narrative” of Western imperialism, 2. Concern with the construction of the colonial and postcolonial subject, and, 3. Disestablishing the Eurocentric norms of literary and artistic values.
1. The colonial other is marginalized and subordinated in the master narrative where the central power is western imperialism. Traditionally, the Eurocentric notions regulated the art and literature. But here there is a revolution. The master narrative is replaced by a counter-narrative. By doing this the colonial cultures fight their way back into a world history manipulated by Europeans.
2. Postcolonial studies are also concerned with the categories of by means of which this subject conceives itself and perceives the world within which it lives and acts. The colonial subject=Subaltern. Subaltern is a British word stands for a low ranked military personnel. Sub=under. Alter=other. (Latin) Gayatri Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak is an important work in this field.
3. The main agenda of post colonialist thinkers is to destroy the centre that holds the power (here it is Eurocentric norms) so that both the colonial and postcolonial writers can come under one umbrella.
Mathew
Arnold's 'Dover Beach' is a beautiful lyric which describes the helpless
uncertainty and doubt of the Victorian period.
There was a gradual decline in man's faith in God and religion. The Victorian mind was dazzled by the
achievements of science and material progress.
Faced with this choice between the world of faith and the world of
materialism, the Victorian found himself in a sad Plight. In Dover Beach Mathew Arnold pictures this
inability of man to make the right choice.
The poet uses the sea as a symbol to bring home this idea.
The poem has a very beautiful setting. It is a very peaceful quiet moonlit night at
the Dover Beach.
The sea is calm and full. The Dover cliff stands out
glimmering and vast. The night air is
sweet. The tides coming to the shore
fling down pebbles on the stand with a clattering sound. The poet watches this ceaseless action of
the waves. He listens to the rhythmic
cadence of the waves and he detects the eternal note of sadness in it.
The sad note is not only the poet's own personal
feeling. It is the universal note of
sadness. The poet now takes us back
through history to the time of Sophocles.
He too listened to the sad music of the waves; it brought into his mind
the miserable plight of humanity, its turbid ebb and flow. Though the reference is to Sophocles, Arnold
bridges the present with the past.
From the real sea Arnold
now goes to the metaphorical sea. It is
the sea of faith. It was once full,
beautifully spread out and deep. This
sea of faith once encircled and protected the entire world's faith in God and
religion sustained humanity in those days of glory. The poet feels a sense of loss and utter despair
as he looks on the dimly lit scene before him.
The sea of faith is no longer full. It has receded with a long melancholy roar
like the sea in front of him has receded exposing the pebbles and leaving the
shore littered with shingles. Arnold has in mind a
society which has moved away from religious faith cherished in the past and is
now torn between faith and the glamour of materialism.
Arnold thinks that there is only one clear solution for
man to get out of this dilemma. It is
the power of true love. The last part of
the poem thus reveals Arnold's abiding faith in the power of true love to console
man when he is plunged in despair.
The world of science and technology seems to be a dream
world, so beautiful, so varied and so new.
The poet feels that there is no real joy and happiness in this
world. No joy, no light, no certitude,
it is only a beautiful mirage.
The poet is once again plunged in despair as he looks on
the dimly lit sea scape. The tide has
receded so low that the sea shore seems to expand in to a vast dark plain. The poet now visualizes ignorant armies
clashing on this battle field. They are
in utter confusion and fight without knowing friend from foe. Thus Arnold closes the poem giving us a
terrifying picture of anarchy and futility.
This is a poem in which Yeats prays for the happiness and
well-being of his daughter, who has just been born. The poet is slightly upset as he thinks with apprehension
about the collapse of modern civilization.
While the poet's mind is stormy with this fear the child is calmly
sleeping in the cradle. The thought
about the dangers awaiting the child frightens him. The poet listens to the ominous howling of
the storm in his mind as he thinks of the dangers his daughter may be exposed
to. The gloomy poet walks up and down
and prays for his daughter. As he
listens to the stormy wind he thinks the prophetic vision described in his poem
"The second Coming" is at hand.
Then there follows a skillful description of the kind of
beauty that is not desirable in a woman – beauty that makes a stranger crazy or
that makes a woman exult at her reflection in the mirror. The poet prays that his daughter may have
beauty, but not excessive beauty. He
knows that too much beauty in a woman will land her in danger. He knows that fabulous beauty goes with an
empty mind. The poet makes suggestive
allusions to Helen who had "much trouble from a fool" and Venus who
chose "a bandy-legged smith" as her husband. From both these stories the poet draws a
realistic and at the same time entertaining moral:
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
So the poet wishes and prays that his daughter may be
granted moderate beauty.
Yeats's next prayer is that his daughter should grow up
like a laurel tree with linnets singing on its branches. The laurel tree represents luxuriant growth
and peace and harmony. While the birds
stand for joy. She should bring joy to
those around her just as the birds provide joy to people. The poet wants her daughter to become free from
hatred. The poet knows that intellectual
hatred is great evil and can make the mind hollow. The soul is the fountain of joy and peace and
so if she can attune her will to the will of God, she need not have any fear
about anything. As the radical innocence
of the soul is the highest form of spiritual development, Yeasts asks his
daughter to recover it. It is a gift
from heaven and no earthly temptations can subdue her.
Yeats's next wish is that his daughter should not become
a political fanatic. Fanaticism will
create hatred and ill will and a woman with these vices will become incapable of
using the gifts conferred on her. No
doubt, the poet is referring to Maud Gonne, the talented and beautiful lady
whom Yeats loved. She rejected him and
married John Macbride, another political fanatic. According to the poet, she wrecked her life
and caused misery to her friends and relatives.
It was vanity and hatred that threw her life into confusion. It is Yeats's wish that his daughter should
not devote herself to any impersonal cause, sacrificing all other values in
life.
Yeats prays that her daughter be endowed with courtesy
which he considers as the queen of all virtues.
Courteous behaviour can win over hearts.
Ceremoniousness is another quality that the poet wishes her daughter to
possess. According to him ceremony alone
will engender innocence and beauty. The
poet makes references to Maud Gonne in several places in the poem. This shows the poet's inordinate love foe
her. She rejected his love and chose to
dedicate herself to the cause of Irish Independence. Later though she married another political
fanatic, John Macbride, she did not have a happy married life. It is the poet's prayer that his daughter
should not have similar experiences.
The poem contains many heart-warming lines expressive of
affection, humanity, generosity, optimism, good cheer, amiability etc. Besides, we find several examples of the
felicity of word and phrase: "the murderous innocence of the sea",
"an old bellows full of angry wind", "rooted in one dear
perpetual place" etc. are examples.
We also get a bit of moralizing which has its own appeal: "an intellectual hatred is the
worst."
"Ceremony's s the name for the rich horn
And custom for the spreading laurel
tree."
"A prayer for my Daughter" is a poem full of
practical wisdom, moral philosophy and beauty.
"The Road Not Taken" is one of Frost's most
characteristic meditative lyrics. Among
the major themes of Frost's poetry are his ambiguous relationship with nature, his
interest in the paradoxes of life and his faith in human fortitude. Some of these are touched upon in "The
Road Not Taken." The
"road" here is, of course, the career or occupation that a man might
choose to follow at a particular period of his life. Frost was a farmer, a teacher and a
journalist before he chose to become a professional poet. Perhaps it is this choosing of a new
"road" in his life that prompted the poem. Life always offers us roads of different
choices. Our decision determines our
future.
One day as the poet was walking through a small forest he
saw his road branching away into two directions. It was autumn, the roads were covered with yellow
leaves. As he had to make a choice, the poet stood
there for some time and took the road that was less used. This means that the other road was much traveled
by, meaning that it was a path of conventional career. But he took the road which was less
conventional, and therefore more adventurous. The poet thought
that he would travel along the other road some other day. But when he thought that the way he took must
lead to other ways, he knew that he could never come back to use the second
road. Years later he would tell his
friends about those roads and how his choice had made all the difference. But the poet does not clarify what the
difference has been, whether it has been good or bad. He leaves it in ambiguity.
Robert Frost
Superficially the poem describes a simple, common country
scene in simple language. But a closer
look will reveal the deeper meaning it has.
Many of the characteristic features of Frost's poetry can be seen
here. The speculation on the untrodden
path is natural to a poet like Frost who avoids the expression of romantic
excitement about the experiences of life.
Frost employs a simple language and no decorative imagery. But his interest in paradox and ambiguity
makes the poem deeper than it looks at the first reading.
W.H. Auden in his poem "The Unknown Citizen"
tackles an immediate problem of contemporary life. In this satirical poem he laughs at the
attitude of an ordinary citizen in a totalitarian state. The decline of the status of the individual
has made him a cog in the machine. The
individual has no freedom of action or initiative. He seems to be happy in a superficial,
in a purely material sense, but he has
been deprived of his basic rights. It is
the cause of these modern citizens that Auden depicts in the poem.
The title of the poem "The Unknown Citizen" is
suggestive. It recalls the name 'the
Unknown warrior' which was used for a fallen soldier who was taken as the
representative of all those who had been killed in the Great War, and who lay
in nameless graves in foreign battlefields.
The Unknown Citizen is a representative of the citizens who have been virtually
buried in the modern scientific society and have lost all their
individuality. Auden laments the loss of
individuality and freedom of the citizen.
Auden's Unknown Citizen was one who satisfied the
standards set by his state. The Bureau
of statistics declared that he obeyed all the laws of the state and followed
all conventions of society and there was no complaint about him. Fudge Motors Inc where he was employed was
fully satisfied with his work. He paid
his dues to the local trade union.
Researchers in social psychology declared that he was social and gave
company to his co-workers by joining them for a drink occasionally. The evaluators of newspapers stated that he
bought a newspaper every day and was normal in his response to
advertisements. The agents of manufacturers
of modern machines on installment basis and he paid his installments and
insurance premium regularly and punctually.
He was in fact a 'saint' in the modern sense of the term.
Public opinion polls showed that he had the right
opinions for the right season, always conforming to the general opinion. Though he loved peace, he was quite willing
to fight in a war. He had the right
number of children and had no objection to the state's giving any kind of
education to them. All these prove that
he was not free to express his opinions or view in any matter. He strictly did abid by the laws and interests
of his state.
In the last lines of the poem Auden asks an important
question; was the unknown citizen free and happy? The poet says that the question is
absurd. What he implies is that the
citizen might say that he is free and happy for fear of social isolation or
harassment. In fact he is not free to express
any of his preferences. He has no
freedom of action and initiative. Where
there is no freedom, there cannot be any happiness. Though he seems to be happy, he is only
pretending to be happy in the midst of the modern materialistic comforts.
Auden ironically depicts the problems of an ordinary
citizen in a totalitarian state. He has
no identity. He is just a cog in the
machine.
John Donne addresses his poem “The Sun Rising” to the sun, but the theme
of the poem is the joy of true love. The poet derives infinite joy by
loving and by being loved. The poet’s wit and irony are here directed
against the sun for trying to interfere in the lover’s happiness.
In the opening stanza, the sun is addressed as “busy, old fool” flashing
his light into the lover’s bedroom, perhaps with the intention of
waking up and parting them. It is unfair on his part to expect the
lovers to act according to his movements. He may go about his trivial
errands like pulling up ‘late school boys’ and lazy apprentices who hate
to work. The country ants and courtiers may knuckle under his
authority but not so the lovers. Love is above time, which is regulated
by the sun. For lovers, seasons, hours and days have no meaning.
The argument against the sun is continued. The sun need not think that
his light is dazzling and worthy of respect. If the poet closes his
eyes, the sunlight is rendered dark. But he does not like to lose sight
of his beloved by closing his eyes. In hyperbolic language he asks the
sun if the eyes of his beloved are not brighter than sunlight. Gazing
into her eyes, the sun may feel dazzled. Roaming over the whole world,
the sun can inform him on the next day whether the lady is not worth
more than the East and the West Indies. The poet’s lady comprises in
her all the kingdoms. The poet, in the possession of his mistress is
thus richer than any king on earth.
The lovers in Donne’s poem are the archetypal ideas or the soul of the
world, of which the states and princes are imperfect perfections. The
poet declares that there is nothing else besides him and his beloved
which implies that they have become one, and together they constitute
the soul of the world. The lovers can look down upon the world from the
heights of perfection they have reached through the realization of
their true love. The pomp and majesty of a king is then a mere
imitation of the glory attained by lovers. Compared to their spiritual
wealth, all material wealth seems counterfeit. The sun, being old and
run down, will welcome the contraction of the world. Now that the
lovers are the world, the can fulfill his duty of lighting and warming
the world by merely shining on them. By circling round a single room,
he can circle round the whole world.
The tone of the poem is gently ironic besides being playful and
colloquial. Love is shown as having triumphed over time and space. The
poet’s sense of completeness in the possession of his mistress is an
illusion. The lovers mock at space and time as illusions without
realizing that they themselves are under an illusion. Those who accept
the reality of time and space may be poor deluded mortals, but the
lovers who pride themselves I having achieved a sense of completeness
are by no means better. Professor A. Stein points out, “What the
lovers represent majestically is not a distillation of all that is
precious and delightful on earth to the imagination of a lover, who does
not feel himself quite on earth…. The lovers possess in their bed what
does not seem to incommode them as idea and image, a composite token of
the material possession of that gross external world.”
The lovers look out on other illusions from an unexamined illusion. The
poet, with his beloved by his side, feels infinite bliss, which to him
appears perfect. He tries to force on us the conviction that the kings
and their kingdoms are all with the lovers. The lady comprises in her
all the kingdoms, and the poet comprises in him all the kings. A king
with all his indisputable power and majesty can only imitate the bliss
of the lovers. Even the sun is presented as being glad to move round
the lovers who represent the whole world. The sun’s duty of giving
light and warmth to the world is thus lightened.
All told, one is left wondering if Donne is not mocking at himself and
his lady, living in an illusory world of unadulterated joy. Donne is
here mocking at the conventional conceits found in the love poems of his
time, or he imply that the lovers represent the soul of the world or
the Platonic archetype of the world.
The poem Tintern Abbey ranks among the finest
and the most characteristic of Wordsworth’s works. It sums up Wordsworth’s development and
furnishes a sure criterion to evaluate his life and poetry. Moreover, it marks the birth of a new age in
the history of English poetry. It is
usual for Wordsworth to compose lyrics by recalling a scene observed weeks,
months, or even years earlier. In the
poem Tintern Abbey he describes a second visit to
the Wye valley after an interval of five years.
This provides the occasion for his statement that during all these years
he has been bearing in mind the sights and sounds there as a balm to his
troubled soul amid the fret and fever of life.
In seeking to explain how this can be, he gives us an autobiography in a
nutshell, outlining the three successive phases of his love of nature.
Wordsworth recalls how five years
earlier he had made his previous visit to the beauty-spot round Tintern Abbey. Now he sees again the familiar and lovely
spot recognizing the pleasing murmurs of the mountain streams, the Wye flowing
down the mountain side.
The poet sees the landscape
rendered solemn and impressive by the steep sides of lofty hills in one of the
most unfrequented and wild spot in Wales.
A holy inexplicable calm pervades the scene which seems to ascend to the
heavens themselves. From where he stands
in the shade of a sycamore tree, he gets a general view of distant cottages,
each standing in its own small plot of ground hidden amidst the green foliage
of trees, bushes and creepers trailing to the very doors of the houses. Wisps of smoke arise from the chimneys of the
cottages, but as the latter are hidden behind a curtain of leaves and branches,
the on-looker gets the impression of nomads or stray gypsies living in the open
and cooking their food. The poet even
wonders if there could be some hermit’s cave nearby from which the lonely
ascetic is preparing his simple food. Thus
amidst the profusion of nature, unbroken solitude and absence of human beings,
the poet derives an almost religious and inspiring tranquility.
Recognizing
the familiar features of the landscape seen earlier, the poet feels a sense of
joy, of release in the presence of congenial natural sights and sounds. He thinks of the uneasiness and confusions
generated by the cities. During the last
five years, memories of the abbey and the river have frequented him at times of
distress and gloom, and miraculously cheered up his drooping spirits. As often as his emotions were pained or his
spirits dejected, he had only to recall the lovely scenes of the country round
Tintern Abbey to feel refreshed and to be revived. These contacts with Nature delighted his mind
and strengthened his character. From this
the poet inferred that there must be some vital and secret connection between
the spirit of nature and the cultivation of human feelings in the right
direction.
Over and above the chastening and
strengthening of his moral and emotional aspects, the poet derived from the
nature the power of looking into the mystery of life and finding the principle
of unity and harmony underlying all creation.
By practicing a kind of yoga he attuned his mind and spirit to the
mysterious working of a supreme presence all around him, he got rid of the
frustrations and failures of life step by step, forgot the weight of the mortal
body and became exalted in spirit and sensation until he saw nothing but a
beneficent force brooding over all the universe of which he himself was a
part. Thus he came to unravel the
mystery or riddle of existence itself. It
was indeed the triumph of spirit over flesh. Thanks to this realization which enabled him
to escape from the fever and fret of life, from the restrictions and
artificialities of conventional society, into deep communication with the
spirit of Nature herself as he felt it when he was in Tintern Abbey.
There are three stages in the
evolution of his attitude to Nature. The
first stage is called the infant stage. In
this period he looked upon nature much as the rose looks upon its new-begun
course of life. This stage is of mere
sensation, of the gratification of instincts and feelings without any attempt
to analyze or sort them out.
The second stage is that of
adolescence. Love is the most turbulent and ecstatic manifestation of
youth. The poet’s attitude towards
nature becomes that of a lover’s attitude to his mistress. Just as in the presence of his beloved, or
even at the mere thought of her, the lover’s entire body, feelings and mind
become roused as with extreme rapture, so did the poet feel in the presence of “the
sounding cataract”. This is only
symbolical, for the “sounding cataract” is but one manifestation of
nature.
The final and third phase of Wordsworth’s
attitude happened when both the unreasoned and unanalyzed attitudes give place
to the philosophic interpretation of the influence and essential attributes of
Nature. Wordsworth was able to find in
the all pervading spirit of nature a full recognition of the sadness or pathos
of human life with its countless trials and tribulations; this sadness was necessary
for a proper integration of the higher faculties and active expression of a
sublime and supreme spirit in nature.
This spirit was to be recognized in his own heart as well as in remote
planets and worlds other than ours. To this all-pervading power of Nature
Wordsworth owes the stimulation of his creative faculties as well as his power
of enjoying the beauties of the manifested world. He believes that all his good qualities are
the results of his adoration of Nature.
Ultimately the poet connects his
sister with this spiritual development. The
human element of the poem is strengthened by these references to his sister. He sees in her what he was a few years
ago. He wishes that she may continue to
be so for few more years and then follow
his path of evolution.
A ballad is a narrative song of love and adventure
usually using a dramatic form of questions and answers. Keats's famous poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", has
been written in the style of a ballad.
It tells the story of a knight who was enchanted by a beautiful lady who
finally destroyed him. In his poem Keats
has followed the ballad style. He uses
archaic words and the metre of the poem conforms to the ballad style. The subject matter of the poem is also
a characteristic of a ballad. The theme of
most of the early ballads is a knight's love for a fairy, the deception and the
consequent sad plight of the knight.
This poem is one of the few successful ballads written in English
poetry.
Like most traditional ballads the poem begins with a
question. The poet finds a knight
equipped with his weapons loitering about alone in the woods. He looks
sad and pale. It is the autumn season and even the weeds of
the lake are dried up and no bird sings.
The poet asks the knight why he is roaming about alone in the dull
season
of the year when the corn has been reaped and even the squirrels are not
found
moving about the fields as they are stored enough grain for the winter.
He further tells the knight that his face is
as white as a lily and his forehead is covered with drops of
perspiration
resulting from some inward pain. His
cheeks are bloodless and dry like a rose which is losing its colour and
withering quickly.
The knight tells the poet his touching story. While roaming about in
the meadows he met an
extremely beautiful lady. She looked a
fairy child. She had long hair and
walked nimbly. There was wildness in her
eyes. The knight was so much enchanted
by her beauty that he plucked flowers and made a garland for her head
and
bracelets and sweet smelling belt. The
beautiful lady did not speak a word. From her look and sweet melancholic
manner the knight thought that she
loved him dearly. He took her on his
horse and they rode the whole day. In
his extreme love for the lady, he did not notice anything around him.
While riding, the lady bent sideways and sang
some fairy song. At last they reached a
strange place. The lady offered him
delicious food. She spoke in a strange language. The knight thought
that she was expressing
her love for him. She then took him to
her fairy home and there she lulled him to sleep. In his sleep he saw a
nightmare. He felt that he was lying on the side of a
cold hill and there he saw a number of princes, kings and warriors.
They looked very pale. They told him that they had been deceived by
the beautiful lady. They were her early
Victims. When he woke up he found that
he was lying alone on the cold hill. The
lady had deserted him. In his sad plight
he is roaming about the dreary hill in that dull season of the year.
Browning's poems are studies of the
character. They are studies of the other
men. The poet stands apart and gives his
characters a platform and lets them speak to us, and as they speak they unfold
their character. It was for this purpose
that Browning invented a new genre of poetry known as dramatic monologue or
dramatic lyric. It has a few
well-defined characteristics. It is a
compromise between the drama, the soliloquy and the lyric. The author keeps himself entirely in the
background and so it is essentially dramatic.
As only one character speaks it is a monologue. The monologue is essentially a lyrical outpouring
or a subjective self-examination.
"My Last Duchess" is one of Browning's finest
dramatic monologues. The poem proves
that Browning is a matchless master of this kind of poetry. The poem also reveals the poet's deep
understanding of human character and capacity to present it in the most
dramatic and impressive manner. As in
the other monologues here also the chief character is the speaker of the
monologue. Here there is only one
listener, who does not speak anything at all.
The central character of our poem is an Italian nobleman who intends to
marry the daughter of a rich count, whose agent is the silent listener. As his speech goes on we come to understand
the character and outlook of the man. As
he narrates his relationship with his wife point by point our understanding of
him gets widened. Browning is a master
of delineating the complex inner life of men.
Here we find the Duke talking about his last Duchess, but in fact he
speaks more about himself.
listen to : Short summary of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
Usually what Browning does in his dramatic monologue is
to bring the speaker before us at a crucial moment when he is most likely to
reveal his character. In 'My Last
Duchess' the apt moment is when the Count's agent has come to conclude the
negotiations regarding the proposal of a union between the count's daughter and
the Duke. It is quite natural that the
Duke would look back into the past and think about his first wife and his relationship
with her. The snobbish Duke must have
taken the agent around the house and on reaching the art gallery he must have
shown the portrait of his last Duchess.
Explaining to the agent the reason behind the depth of the passion and
earnest glance on the face of the portrait, the Duke briefly reveals the
character of his former wife, wand in the process lays bare his own egotism,
possessiveness and cruelty.
The dramatic situation and the presence of a listener is
very subtly and cleverly suggested by the occasional direct address made by the
Duke to the count's agent. Indirectly we
see his curiosity to take a look at the curtained portrait and then his desire
to know how such an expression of intense joy happened on the face of the
portrait. This gives occasion to the
Duke to describe his former wife's character and the way in which he treated
her. His cruelty, his egotism, his
jealousy minus love are all revealed to us.
Finally there is a suggestion that the agent stood back as they began to
descend the steps so that the Duke may proceed.
However the Duke invites the agent to walk abreast and as they step down
he points to a bronze statue of Neptune, remarking that it is a rare piece.
The poem is thus a very good
example of a dramatic monologue. It is full of action, notmerely
a long soliloquy delivered by a character. It is dramatic, however small
the compass may be, and it projects before us a vivid picture of all the
emotion natural to a character.
listen to : Detailed Analysis of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ is one of the greatest pastoral elegies in English
literature. Pastoralism in literature is an attitude in which the
writer looks at life from the view point of a shepherd. In classical
literature this has been successfully handled by Theocritus of Sicily,
and after him by Virgil and Bion. In English literature it was
popularised by Sir Philip Sydney and Edmund Spenser, but the
scintillating star in the firmament of pastoralism is certainly John
Milton.
Pastoral elegy has its own conventions handed down from generation to
generation. Let us see how far Milton has observed them in ‘Lycidas’.
The pastoral poet begins by invoking the Muses and goes on referring to
other figures from classical mythology. In ‘Lycidas’ we find an
invocation to the Muses from line 15 to 22. Milton concludes by
expecting a similar service from some other poet when he is dead.
Secondly, the mourning in pastoral poetry is almost universal. Nature
joins in mourning the shepherd’s death in ‘Lycidas’, private sorrow
giving place to public sorrow. Lines 37-49 in Lycidas describes the
mourning. Woods and caves once haunted by Lycidas now mourn for him.
The inquest over the death is another tradition found in Pastoral poems.
In lines 50-63, Milton charges the nymphs with negligence. But the
next moment it dawns on him that they would have been helpless. Triton,
the herald of the sea questions every wind and is assured that the air
was calm when Lycidas set sail. The conclusion drawn is that the fatal
ship that sank Lycidas was built during the eclipse and fitted out in
the midst of curses.
Then comes a description of the procession of mourners as found in all
pastoral elegies. Camus, representing Cambridge university and
leadership, leads the procession. The last among the mourners is
St.Peter mourning the loss to the church incurred by the death of
Lycidas. With a denunciation of the corrupt clergyman, St.Peter
disappears. Lines 88-111 are occupied with this description.
Post-Renaissance elegies often included an elaborate passage in which
the poet mentions appropriate flowers of various hues and significance
brought to deck the hearse. Lines 133 to 151 carry such a description.
Among the primrose, the crowetoe, the pink and the woodbine, the
amaranth alone signifies immortality with its unfading nature.
In orthodox pastoral elegies there is a closing consolation. The poet
accordingly asks the shepherds to weep no more, for Lycidas is not dead,
but has merely passed from one earth to heaven. Lines 165 to 185 offer
consolation. In Christian elegies, the reversal from grief to joy
occurs when the writer realizes that death on earth is entry into a
higher life. But Milton adds that Lycidas has become a genius of the
shore to play the guardian angel to those who wander in the dangerous
flood.
Milton has followed the conventions in pastoral poetry, but he has
mingled in it Greek mythology and Christian theology. In addition there
are two digressions from pastoral strain: a) a discussion on the true
values of life, and, b) a bitter criticism of the clergyman of the day.
He introduces St.Peter into the list of mourners which shows the
deepening puritanical fervour of the poet. In the other parts of the
poem he has merely used the images handed down from classical ages. But
when questions about the religious state of England rose in his mind,
he could not restrain himself. He puts into the mouth of St.Peter a
trade against the corrupt clergymen of his day. He prophesies that the
domination of the corrupting leaders is doomed. The note of keen
personal regret is conspicuous by its absence. Milton here laments the
loss of the church, for Edward king was intended for the church. He
would have certainly set an example of purity and devotion to the other
priests. In addition, the poet is bewailing the loss of another poet, who also knew “to build the lofty rhyme”.
‘Lycidas’ is unquestionably a pagan poem. But Milton, the austere
puritan could not help introducing Christian elements into it. Thus
with its curious mixture of pagan loveliness and Christian austerity, it
becomes the offspring of Milton’s unparalleled genius. The poem starts
with an apology for breaking the poet’s resolve not to write any poetry
until his poetic talent has matured fully. The concluding eight lines
from a sort of epilogue in which Milton speaks directly, having stepped
out of the character of the shephered. Having passed through many moods
and sung in different strains, the shepherd draws his clock around him
and leaves the spot.
"Punishment in Kindergarten" is a little autobiographical
poem by the famous Indo-Anglian poet Kamala Das. She recalls one of her childhood
experiences. When she was in the
kindergarten, one day the children were taken for a picnic. All the children
except her were playing and making merry.
But she alone kept away from the company of the children. Their teacher, a blue-frocked woman, scolded
her saying.
"Why don't you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!"
This heard, all the other children who were sipping sugar
cane turned and laughed. The child felt
it very much. She became sad at the
words of the teacher. But the laughter
by the children made her sadder. She
thought that they should have consoled her rather than laughing and insulting
her. Filled with sorrow and shame she
did her face in a hedge and wept. This
was indeed a painful experience to a little child in the nursery school.
Now after many years she has grown into an adult. She has only a faint memory of the
blue-frocked woman and the laughing faces of the children. Now she has learned to have an 'adult peace'
and happiness in her present state as a grown-up person. Now there is no need for her to be perturbed
about that bitter kindergarten experience.
With her long experience in life she has learned that life is a mixture
of joy and sorrow. She remembers how she
has experienced both the joy and sorrow of life. The long passage of time has taught her many
things. She is no more a lonely
individual as she used to feel when she was a child. The poet comes to a conclusion that there is
no need for her to remember that picnic day, when she hid her face in the
hedge, watching the steel-white sun, that was standing lonely in the sky.
The poem is written in three stanzas, each having
different number of lines – the first with seven lines, the second with six and
the third with nine. The poem does not
follow any regular rhyme scheme. The
subject matter of the poem has two parts, the first of which being the
description of the painful experience of the kindergarten days and the second,
the adult's attitude to the incident at present when she is no more a child.
The poet seems to be nostalgic about her childhood
days. There are certain expressions in
the poem that are worth remembering. The
poet says that the child buried its face in the hedge and "smelt the
flowers and the pain". "Smelt
the flowers can be taken as an ordinary expression, but "smelt the
pain" is something very evocative and expressive. In the first stanza of the poem, the poet
describes the pain caused to the child, "throwing words like pots and
pans". This again is
beautiful. The phrase used by the poet
to describe the child's teacher, namely, "blue-frocked woman" can be
justified from the child's point of view.
But to the poet who is an adult the use of the phrase looks a little too
awkward. On the whole, the poem can be
taken as the poet's interest in remembering her childhood days.
Stanza
1. The poet addresses the Urn.
Looking at the urn the poets imagination conjures up the ancient life and
worship suggested by the sculptured images and he speculates on the abstract
relation of art and life. These figures
are unpolluted by the hand of man and not destroyed by time. Time which destroys everything has preserved
it like a foster child. Scenes from
rustic life are depicted on the urn. It
is also if some historian had recorded ancient Greek life. The engraver has succeeded in giving it permanence. A poet could not do this better. The scene is pictured with an ornamental
border of leaves. It tells the tales of
gods and men in Tempe or the valleys of Arcadia in Greece. The poet now asks a few questions. We are these men or gods? Who are these women feigning coyness? Why do the men or gods pursue them
madly? The poet wonders how they elude
their pursuers. Pipes and timbrels are
playing and the whole scene is filled with exquisite rapture.
Stanza
2. In the second stanza the poet
emphasizes the permanence of a moment captured by art.
Songs heard in reality are sweet,
but those unheard, those which dwell in the realm of the ideal are sweeter
still. From the real world the poet
takes us through the world of art into the pure realm of imagination. So the pipes he seems on the urn play on not
to the physical ear but to the ears of the soul and we hear the harmonies of
eternity. The poet addresses the
sculptured figure of the young man who cannot stop singing. The trees under which he is standing will be
ever green, Both the youth and the trees have passed into the realm of eternity
through art. The lover is about to kiss
his beloved. The consoles the
lover. His beloved is always young
because as in real life the lover and the girl do not grow old and lose their
beauty.
Stanza
3. On the urn the trees are even
green. They cannot shed their leaves
because it is always spring for them.
The piper standing under the tree will keep on signing fresh songs. The lovers on the urn keep on loving. They are always happy. The fleeting passions of real life do not
affect them. They are never
surfeited. They do not suffer from the
agonies of thwarted love.
Stanza
4. The poets curiosity is aroused
watching the figures coming to the sacrifice.
Who are these men and women? Who
is this mysterious priest who leads the young sacrificial cow to the grassy
alter. The poet hears the pitiful crying
of the cow. Looking beyond what he seems
before this eyes the poet visualizes the empty stress of the little town. All the people have gone to the sacrifice. They will never return and the streets of the
city will ever be silent and desolate.
Stanza
5. The beautiful shape
of the Grecian Urn raises in the mind of the poet the ideal of Beauty which he
equates with Truth. The sculptured
figures of men and women and the pastoral scene raise thoughts which baffle the
poet. They are as mysterious as eternity. When men of this age are crippled by old age
the urn would whisper words of comfort Oman of succeeding
generations. Beauty is truth, truth
beauty. Beauty and truth becomes one and
the same thing.
John Dryden's MacFlecknoe is
one of the finest satires in the English language. It was Neo-classical period in English literature and
Dryden, along with another brilliant satirist Alexander Pope, was the power who
dominated the literary scene. Satire was
the most popular form of poetry and both Dryden and pope were great masters of
this poetic genre.
Mac Flecknoe is
the product of a literary and personal rivalry.
The poem was Dryden's reply to Thomas Shadwell's poem. The
Medal of John Bayes which in turn was a criticism of Dryden's earlier
poem. The Medal. Shadwell's poem was an unfair and indecent attack. This provoked Dryden and he brought out mac Flecknoe that silenced his
adversary.
Dryden's satirical genius is fully revealed in the
poem. It is a satire on Thomas
Shadwell. Who was once a friend of
Dryden.
Mac Flecknoe is ready to vacate his tile as the world's
worst poet. A worthy successor has to be
chosen. The choice falls on Shadwell. The
coronation takes place in Barbican, London
suburb notorious for its low and vulgar life.
The events are presented in an absurd ridiculous manner.
Dryden uses allusions, paradies and quotations profusely
to ridicule the great hero of the poem.
The gross stupidity of Shadwell is highlighted from the
beginning of all the sons of Flecknoe, he Shadwell is dullest and therefore by
nature the fittest to succeed his father.
His stupidity is of such comprehensive nature that the rest to some
faint meaning make pretense. But
Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Shadwell is described as a giant of a man, but a pygmy intellectually. Thus Nature designed him to be the great
monarch of dullness. Flecknoe himself
was the king of the kingdom of dullness.
He says he was only a John the Baptist preparing the way to the great
Jesus Christ.
Irony is the most potent weapon Dryden wields in his literary
warfare. Shadwell's enormous stupidity
is highlighted throughout the poem. The
man's corpulence, his mountain belly and his addiction to opium are referred
to. Apart from this attack on his
adversaries personal attributes, Dryden uses, most of the poem to criticise the
'poetic talents' of his rival.
Mac Flecknoe is
designed to be a mock heroic poem. So
the interest is always focused on this aspect.
Mock-heroic poetry employs a satirical devise in which
the great ad the silly are brought together and compared. This way the absurd nonsensical effect is
largely increased. For this purpose
Dryden has chosen events and characters from the Bible and ancient
history. Shadwell is selected and put n
the throne of stupidity in a coronation which is described in detail. It is as if the audience is witnessing the
coronation of a great king who is destined to rule a vast empire. The poem ends drawing a parallel to the
Biblical story of the mantle of Elijah falling on the shoulders of Elisha
giving him a double portion of his sire's prophetic spirit.
1. Match the right authors
1 The chambers and the stables weren wide
And well we weren easd at the best.
30 And shortly, when the sun was to rest,
So had I spoken with them every one
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And mad forward early for to rise
To take our way there as I you devise.
2 Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus,
Than pitied in a Christian poverty.
For I can see no fruits in all their faith,
But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride,
Which methinks fits not their profession.
Haply some hapless man hath conscience,
And for his conscience lives in beggary.
3 Right in the midst the goddess' self did stand
Upon an altar of some costly mass,
Whose substance was uneath [difficult] to understand:
For neither precious stone, nor dureful brass,
Nor shining gold, nor mouldering clay it was;
But much more rare and precious to esteem,
Pure in aspect, and like to crystal glass,
Yet glass was not, if one did rightly deem,
But being fair and brickie [brittle], likest glass did
seem.
4 And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to this, self murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
a, Spenser
b, Chaucer
c, Donne
d, Marlowe
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-b, 2-d, 3-a 4-c
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b 4-d
Answer:…………………..
2. “My great religion is the belief in the blood, the flesh as being wiser than intellect”.
Whose words?
a) Thomas Hardy
b) Charlotte Bronte
c) Emily Bronte
d) D.H Lawrence
Answer:…………………..
3. “Urania, I shall need
Thy guidance, or a greater Man, if such
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!
For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink
Deep—and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil”
The above passage is an instance of epic style invocation. Identify the work and its author.
a) Illiad by Homer
b) Paradise Lost Book 3, Milton
c) Paradise Lost Book 1, Milton
d) Recluse, by Wordsworth
Answer:…………………..
4. “Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plains”
The above lines are from The Deserted Village, written by Oliver Goldsmith. What social movement is referred to in these lines?
a) The Enclosure
b) The Chartist movement
c) Green Revolution
d) Glorious Revolution
Answer:…………………..
5. “Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.”
Identify the poem?
a) Tennyson’s Lotos Eaters
b) Browning’s My Last Dutchess
c) Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot
d) Browning’s Porphyria's Lover"
Answer:…………………..
6. The following are characteristic features of a poetic genre. Identify the genre.
A single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment […].
This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people; but we know of the auditors' presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker.
The main principle controlling the poet's choice and formulation of what the lyric speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker's temperament and character.
a) Sonnet
b) Epic
c) Ode
d) Dramatic Monologue
Answer:…………………..
7. “Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
Identify the author and work.
a) Tennyson, Lotos eaters
b) Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra
c) Browning, My Last Dutchess
d) Browning, Andrea del Sarto
Answer:…………………..
8. “If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die. —
That strain again; it had a dying fall:
O, it came oer my ear, like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour! Enough! No more.
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”
Which of Shakespearen character says so. Identify the play.
a) Hamlet, in Hamlet
b) Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
c) Orsino in Twelfth Night
d) Hermione in the Winter’s Tale
Answer:…………………..
9. He scarce had ceas't when the superiour Fiend
Was moving toward the shoar; his ponderous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large and round, [ 285 ]
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb
Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views
At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, [ 290 ]
Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.
His Spear, to equal which the tallest Pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast
Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand,
He walkt with to support uneasie steps [ 295 ]
Over the burning Marle, not like those steps
On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire;
The fragment is taken from a work by
A, Edmund Spenser
B, John Milton
C, William Shakespeare
D, Geoffrey Chaucer
Answer:…………………..
10. "It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the weak strong, the most miserable most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish”.
The above passage is an example of a mannered style of English prose fashionable in the Elizabethan times. Identify the style.
a. Bombast
b. Parallelism
c. Euphuism
d. Baroque
Answer:…………………..
11. “The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: “Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?”
The above passage appears in……
a. Notes Towards the Definition of Culture
b. Culture and Society
c. Popular Culture
d. Culture and Anarchy
Answer:…………………..
12. 1 The existence of a variety of structures of language generated by specific configurations of power, all seeking precedence and the imposition of particular rules and hierarchies.
2 An overarching explanation of a state of affairs, like those offered by Marxism, the enlightenment or Christianity
3 Possessing no overall design or universal plan, resistant to totalisation or universalisation.
4 A self-certifying or absolute structure or foundation which lies beyond the operation of language
a, anti-teleological
b, plurality of power/discourse formation
c, metaphysics of presence
d, metanarrative
A 1-c, 2-b, 3-d, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-d, 2-a, 3-c 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b 4-d
Answer:…………………..
13. 1 The way in which linguistic structures or discourses maintain a radical difference from one another
2 The collapse of signification as a set of discernible and discrete units of meaning
3 An identity, consciousness or ego which is deferred,displaced, fragmented or marginalised within a structure.
4 Self conscious incorporation of the process of production, construction or composition
a, reflexivity
b, implosion of meaning
c, incommensurable
d decentring of the subject
A 1-b, 2-c, 3-d, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-d, 2-a, 3-c 4-b
D 1-c, 2-b, 3-d 4-a
Answer:…………………..
14. 1 It is well known that certain periods of highest development
of art stand in no direct connection with the general development
of society, nor with the material basis and the skeleton
structure of its organization. Witness the example of the
Greeks as compared with the modem nations or even
Shakespeare. As regards certain forms of art, as, e.g., the
epos, it is admitted that they can never be produced in the
world-epoch-making form as soon as art as such comes into
existence; in other words, that in the domain of art certain
important forms of it are possible only at a low stage of its
, development. If that be true of the mutual relations of different
forms of art within the domain of art itself, it is far less
surprising that the same is true of the relation of art as a
whole to the general development of society. The difficulty
lies only in the general formulation of these contradictions.
No sooner are they specified than they are explained. Let us
take for instance the relation of Greek art and of that of
Shakespeare's time to our own
2 The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is
at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the
material intercourse of men, the language of real life. The mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language
of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.-real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness
can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life process
3 ..............All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance
to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Mettemichand Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London, and sketched the following manifesto to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.
4 The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and
serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried
on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a
fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution
of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere complicated arrangement of society into various orders a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
a, Manifesto of theCommunist Party.
b, Bourgeois and Proletarians1
c, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
d, The German Ideology
A 1-c, 2-b, 3-d, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b 4-d
Answer:…………………..
15. 1 J C Ransome a, irony
2 R P Blackmur b, tension
3 R P Warren c, gesture
4 Allen Tate d, texture
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
16. 1, satire a, autumn
2, romance b, spring
3, tragedy c, winter
4, comedy d, summer
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b 4-d
Answer:…………………..
17. 1, Maud Bodkin a, Archetypes in Literature
2, Jessie Weston b, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry
3, Levi Strauss c, From Ritual to Romance
4, Northrope Frye d, Elementary Structures of kinship
A 1-d, 2-b, 3-a, 4-c
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-b, 2-c, 3-d 4-d
Answer:…………………..
18. 1 Among the following, who is/are not belonging to Formalist School?
1, Yury Tynyanove
2 Osip Brick
3 R S Crane
4 Boris Eichenbaum
A, Both 2 and 4
B, Only 2
C, Only 3
D, Both 2 and 3
Answer:…………………..
19. Of his kind of analysis, the privileges of the subject?
Clearly, in undertaking an internal and architectonic analysis
of a work (whether it be a literary text, a philosophical
system, or a scientific work) and in delimiting psychological
and biographical references, suspicions arise concerning
the absolute nature and creative role of the subject. But
the subject should not be entirely abandoned. It should be
reconsidered, not to restore the theme of an originating
subject, but to seize its functions, its intervention in discourse,
and its system of dependencies. We should suspend
the typical questions: how does a free subject penetrate
the density of things and endow them with meaning;
how does it accomplish its design by animating the rules
of discourse from within? Rather, we should ask: under
what conditions and through what forms can an entity like
the subject appear in the order of discourse; what position
does it occupy; what functions does it exhibit; and what
rules does it follow in each type of discourse? In short, the
subject (and its substitutes) must be stripped of its creative
role and analysed as a complex and variable function of
discourse.
The passage implies...
A, that the author is insignificant in the analysis of a work
B, that the author is merely a part of work
C, that the author has a role in the analysis of a work
D, that the author is dead
Answer:…………………..
20. If we attend to the confused cries of the newspaper critics and the susurrus of popular repetition that follows, we shall hear the names of poets in great numbers; if we seek not blue-book knowledge but the enjoyment of poetry, and ask for a poem, we shall seldom find it. I have tried to point out the importance of the relation of the poem to other poems by other authors, and suggested the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.... And I hinted, by an analogy, that the mind of the mature poet differs from that of the immature one not precisely in any valuation of personality, not being necessarily more interesting, on having 'more to say', but rather by being a more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations.
The passage is taken from a work by:
A, Mathew Arnold
B, William Wordsworth
C, S T Coleridge
D, T S Eliot
Answer:…………………..
21. The importance of the god or hero in the myth lies in the fact that such
characters, who are conceived in human likeness and yet have more power
over nature, gradually build up the vision of an omnipotent personal community
beyond an indifferent nature. It is this community which the hero regularly enters in his apotheosis. The world of this apotheosis thus begins to pull away from the rotary cycle of the quest in which all triumph is temporary. Hence if we look at the quest-myth as a pattern of imagery, we see the hero's quest first of all in terms of its fulfilment.... the vision of innocence which sees the world in terms of total human intelligibility. It corresponds to, and is usually found
in the form of, the vision of the unfallen world or heaven in religion. We may call it the comic vision of life, in contrast to the tragic vision, which sees the quest only in the form of its ordained cycle.
The passage is an example of...
A, formalist criticism
B, archetypal criticism
C, psychoanalytic criticism
D, new criticism
Answer:…………………..
22. 1, New Historicism a, Mikhail Bakhtin
2, Dialogism b, Allen Sinfield
3, Frankfurt School c, Stephen Green
4, Cultural materialism d, Walter Benjamin
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
Answer:…………………..
23. “There is shadow under this red rock”
The line suggests...
A, the possibility of attaining salvation
B, modern man fails to see each other
C, loss of faith in the modern era
D, modern man’s life is futile
Answer:…………………..
24. 1, Robert Graves a, The Shield of Achilles
2, T S Eliot b, The Cool Web
3, W H Auden c, October Dawn
4, Ted Hughes d, Ash Wednesday
A 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
Answer:…………………..
25. 1. “My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes makes one sight”
In which Frostean poem do we read these lines?
a) Mending Walls
b) True Tramps in Mud Time
c) A Brook in the City
d) A Servant to Servants
Answer:…………………..
26. “Nature is the incarnation of thought
The world is the mind precipitated”
Which is the philosophical doctrine that holds the above belief?
a) Transcendentalism
b) Romanticism
c) Naturalism
d) Realism
Answer:…………………..
27. “The Tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops, the same is true of laugh”.
Who says so and in which work appear these lines?
a) Pozzo in Waiting for Godot
b) Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus
c) Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathusthra
d) Kazantzakis in The Report to Greco
Answer:………………….
28. “The peculiar nakedness of Wordsworth’s poetry, its strong sense of being alone with the visible universe, with no myth or figure to meditate between ego and phenomena, is to a surprisingly large extent not so much a result of history as it is of Wordsworth’s personal faith in the reality of the body of nature”.
The above passage is taken from a classical study of Romanticism. Identify the author and work?
a) The Romantic Imagination by Mourice Bowra
b) The Visionary Company by Harold Bloom
c) Natural Supernaturalilsm by M.H Abrams
d) The Mirror and Lamp by M.H Abrams
Answer:…………………..
29. “... the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of centre for centre, as a linked chain of determinations of the centre. Successively, and in a regulated fashion, the centre receives different forms or names. The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. Its matrix [...] is the determination of being as presence in all senses of this word. It could be shown that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the centre have always designated an invariable presence (essence, existence, substance, subject, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth).”
Who is the author of the above passage?
a) Roman Jakobson
b) Roland Barthes
c) Jacques Derida
d) Jacques Lacan
Answer:…………………..
30. “History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
Identify the author and work?
a) James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
b) James Joyce Ulysses
c) Beckett, Murphy
d) Beckett, Moloy
Answer:…………………..
31. “Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
In which poem by Eliot appear the above lines?
a) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
b) The Waste Land
c) The Hollow Men
d) Ash-Wednesday
Answer:…………………..
32. It is a narrative form which deals with the artist’s growth to maturity. It means the “artis’s novel”. Wordsworth’s Prelude, Dickens’ David Copperfield, etc. are examples of this narrative form. Name this narrative form.
a) Künstlerroman
b) Bildungsroman
c) Autobiography
d) Historical novel
33. “Incredulity towards meta-narratives” is a definition of postmodernism given by:
a) Lyotard
b) Baudrillard
c) Fredric Jameson
d) Terry Eagleton
Answer:…………………..
34. “With this same key
Shake-speare unlocked his heart' once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shake-speare he!”
Identify the author of the above lines.
a. Robert Browning
b. Ben Johnson
c. Dr. Samuel Johnson
d. Coleridge
Answer:…………………..
35. “An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful.... any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language”.
Identify the author and Work.
a. I.A Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism
b. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena
c. F.R Leavis, The Common Pursuit
d. William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity
Answer:…………………..
36. “Why can a street be completely rebuilt and still be the same? Because it does not constitute a purely material entity; it is based on certain conditions that are distinct from the materials that fit the conditions, i.e. its location with respect to other street”
The passage reminds you of.....
A, Archetypal criticism
B, Structuralism
C, Postmodernism
D, Poststructuralism
Answer:…………………..
37. 1, Barthes a, History
2, Levi Strauss b, Anthropology
3, Foucault c, Philosophy
4, Derrida d, Literature
A 1-d, 2-b, 3-a, 4-c
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-b, 2-c, 3-d 4-d
Answer:…………………..
38. Which is/are not by Foucault...
1, Order of Things
2, Madness and Civilisation
3, A Study of History
4, History of Sexuality
A, Only 1
B, Only 3
C, Both 1 and 2
D, Both 3 and 4
Answer:…………………..
39. Literature was conceived to be primarily an "art"; that is, a set of skills which, though it requires innate talents, must be perfected by long study and practice and consists mainly in the deliberate adaptation of known and tested means to the achievement of foreseen ends upon the audience of readers. It is the craftsman's ideal demanding finish, correction, and attention to detail. Special allowances were often made for the unerring freedom of what were called natural geniuses, and also for happy strokes, available even to some less gifted poets, which occur without premeditation.
The passage refers to...
A, formalist criticism
B, neo-classical criticism
C, new criticism
Answer:…………………..
40. Match the works with their composers
1, Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues...
2, From gardens where we feel secure
Look up, and with a sigh endure
The tyrannies of love:
And, gentle, do not care to know,
Where Poland draws her Eastern bow,
What violence is done . . .
3, Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free . . .
4, And I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life
And i have something to expiate;
A pettiness
a, W H auden- Look Stranger
b, D H Lawrence- Snake
c, T S Eliot- waste Land
d, W B Yeats- The Tower
A 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
B 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-b, 2-c, 3-d 4-d
Answer:…………………..
41. Match the following
1, Lacan a, discourse
2, Derrida b, mirror stage
3, Foucault c, scriptible
4, Barthes d, logocentrism
A 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
D 1-b, 2-c, 3-d 4-d
Answer:…………………..
42. 1,Culture and Anarchy a, Walter Pater
2, The Picture of Dorian Gray b, Johnson
3, Studies in the History of the Renaissance c, Mathew Arnold
4, Lives of the English Poets d, Oscar Wilde
A 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-b, 4-a
D 1-b, 2-c, 3-d 4-d
Answer:…………………..
43. After all, if anyone will ask me whether 'a tragedy cannot be made upon
any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in us, Bossu,4 the
best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That all excellent arts, and
particularly that of poetry, have been invented and brought to perfection by
men of a transcendent genius; and that, therefore, they who practise afterwards
the same arts are obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in
their writings the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should
destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly thus,
that no passions in a story are so proper to move our concernment as fear
and pity; and that it is from our concernment we receive our pleasure is
undoubted; when the soul becomes agitated with fear for one character, or
hope for another, then it, is' that we are pleased 'in ‘Tragedy, by the interest
which we take in their adventures.
This extract is taken from...
A, Pope- Essay on Criticism
B, Dryden- Essay on Dramatic Poesy
C, Johnson- Preface to Shakespeare
D, Sidney- Apology for Poetry
Answer:………………….
44. ‘Considering that it is as subject one comes to voice, then the postmodernist
focus on the critique of identity appears at first glance to threaten and
close down the possibility that this discourse and practice will allow those
who have suffered the crippling effects of colonization and domination to
gain or regain a hearing. Even if this sense of threat and the fear it evokes
are based on a misunderstanding of the postmodernist political project, they
nevertheless shape responses. It never surprises me when black folks respond
to the critique of essentialism, ,especially when it denies the validity of identity
politics by saying, 'Yeah, It s easy to give up identity, when you got one."
Should we not be suspicious of postmodern critiques of the "subject" when
they surface at a historical moment when many subjugated people feel themselves coming to voice for the first time? Though an apt and oftentimes
appropriate comeback, it does not really intervene in the discourse in a way
that alters and transforms.’
The passage highlights...
A, postcolonialism
B, postmodernism
C, racial isues
D, cultural criticism
Answer:…………………..
45. 1, Macbeth a, pride
2, Hamlet b, ambition
3, Othello c, procrastination
4, Lear d, jealousy
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-d, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-d, 3-a 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
46. I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to prevent me from asserting, that
I point my Reader's attention to this mark of distinction, far less for the sake
of these particular Poems than from the general importance of the subject.
The subject is indeed important! For the human mind is capable of. Being
excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must
have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know
this, and who does not further know, that one, being is elevated above
another, in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has therefore
appeared to me, that to endeavour, to produce or enlarge this capability is
done of the best services in which, ;at any period, a Writer can• be engaged;
but this service; excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For
a multitude of causes, unknown to former ,times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it
for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to Ii state of almost savage torpor. The
most effective of these causes rather great national events which are daily
taking place and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the
the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies; To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the
country have conformed themselves.
The passage is from
A, The Function of Criticism by T S Eliot
B, Biographia Literaria by Coleridge
C, Culture and Ararchy by Arnold
D, Preface to Lyrical ballads by Wordsworth
Answer:…………………..
47. 1, Louis McNiece a, Lost Season
2, Roy Fuller b, Confessions of a Life Artist
3, Basil Bunting c, Homage to Cliches
4, Thom Gunn d, The Spoils
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-d, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
D 1-a, 2-c, 3-b, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
48. Among the following who is/are not from Dickens’ Hard Times?
1, Louisa
2, Gradgrind
3, Sissy Jupe
4, Pip
A, Only 1
B, Only 4
C, Both 1 and 2
D, Both 3 and 4
Answer:…………………..
49. Match the quotations with writers
1, “unconscious is structured like a language”
2, “there is nothing outside text”
3, “life is a fatal sexually transmitted disease”
4, “power is maintained through discursive practices”
a, Freud
b, Derrida
c, Lacan
d, Foucault
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-b, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
D 1-c, 2-b, 3-a, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
50. 1, Dylan Thomas a, Country Sentiments
2, R S Thomas b, Lament and Triumph
3, George Barker c, The Stones of a Field
4, Robert Graves d, Fern Hill
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-b, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-c, 2-a, 3-d, 4-b
D 1-c, 2-b, 3-a, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
51. which critical practice provided equal weightage to history and text?
1, Cultural Materialism
2, Rchetypal Criticism
3, Structuralism
4, New Historicism
A, Only 1
B, Only 4
C, Both 1 and 4
D, Both 3 and 4
Answer:…………………..
52. One important feature of Jane Austen’s style is?
(A) boisterous humour
(B) humour and pathos
(C) subtlety of irony
(D) stream of consciousness
53. The title of the poem ‘The Second Coming’ is taken from?
(A) The Bible
(B) The Irish mythology
(C) The German mythology
(D) The Greek mythology
Answer:…………………..
54. The following lines are an example……… of image.
‘The river sweats
Oil and tar’
(A) visual
(B) kinetic
(C) erotic
(D) musical
Answer:…………………..
55. Who invented the term ‘Sprung rhythm’?
(A)Hopkins
(B)Tennyson
(C)Browning
(D)Wordsworth
Answer:…………………..
56. Which of the following plays of Shakespeare has an epilogue?
(A) The Tempest
(B) Henry IV, Pt I
(C) Hamlet
(D) Twelfth Night
Answer:…………………..
57. Which of the following poems of Coleridge is a ballad?
(A) Work Without Hope
(B) Frost at Midnight
(C) The Rime of the Ancient
(D) Youth and Age
Answer:…………………..
58. The second series of Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb was published in?
(A) 1823
(B) 1826
(C) 1834
(D) 1833
Answer:…………………..
59. Identify the poet, whom Queen Victoria, regarded as the perfect poet of ‘love and loss’—
(A) Tennyson
(B) Browning
(C) Swinburne
(D) D. G. Rossetti
Answer:…………………..
60. A verse form using stanza of eight lines, each with eleven syllables, is known as?
(A) Spenserian Stanza
(B) Ballad
(C) OttavaRima
(D) Rhyme Royal
Answer:…………………..
61. Identify the rhetorical figure used in the following line of Tennyson “Faith un-faithful kept him falsely true.”
(A) Oxymoron
(B) Metaphor
(C) Simile
(D) Synecdoche
Answer:…………………..
62. Match the following
1, Hybridity
2, Ahistorical
3, Transhistorical
4, Phonocentric
a, irrespective of historical era
b, insignificance of historical era
c, priority of speech over writing
d, mixed individual identity
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-b, 4-a
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-d, 2-b, 3-a, 4-c
D 1-c, 2-b, 3-a, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
63, Match the following
1, With its sombre ideology of heroism and baleful destiny; thus also the work
of Eugene Genovese on black religion restores the vitality of these utterances
by reading them, not as the replication of imposed beliefs, but rather as a
process whereby the hegemonic Christianity of the slave-owners is appropriated, secretly emptied of its content and subverted to the transmission of quite different oppositional and coded messages. Moreover, the stress on the dialogical then allows us to reread or rewrite the hegemonic forms themselves; they also can be grasped as a process of the reappropriation and neutralization, the cooptation and class transformation, the cultural universalization, of forms which originally expressed the situation of "popular," subordinate, or dominated groups. So the slave religion of Christianity is transformed into the hegemonic ideological apparatus of the medieval system; while folk music and peasant dance find themselves transmuted into the forms of aristocratic or court festivity and into the cultural visions of the pastoral; and popular narrative from time immemorial romance, adventure story, melodrama, and the like-is ceaselessly drawn on to restore vitality to an enfeebled and asphyxiating "high culture."
2, Chlorinated fluids, for instance, have always been experienced as a sort of
liquid fire, the action of which must be carefully estimated, otherwise the
object itself would be affected, 'burnt'. The implicit legend of this tyt;e of
product rests on the idea of a violent, abrasive modification of matter: the
connotations are of a chemical or mutilating type: the product 'kills' the dirt.
Powders, on the contrary, are separating agents: their ideal role is to litfe'rate
the object from its circumstantial imperfection: dirt is 'forced out' and no
longer killed; in the Omo imagery, dirt is a diminutive enemy, stunted and
black, which takes to its heels from the fine immaculate linen at the sole
threat of the judgment of Omo. Products based on chlorine and ammonia
are without doubt the representatives of a kind of absolute fire, a saviour but
a blind one. Powders, on the contrary, are selective, they push, they drive
dirt through the texture of the object, their function is keeping public order
not making war. This distinction has ethnographic correlatives: the chemical
fluid is an extension of the washerwoman's movements when she beats the
clothes, while powders rather replace those of the housewife pressing and
rolling the washing against a sloping board.
3, To put this more scientifically, I shall say that the reproduction of labour
power requires ,not only a reproduction, of its skills but, also, at the same
time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order,
i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the, workers,' and
a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology curtly for
the agents of exploitation and repression; so that they, too, will provide for
the domination of the ruling class. In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or 'other apparatuses like the Army) teaches 'know-how', but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its 'practice'. All the agents of production, exploitation and repression, not to speak of the 'professionals of ideology' (Marx), must in one way or another be 'steeped' in this ideology in order to perform their tasks 'conscientiously' the tasks of the exploited (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters' auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology .
4, To judge from various recent publications; the spirit of the times is not
blowing in the direction of formalist and intrinsic criticism.• We may no
longer be hearing too much about relevance but we keep hearing a great
deal about reference, about the nonverbal "outside" to which language refers,
by which it is conditioned and upon which it acts. The stress falls not so
much on the fictional status of literature property now perhaps somewhat
too easily taken for granted-but on the interplay between these fictions and
categories that are said to partake of reality, such as the self, man, society,
"the artist, his culture and the human community," as one critic puts it.
Hence the emphasis on hybrid texts considered to be partly literary and partly
referential, on popular fictions deliberately aimed towards social and psychological gratification, on literary autobiography as a key to the understanding of the self, and so on. We speak as if, with the problems of literary form resolved once and forever, and with the techniques of structural analysis refined to near-perfection, we could now move "beyond formalism"2 towards the questions that really interest us and reap, at last, the fruits of the ascetic concentration on techniques that prepared us for this decisive step. With
the internal law and order of literature well policed, we can now confidently
devote ourselves to the foreign affairs, the external politics of literature. Not
only do we feel able to do so, but we owe it to ourselves to take this step:
our moral conscience would not allow us to do otherwise.
a, Althusser-‘ Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus’.
b, Paul de Man- Semiology and Rhetoric’
c, Roland Barthers- Mythologies
d, Friedric Jameson- ‘Political Unconscious’
A 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-b
B 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c
C 1-d, 2-b, 3-a, 4-c
D 1-c, 2-b, 3-a, 4-d
Answer:…………………..
64. By the time a century or two of exploitation has passed there comes about a
veritable emaciation of the stock of national culture. It becomes a set of
automatic habits some traditions of dress, and a few broken-down institutions.
Little movement can be discerned in such remnants of culture; there
is no real creativity and no overflowing life. The poverty of the people,
national oppression, and the inhibition of culture are one and the same thing.
After a century of colonial domination we find a culture which is rigid in the
extreme, or rather what we find are the dregs of culture, its mineral strata.
The withering away of the reality of the nation and the death pangs of the
national culture are linked to each other in mutual dependence. This is why
it is of capital importance to follow the evolution of these relations during
the struggle for national freedom. The negation of the native's culture, the
contempt. For any manifestation of culture whether active or emotional, and
the placing outside the pale of all specialized branches of organization contribute to breed aggressive patterns of conduct in the native. But these patterns of conduct are of the reflexive type; they are poorly differentiated,
anarchic and ineffective.
The passage implies...
A, Marxism
B, New Historicism
C, Postcolonialism
D, Cultural Materialism
Answer:…………………..
65. It is a peculiarity of our epoch that, at the moment when the phoneticization of writing the historical origin and structural possibility of philosophy as of
science, the condition of the episteme-begins to lay hold on world culture,
science, in its advancements, can no longer be satisfied with it. This inadequacy had always already begun to make its presence felt. It appears as such, allows it a kind of takeover without our being able to translate this novelty into clear cut notions of mutation, explication, accumulation, revolution, or tradition.
By alluding to a science of writing reined ill by metaphor, metaphysics,
and theology, this exergue must not only announce that the science of writing-
grammatology shows signs of liberation all over the world, as a result
of decisive efforts. These efforts are necessarily discreet, dispersed, almost
imperceptible; that is a quality of their meaning and of the milieu within
which they produce their operation. I would like to suggest above all that,
however fecund and necessary the undertaking might be, and even if given
the most favourable hypothesis it did overcome all technical and epistemological obstacles as well as all the theological and metaphysical impediments that have limited it hitherto, such a science of writing runs the risk of never being established as such and with that name, of never being able to define the unity of its project or its object. Of not being able to either write its
discourse on method or to describe the limits of its field.
The extract reminds you of...
A, Judith Butler
B, Harold Bloom
C, Roland Barthes
D, Jacques Derrida
Answer:…………………..
66. Who called ‘The Waste Land ‘a music of ideas’?
(A) Allen Tate
(B) J. C. Ransom
(C) I. A. Richards
(D) F. R Leavis
Answer:…………………..
67. Which book of John Ruskin influenced Mahatma Gandhi?
(A) Sesame and Lilies
(B) The Seven Lamps of Architecture
(C) Unto This Last
(D) Fors Clavigera
Answer:…………………..
68. The twins in Lord of the Flies are?
(A)Ralph and Jack
(B) Simon and Eric
(C) Ralph and Eric
(D) Simon and Jack
Answer:…………………..
69. Which of the following plays of Shakespeare, according to T. S.
Eliot, is ‘artistic failure’?
(A) The Tempest
(B) Hamlet
(C) Henry IV, Pt I
(D) Twelfth Night
Answer:…………………..
70. What does ‘I’ stand for in the following line?
‘To Carthage then I came’
(A) Buddha
(B) Tiresias
(C) Smyrna Merchant
(D) Augustine
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