Bachelor Programme (B.D.P.) ASSIGNMENT- …...Ascend (Eng rise), natal day (Eng. Birth day),...

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Bachelor Programme (B.D.P.)ASSIGNMENT- December, 2015 & June 2016

Elective English(First Paper : From the Beginnings to Chaucer :

Literature and Language in Evolution )

(b) Discuss the different phases of Latin borrowings in English.Ans.: The influence of the Latin language on English certainly forms the mostimportant phase in the linguistic history of England. This is the earliest and perhaps mostpotential linguistic force to contribute to the growth of the English language.

Pre-Christian Latin influence: The first Latin words to find their way into theEnglish language owe their adoption to the early contact of the Teutonic forefathers ofthe English with the higher Roman civilisation and they were adopted long before theEnglish forefathers had come to the British island. There words mainly relate to –Trade and Commerce - The most important of these words is wine itself from Latinvenom. Other words of this group are calicem, O.E. calic (a cup), flasce (flask, bottle),sester (Jar, Pitcher)War and warfare – One of the chief occupations of the German in the Roman empirewas war and to this occupation English owes such words as camp (battle) segn (banner),pil (Javelin), pytt (pit), strxt (street), mil (mile) etc.Domestic life and names of household articles – some of these earliest Latin loan wordsrefer to domestic life and designate household articles and the art of cooking. Examplesof the words in Modern English are kettle (OE. Cytel from Latin catillus), cook (OE cocfrom Lat coquus), Kitchen (OE. Cycene from Lat. Coquina), mill (OE mylen from Latmalina) etc.Names of plants and fruits – Words relating to names of plants, fruits and food are plum,pea, pepper, cheese, butter etc.

Latin influence occasioned by the introduction of Christianity: The greatest influence ofLatin upon the vocabulary of Old English was occasioned by the introduction ofChristianity into Britain at the end of the sixth century. We may group these Latin loanwords as follows:-Words relating to church: church, bishop, alter, candle, alms, abbot, angel, anthem, creed,disciple, epistle, hymn, martyred.Words relating to domestic life and household affairs: cap, chest, cup, dish, fan, fever,linen, kitchen, mat, mill, pillow, pin etc.Words relating to names of trees, plants and herbs: beet, box, pine, aloes, balsam,gladden, palm, pea, pepper, poppy etc.Words connected with education and learning: School, master, grammatical, verse, meter,notary talent etc.Words relating to animal names: Capon, doe, lobstar, phoenix, trout, turtle, dove, elephant.Besides the above nouns there were introduced a number of verbs and adjectives. Verbs:offer, shrive, spend, and stop. Adjectives: crisp and short.

Latin influence in the Middle English period: The Latin words adopted during theMiddle English period relate to law, literature, theology, science.


Words relating to law: conspiracy, custody, homicide, incumbent, legal, malefactor, minor,notary, prosecute, remit.Words relating to theology: incarnate, incubus, limbo, pulpit, rosary, script, scripture,supplicate, missal, tract.Words relating to literature: allegory, genius, index, intellect, summary, ornate, prosodyetc.Words relating to Science: Gesture, immune, lunatic, nervous, solar etc.Latin influence during and after the renaissance:

The Latin words borrowed during the Renaissance are often basic wordsnouns, adjectives and verbs. Among the nouns we may give as examples anarchism,allusion, atmosphere, dexterity, acumen, folio, circus, axis etc.

A curious consequence of the Latin influence during and after theRenaissance was that many a French word was remodelled into closer resemblance withtheir Latin originals. Perfect and parfait were the normal English forms for centuries.Latin influence on English style and Syntax: The emphasis is on the impact of Latin onevery sphere – vocabulary, style or syntax of the language. In regard to the vocabulary,the impact of Latin is truly enormous. Examples are primal, pragmatically, fragmentary,annexation, fixation, and suicide and so on. Latin synonyms exist largely in the Englishvocabulary and thereby enrich the English style. A few examples of such synonyms aregiven below:-

Ascend (Eng rise), natal day (Eng. Birth day), interrogate (ask), conflagration(fire), legible (readable) and so on. The influence of Latin on English syntax is to bementioned. The use of the absolute participle has brought about a highly structuralharmony in English.

The Latin influence on the English language is the earliest and perhaps thegreatest of all influences which have enriched the English vocabulary and helped to makeit a varied and heterogeneous one.

1 (c)Write a brief essay on Old English heroic poetry.Ans.: The old English heroic poetry for its subject matter owes its genesis tothe tales of Scandia and North Germania. The materials there in are pagan in origin andoutlook and the poetic form and style is inherited from and past. The heroic poems“reflect the tradition and spirit of that past time when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes cameto England in marauding bands.”

The poem consists of a prologue, a speech by Widsith and an epilogue.Widsith, an idealised scope gives an account of his prodigious. Globe-trotting andmentions the places he has seen and the many rulers he has visited. Through a longcatalogue of famous names and a wealth of allusions the poet has left behind a splendid“Who’s who” of Kings and kingdoms of heroic age.

The Old English Wald are fragment of two spirited speeches. In the firstspeech, Hilde gums encourages Wald are before combat and assures his beloved thatGod will preserve his heart from fear. In the second, a typical pre-battle board Wald are,wearing a coat of mail, dares the naughty Gath here to remove it from his shoulders. Thesignificance of their Wald is fragments lies in offering evidence of the popularity ofstories of continental Germanic heroes among the Anglo-Saxons.

The Fight at Finnsburh is a fragment of some forty-eight lines describingthe attack on Hnaet’s hall by the followers of Finn. The fight continues for five days withslaughter on either side. The poem ends before we learn the outcome.

The basic narrative is in two sections: Beowulf’s Youth and Beowulf’sOld Age. He hears that the King of the Danes is plagued in his house by the visits of an


ogre who night after night comes and carries off one of the Knight’s men. He goes on avisit to Denmark, sits up for the ogre, fights with him and mortally wounds him. That doesnot end the business, for the ogre’s mother comes to revenge her son and Beowulf has asecond fight with her and kills her. Many years after his being a king, a dragonaccidentally is stirred up and makes itself a pest to the country. Beowulf attacks, kills thedragon but he himself is killed by the poison of the dragon. The poem backs the largerepic conception of the Odyssey and even the finer polish of the secondary epic such asthe Aeneid.

Andreas and Judith are religious heroic tales: One is a saints legend, theother, a story from the Apocrypha. Both of them are modelled after Germanic heroictale. The poem is associated with the school of Cynewulf and is based on Greek text ofthe Acts of St Andrew and St Mathew.

The poet suffuses this religious tale with a heroic atmosphere tinged withthe touches of Byzantine romance. The description of the storm with all its fiercenessand the hero’s dynamic dash in overcoming the tribulations and hazards gives the poem atouch of sensationalism. The poem contains an abundant excitement and the materialsavailable make Judith a successful heroic poem in tone and temperament. The battlescenes and the scene of drunken revelry stand unmatched in Old English.

The poems discussed above are all written in heroic tradition and theheroic themes like ironic understatement, love of the sea, the ecstasy of battle, the spiritof commutates, the commitment of revenge and the likes on and often recurred in otherlyric and narrative verses of the period.

2 (a) Assess the development of prose in the Anglo-Saxon period.Ans.: In most languages prose writing developed as a medium for thepreservation and transmission of useful information. Early, prose is nearly alwaysutilitarian, it records what people need to know and remember accurately. That this is astrue of Old English prose can be shown by listing the kinds that have survived.

The laws of Aethberht of Kent are the earliest of the surviving codes ofAnglo Saxon law and the earliest Old English prose. The chief item is Anglo-SaxonChronicle which is discussed more fully below. There are also translation of Latinoriginals, including the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, the first English historian to writescientific history as opposed to an uncritical acceptance of legend and folklore. It consistsof prescriptions and accounts of the medicinal properties of natural products, animal andvegetable. The most famous text is The Leech Book of Bold has 155 chapters.

Another work the ‘Peri Dida Didaxeon’ or ‘School of Medicine’ showsthe extent of continental contacts for it contains translation of material from thecelebrated medical school at Salerno, South of Naples.

The most considerable work is Byrhtferth’s Manual. He sets down insimple language the elements astronomy and mathematics. The intention of Byrhtferth’sManual was educational, but there were other books more specifically intended for use inthe monastic schools. Aelfrie, for example, translated the Latin grammar lf Priscian, thestandard textbook of the time and added a Latin English glossary. His colloquium, adialogue in Latin on everyday subjects was intended to teach the language painlessly bythe direct method to novices in the monastery at Winchester. Of the two manuscripts, theone in the British Museum has an English crib written in between the lines.

History does not furnish any proof that the Anglo-Saxon invaders ofEngland brought with them any literary prose tradition. So the development of prose inEngland does not owe its genesis to earlier Germanic tradition. The literary prose was


made up, for the most part of translations and paraphrases of Latin writings and it lackedspark of originality and fervour of emotion.

Old English prose was learned and clerical but much good prose waswritten during the late tenth and eleventh centuries. Prose in the period flourished invarious literary genres like history, philosophy, oratory, epistle, romance, fiction and such adimension charms the readers of today.

2 (b) Write briefly on the nature and characteristics of the Middle English lyrics.Ans.: Modern definition of lyric as an expression of an individual’s emotion willclearly not be applicable to most of the Middle English lyrics which flourished in thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England.

The Middle English lyrics are a large and somewhat heterogeneous bodyof verse. Meditation, prayer and especially petition, gives impetus and form to manylyrics. Besides these expressions of adorations, thanks giving and the celebration ofGod’s goodness and mercy are also found in negligible number in these lyrics. Theprimary impulse behind these lyrics is quite functional and practical. The lyrics weremeant to be and were used sometimes in private devotion and prayer, sometimes forpublic devotional display, sometimes to emphasize and drive home points in sermons.

The medieval English lyric both religious and secular is an imitation ofcontinental lyrics. The lyrics were considerably influenced by French and Latin lyrics.The religious lyric belongs to an ecclesiastical and literary tradition which knows nonational boundaries. The secular lyric might owe its genesis to the native soil or to theFrench and provincial or to the Latin lyric.

The secular lyrics, courtly and popular, flourished only sporadically inEngland in the thirteenth and the early fourteenth centuries. These lyrics are frank freeand unashamed in their rejoicing and take their place in the chain that links Catullus withthe Caroline poets. The subjects of these lyrics range from begging songs, drinking songsand deduction songs to formalised places for Marci and to fanciful catalogues, minutelydetailed of the charms of the female body. These secular lyrics have qualities like grace,vivacity, diversity of mood and subject and the strong note of passionate love.

The moral lyrics of the religious lyric series are didactic in theme andmethod in the main. This lyric deal with the impermanence of earthly joy and glory. But incase of the selection of the materials, the Middle English lyrists unlike the Old Englishpoets drew upon a wealth of material from classical literature and from romance.

In the later fourteenth century and certainly in the fifteenth the lyricbecomes increasingly literary. From the village green and the great hall it passes to thestudy. Spontaneity at times gives way to the gracefully turned conceit.

2 (f) Give a sketch of the wife of Bath as Chaucer presents her in the ‘Prologueto the Canterbury Tales’.Ans.: The most vivid and famous portrait in ‘The Prologue to the CanterburyTales’, is perhaps the Wife of Bath. She is one character in whom the realistic and theindividualistic elements of portraiture out weight the typical. In presentation of the Wifeof Bath, we certainly do have satire but the satire is not violent or bitter and fierce.

The Wife of Bath is the essence of elemental vitality. She is the womanof earthly physical passion, firm boldness and dominating personality. Her red face, boldexpression, huge and voluptuous body attired in a riding coat, the gaps in her teeth, hernew shoes, broad wimple adoring her head and her heavy and fine kerchiefs all add to astartlingly vivid character of flesh and blood. She would not tolerate any other woman of


her parish to give the offering before her at church. The Wife of Bath did not suffer fromany false modesty. She knew her place in Society and laid full claims to it.

The Wife of Bath has a forceful personality which suits her generousphysical attributes. She has a firm mind which knows its wants clearly. She also knowshow to get what she wants. She is jolly, gossipy and popular woman fond of men’scompany and well versed in the art of love. She has widely travelled. We are told thatshe had visited Jerusalem trice, besides other places of pilgrimage.

Her physical vitality is best represented by her various amorousadventures. She is a much married woman she has had five husbands and is ready forthe sixth. Her promptitude in getting husbands would not have surprised her fellowpilgrims.

The wife of Bath is a clear-cut individual in herself revelation before shetells her tale or gives her opinion on marriage and tells her adventures in the marital fieldwithout a sign of inhalation. She is as Nevil Coghill stipulates, “as amoral as Falstaff andRabelaisian before Rabelais.” One can sense the sheer joy that Chaucer must have feltin creating her.

3 (a) Write a short note on Widsith.Ans.: It is a poem of 143 lines in Old English. It is named after its hero. It is anearly poem on the scop. It is included in the Exeter Book.

Widsith, a wondering minstrel who has visited many courts speaks of histravels and the kings he has heard of. He pretends that he was in Italy with Aelfwine andwith the king of the Goths who gave him a rich bracelet. This he handed over to his ownlord who gave him land his father’s heritage. The poem gives an idea of the wanderingminstrel who went from court to court, singing the praises of the princes from whom theyreceived or expected gifts. Thus the poem tells us something about the life ofcontemporary courts. The author makes it clear that his hero was composer as well asperformer.

The poem consists of a prologue, a speech by Widsith an epilogue. Therelationship between a scop and his royal patron comes out in the epilogue of the poem.It contains language which shows much remoteness to Old English. Widsith is plainly nohistorical figure but a typical scop that is an excuse for bringing together names famousin history and legend.

3 (b) Briefly discuss the historical background of the Middle English period.Ans.: The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 in a new epoch in the historyof England as well as in the history of English literature. As a historical force, itdetermined the fate of the nation for many years to come and as a literary force itexercised tremendous influence on the English language and English poetry in the MiddleEnglish period.

The Middle English poetry begins in the translation of French romanceand allegory. There were the four cycles of romances, namely the matter of France, thematter of Rome, the matter in Britain, besides romances of Saxon origin. Fierce war andcourtly love were the themes of these romances. The allegories dealt with the newreligion of courtly love, the most important being Roman de la Rose which has written byGuillame ele Lorris himself a Cleve.

The Middle English prose is inconsiderable. It is generally practical inpurpose and moralistic. The Ancreme Riwle is a treatise contains instructions andguidance to women adopting the life of ancresses written by one Bishop Poore. Another


work The Ayenlite of Inwyt is a translation of a French work and a bad one at that. But itpoints to the way in which the language is developing.

6 (b) Scan the following extracts; find the metre and metrical variations.Water, water, everywhereAnd all the boards did shrinkWater, water, everywhereNor any drop to drink

Ans.: {................Picture................}This is written in Iambic tetrameter and trimester alternating.

The first foot of the first and third lines is a cephalous.

7 (b) Identify and explain the figures of speech of the following passage:The boast of heraldry the pomp of pow’rAnd all that beauty all that wealth e’er gave,Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

There are several figures of speech in the given passage:There is a ease of personification – boast of heraldry, ‘pomp of power’ and all that .....are abstract ideas.There is a Epigram in “The Paths..............grave”There is a periphrasis in the inevitable hour.Another personification in “The Paths.......grave”.There is a Metononymy, too in lead but to the grave.There is Alliteration in pomp and power.


1 (a) Write an essay on the progress and the impact of the Renaissance on theculture and society of the English people.Ans.: Renaissance means the liberation of the human mind from the authorityof the Church and the new spirit of enquiry and challenges and freedom from all blindfaith in conventions and dogmas. The French historian Michelet the Renaissance meansthe discovery of the world and the discovery of man by man.

The periods of Regeneration or Renaissance are the great ages of theworld. The Renaissance in the new world meant a liberation from the deadly tyranny ofreligion and the spiritual authority of the monkish scholasticism. This reawakening is alsocalled by the name of the Revival of Learning. It was due to the study of the ancientclassics of Greece and Rome which for centuries remained sealed books to the commonman. The manuscripts were in possession of the monks, who lived in Constantinople. Themovement familiar the people of Western Europe with the classical art and culture. Loveof beauty, deep humanism freedom of imagination and thought, sense of wonder – theseare the legacies of the classical literature.

The fifteenth century in England was a period of blight or sterility in sofar as English literature is concerned. It was a seed time. It provides as illustration of theold saying that it is darkest before the dawn. While England was slumbering, great thingswere going in the continent-invention of gunpowder, the discovery of America and lastlywhat is of the greatest moment for the students of English literature, the rediscovery ofancient Greece. Italy was the first home of this Renaissance.

English scholars were then eager to visit Italy particularly Florence tosee and tread the manuscripts of the classical masterpiece that the refugee Greeks hadsaved and brought with them. These scholars returned from Italy with a new fire burningin them and established the teaching of Greek on round principles in the country. Thestudy of the classics was the best means of promoting the largest human interests.Renaissance came to mean humanism wonder at the new earth and sky as revealed bythe navigators and astronomers, perception of beauty in the Greek and Latin classics.

The revival stirred men just as the voyages of Vasco da Gama andColumbus stirred the mariners. First came the sciences and inventions of the Arabsmaking their way slowly against the prejudice of their authorities and opening men’s eyesto the unexplored realms of nature. Then came the flood of Greek literature which thenew art of printing carried swiftly to every school revealing new wonder of poems andphilosophy. Scholars flocked to the universities.

Two books in England gave a new impetus to the renaissancemovement. Those were More’s Utopia and Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly. Both werewritten in Latin but they were speedily translated into all European languages. The Praiseof Folly is like a song of victory for the new learning which has driven away ignorance


Elective English(Second Paper : The Renaissance and the

Reformation)


and superstition. Folly is represented as donning cap and bell and mounting a pulpit wherethe vice and cruelty of kings the selfishness of the clergy are satirised.

Renaissance broke the insularity of England and English scholars drankdeep in the fountains of the Greek and Latin and continental literatures. Translations ofLatin and Greek dramas and romances, poetry from Italy and tales of chivalry from Italy,France and Spain fostered the growth of English drama, poetry and romances. Marloweimbibed the deepest spirit of the Renaissance in his aspirations and audacity ofimagination. Shakespeare indicated the interest, worth and glory of man in hisinnumerable plays. Spenser laid the foundation of new poetry with his invention of newvocabulary, new stanza forms and humanistic themes and sensuous imagery. Baconadopted the Latin syntax to establish a clear, self-conscious pastorals and precise prosestyle. New forms of poetry like sonnets, elegies, pastorals English poetry. Romances andpicaresque tales led to the development of prose fiction.

1 (c) Trace the history and development of the English Revenge Tragedy.Ans.: The Revenge Tragedy as its name implies is a tragic play in which thetragedy results from the revenge taken for some wrong or wrongs either by the personwronged himself or by someone on his behalf. This kind of tragedy had its beginning inancient Greece in the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripdides. However in their tragediesthere was nothing of that horror element which soon came to be associated with therevenge play and which is a marked feature of the Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy.

It was Seneca, the great tragic dramatist of ancient Rome whointroduced the element of horror in the revenge play chief features of the SenecanTragedy are:Some murder is committed and the ghost of the murdered person appears to some closerelative and enjoins him to take revenge.Revenge is conceived of as a sacred duty, not as a kind of wild justice. The avenger ismoved by a sense of sacred duty and not by any passion of greed hatred or somepersonal injury.There is a pilling up of crude physical horrors upon horrors. It is sensational andmelodramatic. The appearance of the ghost, the scenes of madness, crude villainy makethe melodrama complete. In the end, the stage is littered with dead bodies.There is abundant use of the imagery of violence and horror. Long declamatory speechesare the characteristics.The Revenge tragedy enjoyed great popularity in the seventeenth century due partly toromantic love of incident, partly to the influence of Seneca. It was to Seneca that theElizabethans owed their themes of revenge, their ghosts and horrors. The popularity ofRevenge Tragedy was also due to the Elizabethan interest in abnormal psychology andlove of melancholy. No wonder that the form proved popular and men of such diversegenius as Kyd (Spanish Tragedy) Marston (Antonio and Mellida). Shakespeare, Webster(The Duchess of Malfi) and Tournew (The Revenge’s Tragedy) felt tempted to have ashot at it. Significant too that Hamlet, itself the greatest glory of that glorious age ofdrama should belong to this genre.

Kyd’s ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ inaugurated the type in English drama.After Kyd, the type can be traced in a number of plays e.g. in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’,Marston’s ‘Antonio’s Revenge and Malcontent Tourneur’s. The Revenge TragedyWebster’s The White Devil, Duchess of Malfi. Certain common features are noticed inthese plays. The ghost the cry for revenge difficulty in executing revenge, the play withinthe play, the accumulation of horror, hesitating type of the hero, madness feigned andreal.


Marston’s revenge plays are crude but he made another contribution heintroduced the note of general disgust at life and the weakness of a mother. Thereelements are found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet is called upon to take revenge uponthe foul and unnatural murder of the father.

Revenge motive however changes with Webster’s two tragedies – TheWhite Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. Here the revengeful brothers are villains andrevenge is detestable and inexcusable. Revenge is not a sacred duty but a satisfaction ofpersonal passions. We sympathise with the victims and not with the revenges. In bothTourneur’s tragedy and Webster’s plays, there are crude horrors. Imagery of violence,decay and corruption preponderate.

2 (a) Write a critical note on the Elizabethan sonnet sequence.Ans.: The phrase Elizabethan sonnet sequences refers to the series of Englishsonnets written by various prominent practitioners in the Elizabethan era such as WilliamShakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. Shakespeare’s Sonnet sequenceincludes 153 sonnets. Spenser’s main sonnet series is a collection entitled Amoretti andSidney’s most famous sonnet series is entitled Astrophil and Stella.

The English sonnet sequence became a phenomenon around 1580 andremained a major literary and cultural influence until around 1610. Some of the mostsignificant themes in the Elizabethan sonnet sequences include love, time the value ofwriting and the externalization of beauty. Romantic love is one of the central themes,many sonnets of the Elizabethan era wrote about the frustrations of unreciprocated love.Some of the poems also deal with the themes of divine love. Many of the Elizabethansonnets also deal with love versus desire, a theme which Sidney particularly focused on itAstrophil and Stella.

Another major theme of the Elizabethan sonnet sequence in time.Shakespeare, in particular focussed on how time could destroy nature and other beautifulthings. He emphasized reproduction as a means of eternalizing beauty which was also acommon theme in the Elizabethan sonnets. It is portrayed in the sonnets that only loveand poetry could withstand time.

Many of the sonneteers address is the value of poetry and writing.Sidney and Spenser for instance both draw attention in their poems to the fact that theyare using verse to portray their feelings for their desired loved ones. Many of the authorsbrought the Muses into their poems to imply the sources of inspiration for their writing.The Elizabethan sonnets demonstrate the growing belief that poetry could be used toimmortalize phenomena such as the beauty of a loved one, which Spenser tries to do withtowards the end of his sequence Amoretti. Similarly, Shakespeare writes about the desireto eternalize beauty, by contrast to Spenser, however, Shakespeare focuses largely onphysical beauty whereas Spenser shows that he values inner beauty.

Drayton completed his final revision of his famous sequence idea, whichhistorically marked the end of the phenomenon. The impact of the sonnet and the sonnetsequence was seen everywhere during this time. Writers like John Donne insisted thatonly fools could not write sonnets.

2 (b) Assess John Milton as a poet.Ans.: John Milton was at once the child of the Renaissance and Reformation.He belongs to the Puritan age and was brought up in the atmosphere of the Puritanhousehold. Thus Puritanism proved the great inspiration of his poetry, ‘Paradise Lost’ andother works. But his superb art was in the best spirit of the Renaissance humanism.


Milton’s art is at once ancient and modern Ancient writers aredistinguished from the modern by the simple bareness of their imaginative conceptionsand the modern writers are distinguished from the ancient by a complexity in illustration,imager and metaphor coming to the specific characteristics of Milton’s poetry, we mustnote in the first place Milton’s sublimate and stateliness. Indeed the name of Milton hasbecome a synonym for sublimate. Paradise Lost is the highest example of the sublime inpoetry.

In conception, in matter and manner it is the most sublime of Englishepics and surpasses even the classical epics. The poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling dothglance from heaven to earth from earth to heaven. The subject namely the original sin ofman and consequent fall is the greatest in the whole history of the human race. The stageon which the drama is played in the universe its time is eternity. The characters are supramundane. No other poem in literature fills us with a more exalted sense of the greatnessof human life.

A high seriousness is another feature of Milton’s poetry. Milton had notthe imagination of Shakespeare that reveals equally in the light and the serious. He wascast on a time which too solemn and was too puritanical to make him itself indulgehimself in light and gay farcies. His soul was like a star that dwelt apart from thetrivialities of ordinary life. But his poetry is always healthful, bright and vigorous. Thismoral purity and earnestness lends gravity to his thought and art. It leaves no gloom inthe mind. But this has led to a serious limitation, namely want of humour. A saving graceof humour would have given a welcome relief to his serious strains.

Milton was a keen and conscientious artist. His perfection ofworkmanship is amazing. In the words of Mathew Arnold – “In the sure and flawlessperfection of his rhythm and diction, Milton is as admirable as Virgil of Dante and in thisrespect he is unique among us. He is the most melodious of English poets, the mightymouthed inventor of organ notes as Tennyson calls him. His instinctive feeling for musicalwords, use of figures of sound, command over the movement of blank verse, make hispoetry a genuine pleasure for the ear.2 (c) Write an essay on the contribution of Francis Bacon to the development ofthe English essay.Ans.: Bacon made a valuable contribution to the development of English essay.Bacon did really great things in this sphere. When alliteration, antithesis, similes fromunnatural natural history were the order of the day in English prose. Bacon showed thatEnglish was as capable as the classical languages of serving the highest purposes. Heproved that it was possible in English also to express the subtleties of thought in clear;straight forward and uninvolved sentences and when necessary to condense the greatestamount of meaning into the fewest possible words.

Bacon shows himself in his essays to be an accomplished rhetorician. Hemade for himself a style which was unmatchable for pith and pregnancy in theconveyance of his thoughts when the bulk of English prose was being written in loosesentences of great length the supplied at once a short, crisp and firmly-knit sentences ofa type which was quite unfamiliar in the English language.

He rejected the conceits and overcrowded imagery of the euphuists, buthe knew how to illumine his thought with suitable figures of speech and give to it animaginative glow and charm upon occasion. For the students expression Bacon’s essaysare of endless interest and profit the more one reads them, the more remarkable seemtheir compactness and their nervous vitality. They shock the sluggish attention of a readerinto wakefulness as it by an electric current and though they may sometimes fail tonourish they can never fail to stimulate.


Terseness of expression and epigrammatic brevity are the most strikingqualities of Bacon’s style in his essays. Bacon possessed a marvellous power ofcompressing into a few words an idea which ordinary writers would express in severalsentences. Many of his sentences have an aphoristic quality. They are like proverbswhich can read he quoted when the occasion demands. Only Bacon could have writtenthe sentences which are remarkable for their condensation and brevity.

Bacon’s essays constitute a handbook of practical wisdom, enclosing intheir shortest maxims an astonishing treasure of insight. There has been no more activestimulant to wit and understanding. His essays are a compendium of precepts or rather ofreflections which are true of all men, for all time and in all places.

3 (a) Write a short note on Renaissance Humanism.Ans.: A passion for Greek and Latin fired the rival academies which is calledthe Italian Renaissance. England as usual, lagged behind the continent in this renewedinterest in classical literature which is called humanism. By 1500 Greek and Latin weretaught in Oxford and Cambridge respectively but the study remained purely academic, itlittle influenced the vernacular literature. English scholars were then eager to visit Italyparticularly Florence to see and read the manuscripts of the classical masterpieces thatthe refugee Greek on round principles in the country.

William Lily and John Erasmus revised Latin grammar which became thestandard work on the subject. The famous St Paul’s school was established in 1504 byColet in order to reform teaching based on Greek and Latin. The New Learning thusacquired a tremendous prestige. The study of the classics was the best means ofpromoting the largest human interests. Renaissance came to mean humanism wonder atthe new earth and sky as revealed by the navigators and astronomers perception ofbeauty in the Greek and Latin classics.

3 (b) How does Tottel’s Miscellany shape our understanding of earlyRenaissance poetry?Ans.: The poetry of the Elizabethan age opens with the publication of a volumeknown as Tottel’s Miscellany. Songs and Sonnets had been the composite title of the firstedition on Tottel’s Miscellany. Tottel’s Miscellany derives its title from its publisher’sname. This collection of poems gave the world the songs surrey and Wyalt, previouslyunprinted. It added many poems by Nicholas Gimald, Lord Vaux and other authors.

Wyatt and Surrey contributed to Totell’s Miscellany. Wyatt gave thesonnet to English poetry and Surrey made another precious gift blank verse which heused for his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil’s Aeneid. There weremany other collections like Tottel’s Miscellany – The paradise of Dainty Devices, EnglishHelicon, England’s Parnassus. There were a number of minor poets who wererepresented in the different Miscellanies.

3 (c) Write a note on the comedy of Humours.Ans.: To Ben Jonson owes the origin of the realistic comedy of Humour.Agains the improbable plot, the idealistic characterisation, the pastoral setting and thepoetic diction of the romantic comedy, he is found to present a comic world more realisticand common place in plot, characterisation and dialogue based more or less oncontemporary social life.

The comedy of humour has certain typical features to differentiate itfrom other comedies. In the first place, it contains a good deal of farce, impressivelypresented the farcical element of the comedy of humour depends on the subtle co-


ordination of different episodes and the happy presentation of entertaining comic sceneswith some funny, humorous men and women, participating in the same. The comedy ofhumour presents some well drawn characters. There characters are taken from societyfrom real life. But the most important element of the comedy of humour lies in its intensesocial realism.

3 (e) What does the poet mean by but thy eternal summer shall not fade?Ans.: This line is taken from Shakespeare’s sonnet shall I compare Thee to asummer’s Day which is addressed to his friend, possibly the Earl of Southampton. Thepoet expresses his firm hope for perpetrating his beauty through his verse.

The analogy between the beauty of his friend and that of the summerday leads the poet simply to the glorification of the former. He finds in his friends beautygreater loveliness and serenity. He also feels this beauty imperishable. It is subjected tono decay for destruction, although every fair from fair sometime declines. The cold crueltouch of death is unable to claim this beauty and drag it down to the dark lifeless realm asa victim against the enlivening of his verse.

This line is ennobled with the poet’s lofty idealization of his friend and hisstrong faith in the enduring effect of his poetry. He asserts here triumphantly the powerof his verse to withstand the wreck of time and endow his friend with an immortalbeauty.


1 (a) In many ways the Reformation as a movement strengthened theRenaissance in England and the joint effect is seen in contemporary literature.Discuss.Ans.: Side by side with the Renaissance was born about the time anothermovement named Reformation. It was also a new birth and was for a time the ally of theRenaissance. It was a rebirth of the moral nature of man following the intellectualRenaissance. In Italy whose influence had been upper most in Elizabethan literature, theRenaissance had been essentially Pagan and sensuous. It had hardly touched the moralnature of man and it brought little relief from the despotism of the rulers.

One can hardly read the horrible records of the Medici’s or the Borgia’swithout marvelling at the moral and political degradation of the cultured nation. In thenorth, especially Germany and England the Renaissance was awakening in England, thegreat moral reform which swept over a nation in the short space of half a century. TheReformation started in Germany and aimed at the liberation of the religious conscience ofthe people from the domination of the pope and the Catholic Church. The actual start ofthe movement was in 1517 with Martin Luther’s denunciation of Pope Leo X’s sale ofindulgence. Luther in Germany, Calvin in Switzerland, Knox in Scotland was the leadersof the movement.

Early in the next century Scotland, England and Scandinavia turned infavour of Protestantism. In England Protestantism was recognised as the state religion inthe sixteenth century when Henry VIII broke away from the Church of Rome. If theRenaissance was essentially Pagan, the Reformation was Hebraic. The two movementswere at first linked. But later the influence of the former was crossed and opposed bythat of the latter. Thus the former allies soon parted and began to follow different pathshostile to each other though in some of the poets e.g. Spenser and Milton there wasstrange blend of the two.

The Reformation which is essentially a religious movement, turned men’smind a new to the task of the translation of the Bible. The translation of the Bible intoEnglish covers a whole chapter of the history of the English prose up to the seventeenthcentury. The pioneer in the work was of course Wycliffe, under whose influence twocomplete versions were carried out about 1384 and 1388. In the Renaissance andReformation period the pioneers in the work were William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.

The former was the first to be inspired by Lather’s example and hisversion of the New Testament was founded both on Luther’s translation and on theeditions of the Greek and Latin Texts. It formed the basis of the famous AuthorisedVersion of 1611. He was a great defender of the Reformation and a good humanistWithal, who knew the ancient and modern languages. He suffered a good deal of


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persecution at home and he accomplished the translation work and published a fragmentof the English New Testament at Cologne. His translation is based on the Hebrew andGreek originals. Tyndale was presented and put to death in the Netherlands in 1536.When the Reformation was officially established in England Tyndale’s translation of theBible completed by Coverdale, was accepted as the official version of the Bible.

1 (e) How would you account thematically for the comic scenes in the plot ofDoctor Faustus ?Ans.: The first comic scene takes place between Wagner, male servant ofFaustus and the two scholars in Act I Scene ii. The scholars have asked Wagner aninnocent question as to the whereabouts of Faustus. Wagner parodies the same processof reasoning as the scholars of Faustus used to adopt during the discussions. He answersin a roundabout way just to puzzle the scholars. He says the master in corpus natural.Wagner refers to the dining hall as the “place of execution” and he accepts to see thetwo scholars ‘hanged at next session’ of the court. His playing upon the word ‘execution’is comical. Then he reveals to the scholars that Faustus is at cocktail dinner with Valdesand Cornelius, the perfect magicians. It is comical that the Servants wit is sharpened onlyby over hearing learned discussions between his master and the scholars.

Act I Scene IV also presents a comic Scene Wagner wishes to engage aclown as his servant. He refers that the clown is so needful and starving that he wouldwillingly exchange his soul with a shoulder of mutton offered by the devil, through it wereblood raw. The clown is not so utterly stupid to accept such a proposition. He knows thevalue of his soul and would part with it against only well-roasted and properly servedmutton. He is unwilling to become Wagner’s slave by accepting a few coins. The clownhad boasted that he could kill any devil to gain the reputation of kill devil. He is howeverfrightened to total submission ‘Kill devil’. He is however, frightened to total submissionwhen Wagner summons two devils. It is amusing when he utters a curse on them afterthey have returned. The clown’s desire to become a flea is very funny.

Act III Scene II also presents amusing situation when the various sinsdescribe their salient characteristics. The parade of the seven Deadly Sins feedsFaustus’s soul. It also evoked laughter from the audience. The rest of the comic scenesdegenerate into farce. They present crude and vulgar humour. Mephistopheles rendersFaustus invisible. The silly Faustus snatches the dishes and drinks from the Popes handsand eventually hits him on the ear. He laughs away contemptuously whenMephistopheles warns him to get ready for excommunication.

In Act IV, Faustus makes a pair of horns grow on the head of an insolentknight in order to teach him a lesson never to be disrespectful to scholars. Faustus’sdealing with a Horse courser is full of humour. He dismisses him with the words ‘Away,You Villain! What last think I am horse doctor? The disappearance of the horse into apond of water, the Horse-Courser’s finding himself sitting on a bundle of hay, the Horsecourser’s pulling off Faustus’s by and paying forty dollars for compensation are examplesof sheer fowlers, buffoonery and horseplay. It provides the crudest type of fun.

The jokes of Wagner to embarrass, the payment of six pence ascompensation for long journey and the parade of the seven deadly sins are sophisticatedand fully justified. The practical jokes played on the Horse courser and harassment of thepope is sheer clown age and quite unjustified it shown that even an ardent scholar tendsto lose his dignity and rejoices in crude and vulgar activities for his pastime after turninginto an earring spirit.

The gap comic scenes only bare and irk the audience. It is quite clearthat the scenes dealing with buffoonery and clowning have not been written by Marlowe.


2 (b) Who were the University Wits? Show with reference to the work of any oneof them, how they influenced drama in their time.Ans.: The University Wits in the 1580s started the public theatre as they foundthe drama very suitable medium of expression and a means to earn fame and fortune.These dramatis are Lyly, Peele, Greene, Kyd and Marlowe. They were fresh from thehumanistic training in the universities and altered the mediaeval forms of the drama in thelight of their classical education. Thomas Kyd does not seem to have attended anyuniversity. His relations with the others no less than his interest in Seneca, neverthelessentitle him to be considered in this group. Lodge and Niche were also university wits, butthey had little contributions to the theatre. The principal predecessors of Shakespeare inthe history of the English drama were the university wits as they are called.

Marlow has been rightly called the Father of the English drama. Ofcourse he had no bent for comedy and the comic parts found in some of his plays areinferior, probably written by other hands. It was upon the tragedy that Marlowe gave theimpress of his genius and left it readymade for his great successor Shakespeare.Marlowe saw clearly that the Romantic drama as distinguished from the classical onewith the unities and other features was best suited to the needs of the nation and no otherform could best represent its abundant exuberant life. He, therefore, sat down betweenthe classical and native dramas and decided and favour of the latter.

Marlow however is not a good dramatist. His plays lack unity.Tamburlaine and Dr Faustus are a collection of unrelated scenes loosely pinned together.In Edward II there is a break in the middle with a too abrupt shift in sympathies.Marlowe’s tragedies are one man shows. The central character dominates the play. Hecan draw only one character and lacks the power of weaving a dramatic plot by thedistribution of sympathies. He does not understood female characters. He tries to drawthe character of Isabella in Edward II but he shows lack of insight into the psychologicalessentials of the characters. All his characters speak the same language. He cannotconstruct the nimble pliable spiced with humour and interspersed with comic relief.

In spite of these defects, Marlowe’s position as a pioneer and forerunnerof Shakespeare is permanently established.

2 (g) Show how Shakespeare develops the related themes of justice and Mercyin The Merchant of Venice.Ans.: The Keynote of the play is Portia’s the quality of mercy is not strained inthe trial scene. It alerts the audience to what is at issue. Shylock has the right in law tohis pound of flesh and refuses the plea for mercy. He insists on justice, the law, his bond.Portia relax the law, knowing that in the exact wordings of the bond lies Antonio’sSalvation. Although every argument and move counts in this trial scene, the trial isdramatic rather than legal drama is conflict and the trial is a contest between tworadically opposed attitudes to the human life which is at stake.

Portia’s argument for mercy is the Christian one that no one deservessalvation, for it is only God’s mercy that can save a human soul. It does not moveShylock, who demands justice according to the law. Yet Shylock’s true motive is notrespect for law but revenge. Jessica says that she has heard him swear to his Jewishfriends –

That he would rather have Antonio’s fleshThan twenty times the value of the sunThat he did owe him (III.2.285-7)

On first seeing Antonio, Shylock’s first lines are:


How like a fawning publican he looksI hate him for he is a Christian

A Christian audience would identify Shylock’s attitudehere as that of the righteous Pharisee proud of his religious who scorns the humblepublican who knows he is a sinner. Jews were seen by Christians as Pharisees,observers of the old Law of Moses, rather than of the new law that Jesus gave of lovefor God and of neighbour and of forgiveness and turning the other check. The Gospelsoften show the Pharisees trying to catch Jesus breaking the letter of the law as when hedeclines to condemn the woman taken in adultery.

Two figures are left out of the reconciliation, Shylock and Antonio. Theself-sacrificing Antonio is left alone, with the taken consolation of three shipsmiraculously restored. Shylock’s position is discussed in characterisation below, togetherwith the question of the justice of his punishment.

2 (f) Critically analyse the sleep walking scene in Macbeth.Ans.: In Act V Sc I, we witness Lady Macbeth enduring the fate of the sinnerin whom fear and remorse have already begun to effect the punishment for evil. Thisscene shows that Shakespeare was a student of the moral Philosophy of his time. All theaccounts of fear of Shakespeare’s time are concerned with the effect of fear on sleepand Lady Macbeth’s melancholy is presented in this scene as a disturbance in her sleep.

Lady Macbeth’s sleep has been troubled as only the sleep of those whohave been led by passion into melancholy and whose minds have become thus infected.She walks and talks in her sleep. And in her talk, she recalls certain images which havebeen engraved upon her memory by fear. She sees the bloodstain which cannot beremoved. She sees again the murdered Duncan. She recalls Lady Macduff. Sheremembers her fearful admonition to Macbeth on the night of the murder to put on hisnightgown and on the night of the feast to dismiss his fancy regarding Banquo’s ghost.

Now we go back to Scotland and learn that Lady Macbeth is feelingmentally so disturbed as to have been walking in her sleep during the night. A waitingGentlewoman and a Doctor watch Lady Macbeth in her sleep walking, themselvesunobserved Lady Macbeth in the course of her sleep walking keeps talking to herself andall her talk is about the murder of Duncan the murder of Banquo and the murder of LadyMacduff. She also refers to the knocking that was heard at the gate after Duncan’smurder. The Doctor’s comment on this behaviour of Lady Macbeth is that unnaturaldeeds do breed unnatural troubles the Doctor advices the Waiting Gentlewoman to lookafter Lady Macbeth, well and to take every possible pre-caution to prevent LadyMacbeth from inflicting some injury upon herself.

This scene shows that Lady Macbeth is after all a woman. The murdershave begun to weigh heavily upon her mind and allow her no rest even in her sleep. Thewoman who had said that a little water would clear her and her husband of the deed ofmurderer now says “What will these hands never be clean? And all the perfumes ofArabia will not sweeten this little hand.” In short this scene shows the mental collapse ofLady Macbeth and demonstrates that evil has in it: the seeds of self destruction.

3 (d) Explain any two conceits that Donne uses in ‘The Good Morrow’.Ans.: Conceits were common enough in Elizabethan poets. In Donne it iseverywhere. It has a wide range and variety, being drawn from the wide learning of thepoet. Thus in the present poem the conceit or imagery refers to familiar processes ofsuckling and weakening, snoring, dreaming and awakening to the voyages, maps,


hemispheres, scholastic theories of the nature of pure substance, philosophicalspeculations about our experience of space.

Two conceits are suck is suggested by the metaphor of the weaned andsnorted is meant by snored in sleep or slept deeply.

3 (e) What is the significance of the character of Fleance in Macbeth?Ans.: Fleance is the son of Banquo in Macbeth. Banquo’s son, who survivesMacbeth’s attempt to murder him, at the end of the play, Fleance’s whereabouts areunknown. Presumably he may come to rule Scotland, fulfilling the witch’s prophecy thatBanquo’s son will sit on the Scottish throne. Fleance and his father Banquo are bothfictional characters but represented as historical fact.

The plot of Macbeth ends with the death of Macbeth. Shakespeare doesnot continue the drama after that because if he had continued to write about whathappened to Fleance then the tragic intensity of his play would have been diluted.

3 (g) Explain the conditions under which according to Bacon, ambition is lessharmful.Ans.: Ambition makes a man active, energetic and prompt in the performanceof his duties. But if an effort is made to put some restraint on an ambitious man, he islikely to become spiteful and dangerous.

If ambitious men go on getting opportunities for rising higher and higher,they are busy rather than dangerous. But if they are prevented from their desire to growstronger and stronger, they become secretly discontented and feel happy when things gowrong with the ruler or with the people in general. This kind of discontentment in a publicservant can prove very harmful.

3 (h) How did Ben Jonson influence the dramatic tradition in England of histime?Ans.: Ben Jonson is the most prominent dramatist of the time. Jonson is firstand foremost a classicist both in strictness of structure and in the keen fidelity with whichhe paints the past. In tragedy, Ben Jonson is less successful. His two tragedies basedupon classical principles can claim the pedantic virtue of being an attempt at Senecadrama in English.

Jonson received a sound classical education. He was a conscious artistand realist. He purged contemporary drama of improbabilities of plot, inconsistencies incharacterisation, flagrant violation of unities. His aim was to sport with human follies andnot with crimes. He would use deeds and language such as men to use. His drama wouldshow an image of the times. His realism was aimed at mixing profit with pleasure. Hisinfluence lived on into the comedy of Manners in the Restoration period.


1 (d) Analyse at least three incidents in Gulliver’s first voyage which show Swift’spresentation ofpolitical allegory under the guise of a comic story for children.Ans.: Gulliver’s Travels’ universal appeal is known throughout the world. Itssuccess as a children classic proves this point. The inhabitants of these places are equallyfascinating by their preposterous qualities.

Voyages that Gulliver undertakes are full of interesting incidents. Theexperiences are sheer mind-blowing because of their adventurous qualities. In the firstvoyage Gulliver’s ship was wrecked by fierce storm and he ultimately reaches the shoreof an unknown land by swimming. On his second voyage he meets the same disastrousfate and by the turn of incidents he finds himself captivated by a giant. While going on histhird voyage his ship is attacked by the pirates. Set adrift he reaches the wonderful landof Laputas. In the fateful fourth voyage, Gulliver, the captain of a ship is attacked by hisown crew members and ultimately set ashore in an unknown land. The account of thesestories is captivating accompanied by scintillating note of suspense.

Whatever land Gulliver visits in the course of his voyage, all of them areunique by their astounding indigenous qualities. In Lilliput Gulliver meets the people ofextremely diminutive size. Their minuscule kingdom is governed by a king. The entireexperience of Gulliver in Lilliput is amusing. Gulliver helps the Lilliputian king to win overhis neighbouring country Blefuscu which is also a country of pygmies.

Going on his second voyage Gulliver once again meets a fierce a stormand eventually lands up in Brotedingna – a land of giants. They are twelve times biggerthan Gulliver’s size. Gulliver’s smallness arouses much curiosity among these giants whospeculate that he is a clockwork toy or carnivorous animal or embryo and concludes thathe is lusus nature a freak of nature.

On this third voyage Gulliver comes across a flying land Laputa inhabitedby the people who show their strong affinity for mathematics and music. Theirspeculative minds are always engrossed in such high thinking that servants follow them toalert them about surroundings so that they do not fall into any mishap. Gulliver’senthusiasm about immortality eventually is shattered once he comes across thewretchedness and vanity of struldbruggs.

Gulliver’s fourth voyage brings him to the land of intelligent horses’Houyhnhnms, and beastly manlike creatures, Yahoos. Houyhnhnms have an orderlysociety which is governed by rationality. Gulliver is appalled by the degraded human formof Yahoos whose savageness appears acute when juxtaposed to the dignifiedHouyhnhnms who are the master of this Island. Such inversion of reality causesGulliver’s disillusion but readers are entertained by the fanciful elements of hisexperience.

Swift wrote in a letter to Alexander Pope: “The chief and I propose tomyself in all my labours is to vase the world rather than divert it.............”. In this lightGulliver’s Travels appears something more than a mere adventurous story. Beneath the


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surface level we discover swift’s actual purpose – the denunciation of imperfect humanbeing and their life.

Commenting upon the literary convention of Gulliver’s Travels’ a criticwrites. “It is a fiction, it is written in prose, it is an ‘imaginary voyage.” So much one cansay, but to say this is to say very little. The imaginary voyage has taken such anastonishing variety of forms that it seems impossible to define it as a genre, to say nothingof systematizing its conventions.” Such ambiguity defining the genre of Gulliver’s Travelsis swift’s ingenuity.

1 (e) Discuss Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ as an example of elegiacpoetry.Ans.: Thomas Gray’s Elegy has occupied a permanent position in the gallery offamous English elegies such as Shelley’s Adonais, Milton’s Lycidas and Tennyson’s InMemoriam. Goray’s poem deals with the epical saga of the sufferings miseries and painsas well as the nobility, generosity and broad heartedness of the rustic folk. The poem hasbeen dedicated to the humdrum and ordinary rural folk who have sacrificed their lives forthe betterment of human civilization. The poem itself is a glorious tribute or homage totheir selfless and altruistic dedication.

Elegy is a poem of mourning for the untimely and premature demise ofsome near and dear ones but Gray’s Elegy does not express grief over a particular man’sdeath. Rather it is a thoughtful and meditative reflection on the sorrows, disappointmentsand frustrations of human life in its totality. The poem may be fraught with a deep note ofmelancholy or sadness but it is also inspired by the poet’s optimism and hope for life. Thepoem is deeply philosophical and contemplative.

Genius or talent is not only confined or restricted to the aristocraticpeople. Eminent poets, leaders, patriots, soldiers and educations may come from thedowntrodden sections of the society as well. Thus, among the poor villagers who arelying buried in the churchyard are some men who might have been prosperous andfamous had they been given chance. The poem also clearly states that poverty is not acurse but a blessing in disguise. It rescues the poor from committing the crimes which therich and powerful are often accused of.

The poem is written in the rhyme scher ab ab cd cd such that everyalternate line rhymes. It is full of rhetorical figures and allusions. Grays Elegy describesin a classical and dignified tone. He epitaph of a poor and unknown man. It wascustomary to erect costly moments and memorial at the gravestone of the departed inGray’s contemporary society. The poor countrymen however could not afford suchextravagances. Grey, in his Elegy, pays tribute to all such departed, through the voice of acountryman. Gray illustrates the simplicity of rustic life in this poem.

The poem is an elegy. It is a lame tat or mourning for the death orpassing away of near and dear one. The central or underlying idea of the ..... is thatDeath is a powerful leveller. It is the real equalise. It does not make any distinctionbetween the poor and the rich, the low and the high, the humble and the extraordinaryand the weak and the strong. It spreads its tentacles upon all irrespective of class, castecreed and religion. When death is inevitable and unavoidable or inexorable the ..... andthe proud should not satirise or ridicule the destitute and the oppressed. Theachievements may be glorious dazzling and brilliant but the finality of human life is death.

2 (h) Attempt a critical appreciation of the poem ‘On the Receipt of myMother’s picture out of Norfolk’.Ans.: William Cowper was probably the most widely read poet from the end of18th century to almost the middle of the 19th century. He is a transitional poet in the sense


that although much of this writing in the style of Augustan verse. He was sincere in hislove of Nature. There is a great intimacy in his description.

This poem with its ritual of elegiac praise and tribute follows theconnections of 18th century verse elegy. It records the poet’s feelings of sorrow at thedeath of his mother. From the beginning to the end it is characterised by that artistic unitywhich must never be absent in a true elegiac poem. The invocation to his mother at thebeginning and the note of resignation at the close complete the perfect harmony and unityof design. There is also the elegist’s claim to sincerity supported by an intimate display offeeling which evolves out of the recollection of early childhood.

Eighteenth century poets were generally reticent about their privatethoughts and feelings but the elegy seems to be one area of poetry where this is not true.It would be useful here to compare Lyttleton’s verses on the Death of his Wife.Thomson’s on the Death of his mother.

Cowper thus carries sincerity and naturalness of the pastoral elegy tofresh limits. There is the same organic movement in his poem that is found in laterromantic poetry where the poem is not a deliberate rhetorical construction. If we studyWordsworth’s account of the creative process we will discover how close it is to whathappens to Cowper’s emotions in his writing of this poem.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes itsorigin from emotion recollected in tranquillity the emotion is contemplated till by a speciesof reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears and emotion kindred to that which wasbefore the subject of contemplation is gradually produced and does itself actually exist inthe mind. Almost for the first time in English poetry an intensely personal note is sounded.It is a fine challenging poem with great artistic control over an extremely delicate,peculiarly fascinating area which lay open the secret recesses of the heart.

2 (f) Comment on the picaresque elements in “Tom Jones”.Ans.: The term ‘picaresque’ is derived from the Spanish word ‘picaro’ whichmeans a rogue. The term was originally applied to a class of romances that dealt withrogues and knaves. A novelist gained some advantages through the use of the‘picaresque’ made of writing. It did not demand a well organised or closely knit plot,though Fielding refused to make use of this advantage.

The object of the picaresque novel then is to take a central figurethrough a succession of scenes introduce a great number of characters and thus build upa picture of society. This is exactly the pattern which the story of Tom Jones follows.The hero is taken through a succession of scenes and situations and has a number ofadventures on the roads and inside inns. He meets persons of different types andtempers. In this way, a picture of society is gradually built up. The novel which followsthis design is known as the picaresque novel.

The story of “Tom Jones” fellows the pattern of the picaresque novel,Tom Jones, the heroes of the novel, is a foundling, mysteriously discovered one night inthe bed of the wealthy, virtuous and benevolent Mr Allworthy. The kind squire brings himup and educates him. But Tom incurs the wrath of his benefactor with the result that heis turned out of his house. Now begin the travels of Tom Jones. Accompanied by aschoolmaster, Partridge, he sets out for London. It is easy to see in partridge a parallel toSancho Panza, the travelling companion to Don Quixote in Cervantes’s picaresque novel.Fielding also sends his heroine, with a suitable lady companion on adventures along thehighway. On the way Tom meets with a number of adventures some of which areamorous in nature. He goes from place to place stopping at numerous inns on the way.He joins the army as a volunteer but, being seriously wounded in a fray, cannot


accompany the soldiers with whom he wants to go. He meets several strange persons,one of whom is the man of the Hill, who wilfully leads a lonely life. He rescues the oldman from being attacked by two ruffians. The next morning, he saves Mrs Waters frombeing killed by Ensign Northerton. After the boisterous scenes in Upton Inn, Tom andPartridge are again on the road. They now meet beggars, highwaymen and finally fallamong gipsies in whose camp they spend a night. Finally, they reach London. But Tom’sadventures do not come to an end there. He meets Lady Bellaston, a lustful woman whofor some time supports him in London. Misfortune, however persistently dogs his heels,and he is imprisoned in London. In his way, the story of Tom Jones is a long string ofadventures in different scenes and situations.

Tom Jones has several traits of the picaresque novel, yet in one essentialit differs greatly from the picaresque tradition. Unlike the picaresque novel, Tom Joneshas a coherent, well-knit and well planned plot. If further shows a harmony betweencharacter and incidents.

2 (c) Describe the battle of cards in Canto III of Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’.Ans.: The game of ombre has been described in Canto III of the poem with aHomeric vigour and grandeur. The ancient epics and romances of the middle ages havebeen laid under obligation in this account of the game cards, which is a veritable combaton the velvet plain, with its troops of kings, Queens, knaves who are patricians and two’sthree’s etc are plebs. Like the gods and goddesses of the classical epics who took sidesin the wars of men, the sylphs here took the side of Belinda. They sit on the cards inorder of precedence the highest, namely, Ariel takes charges of one of the matadors inBelinda’s hand. Belinda declares spades to be trumps and becomes the ombre.

First, her sapodillas marched into the field and brought two captives.That is she leads the Ace of spade and wins the trick in which the opposites had todeliver their trump cards. Then followed Manilas and retired as victors with captives.Basto followed next but it is not as lucky as the two former generals it took only onetrump card and one plebeian card. The king of spades now marched in his majesty thefield and made captive of his rebel knave. Thus far Belinda leads and makes four tricks.One more trick will make her the winner.

The playful fancy of Pope shows itself at its best in this description ofthe mock-fight in a mock-heroic style. Again the game of cards, presented with thesolemnity of an epic war, contributes to the satiric effect of the poem. It is masked sexualwar that reveals one aspect of the frivolous life of the beau-monde.

As a critic has pointed out in the game of ombre in the third canto andthe battle between the men and women in the last. Pope not only make capital out of thecomic detail and the implied comparison with the grimly earnest fight round the ships inthe Iliad but shows that warfare now to be a series of manoeuvres in the bath of sexes.Herein lays the justification of their game of ombre being inserted in the social comedy. Itmay not affect the action but it ............. a grave satirical import.

3 (d) How is the trading community portrayed in Robinson Crusoe ?Ans.: The importance of the economic motive and an inform reverence forbook keeping and for the law of contract, are by no means the only matters in whichCrusoe shows himself to be a symbol of the processes connected with the rise ofeconomic individualism. The economic motive logically involves a reduction in theimportance of other modes of thought, feeling and action. Crusoe’s original sin is realtythe dynamic tendency of capitalism itself. The tendency of capitalism is never merely tomaintain the status quo but to improve upon it continuously.


In this connection we must also take note of the view of the critic whosays that Robinson Crusoe contains a number of speculative economic passages basedon ideas which had long fascinated Defoe and which were drawn from a number ofschools of thought among the writers who in his time discussed the nature of value,money. Imports and exports and so on. Defoe in his novel puts these ideas into apowerfully imaginative story. The divine sanction of trade, the puzzling quality of moneywhich has valve only if it can be used in trade, but dazzles men into thinking it hasintrinsic value, the economic analysis of human labour – all these ideas are thrown into anew light by Crusoe’s solitary estate on the island.

3 (b) What do you understand by the term ‘pastoral elegy’?Ans.: The originator of the pastoral was the Greek poet Theocritus, who in thethird century B.C. wrote poems representing the life of Sicilian Shepherds. Virgil laterimitated Theocritus in his Latin Eclogues and in doing so established the enduring modelfor the traditional pastoral.

A pastoral elegy is a particular type of elegy. It is like every elegy amournful poem, in which the poet bewails the death of some person or persons. Hehowever, mourns in the disguise of a Shepherd. The person for whom he mourns is alsoimagined as a shepherd. The setting of the poem is pastoral, with the quiet and beautifulaspects of nature all around. Milton’s Lycidas, Shelley’s Adonais and Arnold’s TheScholar Gipsy and Thyris are the most finished examples of the pastoral elegy in theEnglish language.

3 (a) (ii) Rousseau:-Ans.: Jean Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher writer and composerof the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France andacross Europe as well as aspects of the French Revolut educational thought.

Rousseau’s novel Emile or On Education is a treatise on the education ofthe whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie or the New Heloise was ofimportance to the development of pre-romanticism and romanticism in fiction.Rousseau’s autobiographical writings his confessions which initiated the modernautobiography and his Reveries of a solitary walker – exemplified the late 18th centurymovement known as the Age of sensibility and feature an increased focus on subjectivityand feature and increased focus on subjectivity and introspection that later characterizedmodern writing. His Discourse, Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones inmodern political and social thought.

During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the mostpopular of the philosophers among members of the Jacolin Club. Rousseau was interredas a national hero in the Pantheon in Paris in 1791, It years after his death.


1 d) Write a critical appreciation of Byron’s She Walks in Beauty..Ans.: The poem was written on Mrs Ann Beatrix Horton, the wife of Byron’ssecond cousin. It is a passionate lyric celebrating the beauty of the lady. The poem beginson a note of exuberant rapture. The poet describes the form and appearance of the ladywith sensuous colourful details. The blending of light and shade gives a peculiar charm tothe appearance of the lady. Dark dress and dark hair and bright spangles give her asofter charm of appearance. The starry night is compared to the sunny day to bring outthe mellow beauty of the lady. Byron suggests the softness and quiet of the lady throughimages and expressions. ‘Tender light’ is contrasted with the gaudy day. The lady has thetrue proportion of darkness and brightness.

This ecstasy in the description of the physical beauty of the lady fadesaway and the poet suggests the character of the lady. The serene expression on her faceindicates the purity of her soul. Her soft, calm cheek and brow express her inwardgoodness her virtuous past life. The suggestion of the pure virtuous character of the lady,tones down the sensuous ecstasy of the first stanza and tones up the moral qualitieswhich are irrelevant to a lover. Thus the poem bringing with rapture fades away in themiddle and the end. The beauty of form is described with ecstasy in the first stanza andthen the poet passes on to the description of character. The poem has a family likenesswith Wordsworth’s ‘She was a Phantom of delight’ in which the poet highlight thematronly virtues of his beloved. The last two stanzas are beautiful in their restrainedexpression and subdued tones. But they cannot recover the rapture of the first.

The lines are extra-ordinary rich in vowel sounds and Byron shares withShelley the power of evolving tones of expression through vowel though in much lesserdegree. The poet uses soft vowel sounds like mellow, tender, soft, serene, grace, sweet,glow to emphasise the mellow and pure beauty of the woman. Gaudy day is anappropriate expression to contrast with tender light. The poem has indeed a soft andserene glow over it. The last stanza expressed a platonic commonplace with theRomantic poets.

1 f) Critically comment on Scott’s art of characterisation in Ivanhoe.Ans.: The characters in “Ivanhoe” as in Scott’s other novels, may be dividedinto three groups” historical, i.e. these who are drawn from written or recorded history,Scott’s creations who belong to the upper classes: Scott’s creations who belong to thecommon people on the peasantry Scott’s novels are special i.e. they have a breath whichreminds us of the epics of old and they teem with characters “Ivanhoe” has no less thanone hundred and fifty three clearly individualized characters. Among them, only KingRichard and Prince John are from recorded history. Robin Hood is at best quasi-historicaldrawn from ballads of the greenwood. His Scottish novels present us with anunforgettable gallery of peasant characters, memorable for their earthly common sense,patience, tenacity and sense of humour. In ‘Ivanhoe’ we have only two sturdyrepresentatives of the peasantry – Gurth the swineherd and Wamba the jester. The upper


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class characters, whether belonging to the Norman side on the Saxon are drawn asrepresentatives of the historical social trends of the times. We should put Scott’s womencharacters in a separate group. We shall now analyse the features of Scott’s characterdrawing.

Scott avoided any detailed drawing of psychological complicity. He triedto draw a complex and passionate character, he was not very successful. The mostimportant feature of his characters is, that they are always drawn in relation to theirsocial and historical background. The historical personalities who appear in his novels, forexample Richard I in Ivanhoe, Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth, King Louis X is QuentinDurward are never larger than life figures. Scott portrays them as representatives of asignificant historical force which affects large sections of the people.

Scott’s heroes, always belonging to the upper class are subduedpersonalities. Wilfred of Ivanhoe is no exception. Scott’s mediocre heroes are oftenovershadowed by the other characters Scott’s heroes represent this aspect of life andhistorical development.

Scott’s non-historical minor characters are always much more interestingthan his heroes. In Ivanhoe Cedric the Saxon and Locksley the outlaw play moreimportant and active roles than does Ivanhoe himself. Cedric’s and Locksley’s feats ofphysical valour are equal in importance to the king’s leadership. Locksley shows a naturalcourtesy and graciousness which Richard recognizes when he calls Locksley “King ofoutlaws and Prince of good fellows.”

It is only with his women of higher ranks that Scott does not succeed.Lady Rowena, like other similar heroines, Amy Robs art is Kenilworth, Lucy in TheBride of Lammermoor are all passive conventional creatures with little animation. Scottwas too much of a conservative gentleman to analyse the complexities of femininenature. He is much more at home with women of the lower classes and his Scottishnovels have some memorable characters.

2 c) Do you think Keats is an escapist in Ode to a Nightingale ? Give reasonsfor your opinionAns.: Keats draws a moving picture of the sufferings of men in this world,which prompt the poets desire to escape from here to the ideal heaven of the Nightingalewhere these are unknown. Everyone on earth is miserable and constantly complaining.Not only the old and the young too are constantly wasting away. Frustration and despairis the lot of human beings and their beauty dies as soon its brief moment is over.

In sharp contrast to the ever-glad song of the Nightingale the earthly lifeof man is full of groaning. At all stages of human existence there is continuous andinescapable affliction of extreme nature. The feebleness and emptiness of old age insignified by the image if the baldish head sadder looking by the presence of a few greyhairs. It is more tragic to see how even a young man who would be in the prime ofhealth, fall victim to a disease like consumption and gradually becomes bloodless andemaciated enough to look like a skeleton and finally meets a premature death. Soaltogether there is nothing to be cheerful and optimistic about our life and since it is so, adesire to escape from life comes quite naturally in the poet’s mind.

Sticking to his resolution to break away from earthly world the poetchanges his mode of flight. He decides not to take the rout of intoxication, not to take thehelp of drunken fancy, but depend upon his power of imagination to carry him up to thenightingale. The imaginative flight takes him straight onto the branch of a tree thicklycovered with leaves, right beside the slinging bird. From the dark hook he fancies themoon to be shining like a queen surrounded by stars.


It is seen that the poet from the borders of the distant and vaguelymysterious fairy land to which his mind had strayed, to himself and to reality. He wakesup from the imaginative reverie to feel his acute loneliness, a complete absence ofcompany. He realizes the unpleasant truth that fancy, though capable of roaminganywhere, has its limitation and its fit like a dream can never be unending. Sooner or laterthe dreamer is brought down on his feet to stark reality. For some moments the bird’ssong so inspired his imagination that he transcended reality and happily drowned hismiseries into a contemplation of beauties. But he takes the disillusionment in a properspirit of acceptance.

e) Analyse My Last Duchess as a dramatic monologue.Ans.: ‘My Last Duchess’ by Browning is one of the greatest dramaticmonologues. The monologue is spoken in the presence of the ambassador of a foreigncount whose daughter is being sought in marriage by the widowed duke. The dukereveals his character in the situation when second marriage for him is proposed.

In attempting to describe the duchess, the duke succeeds in painting hisown narrow and hideous heart. The duke’s speech shows his pride and jealousy. Hismost salient peculiarity is the pride of mere possession of a masterpiece which Browningfelt to be a phase of the decadent renaissance. The duke is telling his companion that ‘thedepth and passion of her earnest glance’ was not reserved for her husband alone, but theslightest courtesy or attention was sufficient to call up ‘that spot of joy’ into her face.‘Her heart’ said the duke, ‘was too soon made glad, too easily impressed’. She smiled onher husband, she smiled on others and that was violation of the rights of property whichthis dealer in human souls could not brook, so he gave commands – then all smilesstopped together. The concentrated tragedy of this line is a good example of the poet’spower of compressing a whole life story in two or three words. The heartless dukeinstantly dismisses the memory of his duchess and her fount of human love is sealed upby command. The duke’s speech shows his pride and jealousy. The duke’s greed isrepresented in the line – no, just pretence of nine for dowry will be disallowed and hiscruelty is shown in the short terribly suggestive line all smiles stopped together.

The character of the duchess also emerges from the duke’s descriptionof her. She is gray and gracious full of courtesy to all. She is one of those lovely womenwhose kindness and responsiveness are as natural as sunlight. The duke cannot brookher expansive nature of the duchess is a contrast to the narrow and cruel nature of theduke.

Thus the poem is unique in character study. A monologue differs fromsoliloquy in certain respects. A good monologue is characterised by implied action andimplied conversation. The presence of the second character for which the monologue isintended is suggested. His responses and actions are adequately hinted at when the dukespeaks of the ‘officious fool’ who brought the cherries and when he says all smilesstopped together, then the envoy looks at him with a fearful question in her eyes, but theduke’s face immediately resumes its mask of complacency. There is implied action whenthe duke asks the guest to go down and as they descend he draws his attention to a finebronze statue. The poem shows Browning’s genius of condensation and objectivity in thepresentation of character. The duke’s advice and cruelty are as much evident as thedepth and passion of the earnest glance of the last duchess.

f) Critically consider the causes of the abiding appeal of John Clare’s “I am”..


Ans.: The most traumatic event in Clare’s life which deeply influenced hispoetry was the Enclosure Act under which Help stone like other common grounds, wasenclosed or prevented from being used by common people. He felt man was encroachingupon nature’s domain and destroying the dignity of peasants like him. Clare’s personalitywas not very stable and the last years at his life were spent in Northampton GeneralAsylum where he continued to write poetry. Clare’s works portray a sensitive andauthentic description of Nature drawn from personal observation and also his painfulexperience of the changing English countryside. His reflective poems often dwell onloneliness, poverty and problems of the self.

The theme of this reflective lyric written in the Asylum is the search forthe reality of the past and his self. The first two stanzas express a deep anguish andfrenzy which arises from a sense of being abandoned by the familiar world of friends,acquaintances, people who loved him – all that constitute one’s self. The phrase ‘I am’recurs four times in the first stanza, twice in the first line itself as if to reassure himself ofhis own existence his identity. The isolation and joylessness of his present existence andhis mental turmoil are expressed in phrases such as “Love’s frenzied stifled throes” andvividly in the image ‘a living sea of waking dreams’.

The poet turns away from the tumultuous urban world where he hasbeen tenanted by the elusive attractions of women and the scorn art disdain of men. Herealises that he can only preserve and inner sanity by maintaining and renewing his closebonding with external nature. He longs for peaceful undefiled nature through which hecan ultimately find himself in the presence of God. This is like a return to the restfulnessof childhood enclosed by the open skies above and the green fields below. Here the poetis at peace and ceases to be the cause of distress to others. Thus he is able to lift himselfabove the oppressive sorrow of the opening lines and achieve a state of tranquillity. Thelucid language and peaceful tone of the last stanza are in a sharp contrast to the turbulentimagery and frenzied movement of the first two stanzas.

3 (a) (i) Short note: Darwin.Ans.: Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist and geologist, bestknown for his contributions to evolutionary theory. He established that all species of lifehave descended over time from common ancestors and in a joint publication with AlfredRussell Wallace introduced his scientific theory. This branching pattern of evolutionresulted from a process that he called natural selection in which the struggle forexistence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his1859 book ‘On the Origin of Species’ overcoming scientific rejection of earlier conceptsof transmutation of species. His early interest in nature led him to neglect his medicaleducation at the University Edinburgh instead he helped to investigate marineinvertebrates. Darwin became internationally famous has been described as one of themost influential figures in human history, and his pre-eminence as a scientist washonoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.

3 (b) Analyse and comment on Wordsworth’s definition of poetry.Ans.: In the preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth defines poetry this:“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotionrecollected in tranquillity’. In this definition of poetry there are two apparentcontradictions. The ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ on one side and


‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’ on the other side are apparently two contradictorystatements.

“Spontaneous overflow” must be immediately and unrestricted withoutany interval of time between feeling and its expression. The expression “recollected intranquillity would suggest intervention of time between feeling and its expression.“Recollection means remembering some impression after some lapse of time.Wordsworth himself has tried to reconcile this apparent contradiction in his furtherelucidation of his definition. Immediate impression has a blending of both important andunimportant. The poet would express those powerful impressions spontaneously withease and felicity without any imposition of restriction in point of language or poeticdiction. The poet’s expression of those powerful feelings must be easy, smooth andnatural.

e) Explain the line ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind’ ?Ans.: This line is taken from Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’. The poetmakes his fervent and final appeal to the West Wind to help regenerate, rejuvenate andresurrect the world. The poet wishes to boil and bubble with the impetuosity of the WestWind and urges upon it completely merge in him and inspire him with its fierce energy.The West Wind is a mighty power and it scatters the decayed leaves which cover andfertilize the seeds in their dark wintry bed. So he prays to it to help disseminate hishitherto unknown and inoperative ideas which will give a staggering blow to the presentorder and usher in a new age. He further plays to endow his power with an irresistiblemagical power to hasten a millennial regeneration of the society. The poet nourishes anunflinching faith in the regeneration of human society. He is robustly optimistic of a newcreation. Reconstruction is always preceded by destruction. The decay an desolation ofwinker do not prevail for a long time. It is soon followed by the joyous spring. Winter isthe harbinger of spring.

g) Show how Tennyson presents death as a positive element in Tithonus..Ans.: Tithonus prayed to the goddess Eos to bestow on him immortality butforget to pray for eternal beauty. She smiled and granted his prayer. He fell in love withher and wanted to win some kind of divinity for him.

Now he has grown old and lost his vigour and beauty but the goddessEos, remains ever beautiful and ever young Tithonus realizes the futility of his prayer andfeels frustrated. He lost the balance of passion and reason in praying for eternal life andnow he prays for that. Tithonus considers that men who have power to die are happy.Those who are dead and lying in the graves are happier because they have achieved thedesirable and appropriate end of their life. So Tithonus wants his release from the gift andlikes to be restored to the grave. She is renewing her beauty every morning but Tithonusis growing older and older by passage of time and never dies. Such a life has becomeunbearable for him and he wants to die. Death is the proper end of human life. So hisonly yearning at the present moment is for death. Man is destined to die and immortalityis something unnatural for him.


1 c) Write a critical appreciation of ‘An Acre of Grass’Ans.: The small lyric, ‘An Acre of Grass’, occupies the focal point among theLast Poems of Yeats and at the same time it is truly representative of the poetic creed andspirit which characterize Yeats’ poetry ever since his art reached a mature stage. Itsautobiographical charm apart thematically and artistically the poem deserves a carefulattention and critical interpretation.

After a long career as a successful poet and public figure of nationaladmiration Yeats here muses on the condition of old age as a man retired to the safety of hisown house at Riversdale.

Yeats poetry is always remarkable for its dramatic energy and for somewondrous discovery. An Acre of Grass fully satisfies this expectation. On analysing itsstructure on finds the characteristic Yeatsian principle of antinomies at work. The first twostanzas, forming the first half of the poem are concentrating on the scrutiny of the physicallimitations of the old man with vivid realism: instead of real nature with its wide span of thesky, the trees the hills the valleys and the rivers and instead of real life of men and society,the old poet is left with the consolation of picture and book. They are like

“An acre of green grassFor air and exercise.”

Everything is in a miniature scale and soft and easy-going as it should be inold age. The decay, the shadow, the devitalisation, the total absence of zeal and sound oflife, come out in this touching metaphor and the startling mention of the stirring of a mouse,which serves only to deepen the sense of silence in the low pulsed life of the aged man. Thepoet realistically accepts the change and submits to the fact of the body’s decay with timehe who had said that he could be tempted by a woman’s face or worse – the seeming needsof the fool-driven land.

But having accepted the fact he yearns for the higher thing the Truth or thevision that unfolds the mystery of life and death. While decay of the body with age is oneside of the antimony, the other is the unfathomable power of the soul or spirit which remainsunwithered even at the age. The last two stanzas, forming the second half of the poemtreats this aspect with an astonishing burst of poetic afflatus. The Grant me an old man’sfrenzy marks the dramatic somersault from gentle to aggressive tone and attitude and thefourteenth line – Myself must I remake announces the central idea of the poem. Spiritualrenewal has been his central theme since he was a middle-aged man.

Myth, history, personal ideas and sincerity of experience are thus fusedtogether by poetic imagination in an impressive and convincing manner to establish the mainparadoxical theme: An old man’s eagle mind. The diction and poetic style is free from thegrandeur and flowery beauty of Yeats earlier poetry. The very simplicity and bareness isintended to kindle the purifying self-sustaining passions thou would bring the poet to what he


Elective English(Sixth Paper : Literature in the Modern World


himself calls Unity of Being. This unity is like the Buddhist enlighten. The continuing passionto reach perfection is itself the perfection when wrought to the highest degree. This passionis the spiritual fecundity Yeats so admired in Blake, in Michael Angelo, in the greatesttragedies of Shakespeare.

The metrical art is none too intricate. Each of the six-line stanzas is broadlycast in a b c b d d rhyme-scheme but while the rhymes are clear and perfect in the last twostanzas, the second end rhyme is notably imperfect in the first two stanzas, ‘grass’ and‘goes’ make less than half-rhyme so is the case with ‘end’ and ‘mind’. The line Here atlife’s end, stands out as the shortest in the poem, containing only two metres, but subtlysuggesting the feeling of lack of space to accommodate what come in the lines immediatelyafter it. That is a mark of genuine poetic craftsmanship.1 f) Discuss Graham Greene’s labelling of A Gun for Sale as ‘anentertainment’Ans.: Graham Greene’s term ‘entertainment’ is itself misleading. The novels whichwere originally published as ‘entertainments’ are ‘Stamboul Train’, ‘A Gun for Sale’, Theconfidential Agent, The Ministry of Fear, The Third man and The Fallen Idol, Loser TakesAll and Our Man in Havana. While it is true that all these novels are written on the structureof a thriller with the emphasis on crime, murder, intrigue, espionage, pursuit, escape, warand other such melodramatic devices, the style and tone are distinctly different from that ofthe typical thriller.

‘A Gun for Sale’ was first published in 1936, during the years of the economicdepression in the capitalist countries of the world. It was originally categorised by Greeneas an ‘entertainment’ as opposed to the novels that he wrote. When writing about the literalinfluences on his own career, Greene mentions a rather strange set of writers.

The plot of ‘A Gun for Sale’ is superficially similar to that of a typicalthriller, coincidence and melodrama help to hold together a plot which combines assassinationpursuit of the criminal, betrayal, revenge and the helpless heroine with a golden heart. As inmany typical thrillers, here too a single incident can trigger a war on an international scale.However, what prevents his novel from becoming merely entertainment is the way in whichGreene twits and plays with the stereotypes and stereotypical elements to unsettle thetypical moral simplicity of the thriller form.

Raven is drastically different from the glamorous heroes who usually inhabitthe pages of thrillers such as James Bond. Here Raven is presented as more of a victimthan a criminal. His harelip has left him with a deep sense of rejection and he has come toexpect revulsion from anyone who sees him. This physical scar seems to be, however,merely a physical manifestation of a deeper psychological scar that has its roots in hisfamily background and his childhood. He remembers quite often than his father was hangedand the scene of his mother’s suicide returns to haunt him as the most horrible scene in hislife.

This novel remains a readable and relevant novel for its entertainment eventoday. Part of the strength lies in the plot that Greene handles with great craftsmanship. Byusing the structure of the thriller, Greene retains the suspense of a tightly woven, dramaticset of actions. Yet, Greene’s own bleak vision of twentieth century society colours the novelto make it much more than a mere action novel. This novel is one Greene’s earlier successes,but the themes that have remained central to Greene’s work are articulated with greatsuccess in ‘A Gun for Sale’.2 a) Comment on the ending of ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’Ans.: Hemingway based on ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ ascandalous case of adultery and suicide that had been suppressed in the newspapers and


white washed by the British Government. It appeared in cosmopolitan. The subject is as oldas Western thought and exemplifies many of the traditional motifs in Western art.

Teffery Meyers in his biography of Hemingway pronounced the ending ofthe story ambiguous. But after this pronouncement he also says that Hemingway‘conclusively’ resolved the ambiguity. In a 1953 interview Hemingway said ‘Francis’s wifehates him because he’s a coward. But when he gets his guts back she fears him so muchshe has to kill him – shoots him in the back of the head. But this was not Hemmingway’slast word on the matter. Kenneth Lynn in his analysis of the story in his book Hemingwayalso cautious against an essay acceptance of Hemingway’s pronouncement on Margot.The ending of The Short Happy Life is a typical example of the open ended type of storywhich welcomes the reader to construe his/her own meaning out of the ambiguity.

There is a memorable ambiguity at the end of The Short Happy Life ofFranci’s Macomber. But there is no doubt that Francis died in the moment of his triumph,happiness at last his furthermore he is never to be tested further. There is a balance ofinterest between external action and the characters in the story. The story is as violent in itspacked events as any sensational adventure tale, but every particular of the action anddialogue is contrived to test reveal, with a surprising set of reversals the moral quality of allthe three protagonists. If the story of the Macombers is judged, in terms of an experiment inthe development of emotional intensity it is hand to match. As an instance of tragic irony,exampled in overt action, it has its faults. But dullness is not of them and formally speakingthe story is very nearly perfect.

It would be possible to argue that Francis and Margot Macomber are morenearly caricatures than people. One rightly concludes that they are as fully developed asthey need to be for the purposes of the narrative.

2 b) How did Mohan separate Selui from her family?Ans.: Selui had the money to buy the house as a result of play back singer. HoweverMohan made her quit is favour of her own concerts which was much more lucrative.Though a lot of assiduous publicity, she became a celebrity in her own right which made herextremely busy. It also enabled Mohan to earn enormous sums of money. Mohan would bebusy and anxious all the time to make his money grow.

Mohan had chanced upon her when she was brought to be photographedafter having won the first prize in a music competition. Thereafter Mohan became a well-wisher of the family Narayan makes another ironical comment on the changed behaviour ofMohan.

Selui was by then become automation. She did not care for her surroundingsand only lived to perform at the appointed hours. She had become the subject of adulationand yet she would be obvious of her surroundings. She had surrendered her whole personalityto him so much so that ever what items she would perform on stage would be decided byhim. If she would speak a few rehearsed lines like a parrot after which Mohan would drawthe attention to him.

In order to isolate her from the typical Vinayak Mudali street products asMohan put it. He would draw her away from her mother and siblings. If Selui would timidlyremonstrate Mohan forced her attention to other things. We are again an example of thedestruction of human relationships when Mohan chides Selui and says ‘only a baby wouldbother about its mother’. Selui nursed her secret anguish and went through life as if she didnot even exist.

However when the news of Selui’s mother’s death reached her in Calcuttaher first signs of extreme anger and remorse manifested itself. Throughout the return journeywhich lasted thirty six hours she remained totally silent as it in retrospection. When she


reached Vinayak Mudali Street both the big can and Mohan’s whitest homespur clothesseemed incongruous. We get the first manifestation of Seui’s personality when she refusedto go back to her palatial home and said ‘my mother was my guru here she taught me musiclived and died. I’ll also live and die here, what good for her is good for me too ............’

The story of ‘Selui’ is a tale of self discovery of a woman who is finallyable to come out of the shadows of her husband’s explanation. It also relentlessly exposesthe hypcring and avarice of our present society where neither art nor relationships remainsacred and everything is sacrificed on the altar of money.

2 c) How does Shaw’s interest in serious drama influence the theme and charactersof the dark Lady of the sonnets?Ans.: George Bernard Shaw, one of the influential playwrights in the last of thenineteenth and the first few decades of the twentieth century is remembered by latergenerations of readers mainly for his uncompromising zeal in exploring and representingreality, rather than imitation of outworn conventions in life and literature. As political thinker,pamphleteer, dramatist, philosopher and prophet, Shaw constantly inspires men and womenof all generations in unmasking hypocrisy, tearing of illusions and thus in gaining a fullerunderstanding of life.

Very often he achieves his end by means of wit and humour and otherdevices like bathos, intelligent juxtaposition of events and character etc. His reading andawareness of literature and all aspects of life are evident everywhere in his works.

There are very few one act plays by Shaw. A one-act play depicts adeliberately chosen are of life within a brief spam of development. The situations are selectedcarefully to reveal interaction among character the number of which usually does not exceedthree to five. As the basis of this play let, Shaw takes the mysterious relationship betweenShakespeare and an unknown Dark Lady, but develops it in his own manner. It actuallyupholds Shaw’s belief in the necessity of drama.

Despite attempts by critics and scholars not much is definitely known aboutthe identity of the lady and the extent of her relationship with Shakespeare. Shaw uses hiscreative imagination in embodying his vision of the relationship.

This play is a brilliant specimen of Shaw’s creative imagination his ability tocreate arresting dialogues as well as his unsurpassable mastery over wit. It cannot be calleda historical play, though some figures well-known in history like Queen Elizabeth or WilliamShakespeare appear in it. It deals with no historical issues. Rather it is mainly concernedwith Shakespeare’s supreme mastery over poetry and drama, his passion for it and also hisvery human fondness’s for women and how his own age failed to appreciate the essentialShakespeare. It reveals Shaw’s deep reverence for Shakespeare’s creative genius thoughthere is a prevalent misconception that Shaw did think of himself as being a higher or betterdramatist. It is based on the famous ‘Dark Lady’ theme in Shakespeare’s sonnets.3 a) Analyse the images in the first stanza of ‘Poeludes’.Ans.: Eliot depicts starkly the meaningless society of the slums at nightfall and inthe mornings. He draws several pictures representing life in the sinister slums of a moderncity.

The first stanza describes a winter evening. The smoky day is coming to anend. It is six O’clock. The smell of meat on the fire fills the houses. Showers of rain beat onthe broken windows and chimney pots. Gusts of wind scatter dry leaves and newspapers.The streets are deserted such adjectives as ‘burnt out’, ‘smoky’, ‘grimy’, ‘withered’, ‘vacant’,‘broken’ and ‘lonely’ carry the tone of the poem and suggest shabbiness and loneliness ofatmosphere. He adjures the romantic conception of life and traditional technique and imagery.


3 d) Briefly explain the significance of the first scene of the play ‘Destiny’.Ans.: Destiny opens in Jullunder, Punjab, in India on 14 August, 1947, on the eveof Indian Independence; with a voice presumably Jawaharlal Nehru’s speaking in thedarkness. The manifesto expresses its abiding faith in the Empire in the second, the partyspokesman expresses the view that they want to see Britain as a great power as otherwise,and the class system looks foolish.

The scene provides the background of the play, whose main action takesplace in the 70’s in Britain. All four characters move on to Britain. All four characters moveon to Britain to carry on their lives in a vastly changed political and social environment. Theseeds of their later attitudes and political stances are sown early and we are not surprised atwhat they become and how they react in the later part of the play. The ‘destiny’ crops upboth in the conservative party manifests and Prime Minister J.L. Nehru’s speech that itssignificance as the title of the play would have to evolve through dialectic between the twomeanings of destiny presented in the two discourses.

3 e) Who is Lazarus and what is his relevance in Plath’s poem?Ans.: ‘Lady Lazarus’ has an obvious biographical correspondence since it is well-known that Plath had suicidal tendencies and that she ended her life by an act of suicide.The speaker is a woman who presents herself as a suicide artist demonstrating her skillbefore a sadistic crowd. The poem however ends not with death, but with vision ofresurrection. The Lazarus in the title is a Biblical figure, there are actually two Lazarausesin the Bible and the poem may be taken to allude to either or both.

The more famous of the two is the Lazaruses whom Jesus raised from thedead and the story is to be found in John. The other Lazarus is the discarded beggar who iscontracted with the rich man, Dives tin the parable of the rich man and the beggar in Luke.Both references are appropriate. The first Lazarus suggests a parallel to the speaker’sironic resurrection after suicide, while the despaired beggar in the parable resembles thespeaker who is obviously looked down upon by the so called strong and rich peoplewho derive a sick pleasure from watching her self-torment.

3 g) What view of England does Auden present in the last stanza if ‘Look Stranger’?Ans.: In the last stanza the poet here makes a survey of the surroundingscene and draws the attention to the foreign traveller to the vast expanse of thebearing on its bosom a number of ships which look like so many seeds due to theirgreat distance from the coast.

Just as the seeds bear the promise of the full plant in them, so theships, laden with merchandise are the sources of England’s future prosperity. Theseships move together for some time, but very soon they part company and make fortheir respective destinations. They enjoy complete freedom in their enterprises. They areso beautiful to look at that they continue to live in our minds eye like the casualty driftingclouds reflected in the quiet and transparent water of the harbour. In the similar way, thecloud like also will linger in the memories of men.


1 b) Discuss the impact of the Authorised Version of the Bibleon the Englishlanguage with appropriate references.

The Bible has played a very significant role in the making of the English language.There is perhaps, no other language which has received so much impetus from the Bible, asEnglish. The Bible has been translated and studied carefully and quoted plentifully in Englandmore than in any other christian country. The predominance of the Bible in the intectual lifeof the English has proved sufficiently resourceful for the expansion of the English language.The very fact that the Bible has been most widely read and frequently quoted for centurieshas made it fruitful source fo English words and expressions

The enormous influence of the Holy Bible is patent in the very fact that a greatmany Biblical phrases have passed into the ordinary languages of England as householdwords. A few instances may, however, be given here to justify how great is the Biblicalinfluence on the language. Thus there are many scriptural phrases and allusion in modernEnglish, as ‘Yell it not in Gath’, ‘to hope against hope’, ‘Olive branches’, ‘take up hisparable’, ‘wash one’s had of’, and so on.

There are some cases in which words are formed from the corruption of twoBiblical words such as ‘helpmate’, which has mistaken as a compound of ‘help’ and ‘meet’.The second element is taken as synonymous with ‘mate’ and ‘helpmate’ which originated ina blunder has become as very happy and common fixed compound with the sense thepartner in life.

The scriptural expression ‘Holy of Holies’ which is a typical expression of theHebrew manner of the use of superlatives, has given rise to a great many similar phrases inEnglish. Thus there are ‘heart of hearts’, ‘horror of horrors’, ‘mystery of mysterious’,‘talkie of talkies’, and so on.

So scritural proper names have also become the part of the ordinary language ascommon nouns. Thus the Biblical word ‘Jehu’ is used to denote a ‘driver’. Similarly, thereare ‘Job’ (a patient person) ‘Jezebal’ (an ugly woman) ‘cain’ (a murderer) and Daniel (awise judge).

Again, a good many words, which might have been obsolete have been presentedby their occurence in th efamiliar passages of the scripture. Such words include ‘apparel’and ‘raiment’ (for dress), ‘damsel’ (for desire) and ‘firmament’ (for sky).

The Authorised Version of the Bible has had prominently remained a dominantinfluence on the leterary language as well the language of everyday life. But certain wordsand expressions have come from the other Versions of the Bible, particularly from those ofCoverdale and Jindale.

Such beautiful terms as ‘loving kindness’, ‘tender mercy’, ‘avenger of blood’ aredue to Converdale. ‘Long suffering’ and ‘peace maker’, ‘the powers that be’, ‘the fattedcalf’, and ‘stumbling block’ are also found introduced by him. Again, ‘beautiful’ whichappears so indispensable today, seems to have not been used much before Tindale. ThoughTindale did not invent the word, he was instumental to its general use.


Elective English(Seventh Paper : Philology, Phonetics, Rhetoric &

Prosody and Unseen )


The influence of the Bible is particularly indescribable on the language of Englishpoetry. The use of the ‘-eth’ form in poetry, such as ‘loveth’, ‘prayeth’, ‘hath’, is due to theBiblical influence. ‘He prayeth best, who loveth best’. Moreover, the Authorised version ofthe Bible has exerted a tremendous influence on the technical grammar of modern poetry.

d) Assess the range and extent of the Scandinavian influence on the Englishlanguage.

Near the end of the Old English period English underwent a great foreign influenceas a result of its contact with another important language, Scandinavian. This influencebegan with the Danish invasion of enland towards the end of the 8th century and lasted fornearly three centuries till the Norman Conquest brought the superior influence of French tobear upon the English language. This close contact spreading over several centuries naturallyresulted in the introduction of a large and introduction of a large and important Norse elementin the English language.

The Scandinavians were not looked upon as foreigners by the English in the samemanner as the English themselves had been looked upon as foreigners by the Kelts, thesettlers, in their turn did not think the natives to be the conquered people. The Scandinavianinfluence on English it is important to remember the great similarity that existed betweenOld English and Old Norse. The two languages had an enormous number of identical words-nouns such as man, wife, father, mother, life, house, thing, summer, winter, sorrow, folk etc.adjectives such as full, well, wise, better, best, pronouns like mine, thine etc verbs likemeets, come bring, hear, see, think, smile, ride, will, can, stand, sit.

Sometimes the Scandinavians modified the form of English words. For example,the English word get if form the Mercian or Southern dialects of Old English would now bepronounced yet with initial y. The Scandinavians on the other hand, had the same word withinitial g as in gun, so that we are made to conclude that the present form of get was due toScandinavian. The form of such OE words as swuster, yift, yeve, chetel has been modifiedby the corresponding Scandanavian words, sister, gift, give, kettle respectively. There aremany other similarly fated words.

The Scandinavians modified the meaning of many English words. Dwell in OldEnglish meant ‘lead astray’ but the modern meaning of the word has come from theScandinavian word, dvelja which meant dwell. Old English bread usually meant fragmentwhile Old Norse ‘breand’ meant ‘bread’. Thus the modern bread has its meaning fromScandinavian.

The Scandinavians introduced certain military and naval terms such as arrest (battle),fylcian (to collect, marshal), lip (fleet), barda (a kind of worship), ha (rowlock) these wordswere soon lost from English.

The Scandinavians have also influenced one class of English personal names thoseending in -son as Gibson, Johnson, Thomson, Robinson, Tillotson etc. Norse place namesmay be known especially from certain suffixes -by, -thorp, -thwaite, -toft all placenames aswhitly, Altherp, Linthorpe, Bishopsthorpe etc.

The Scandinavian influence affected not only the English vocabulary, but alsogrammar and syntax. The sof the third person singular in the present indicative tense ofverbs is said to have been due to the Scandinavian influence. The words scant, want,athward preserve in the final t the neuter adjective ending of Old Norse.

A great many law-terms have come from Scandinavia, The most important of theseterms are ‘law’, ‘by-law’, ‘thrall’ and ‘crave’. Of course, some architectural and sculpturalwords have entered into English from Scandinavian. Such as ‘window’, ‘eye-hole’ and soon.


Some coomon words of dail life have also entered from Scandinavian, such as‘band’, ‘bank’, ‘birth’, ‘boon’, ‘booth’, ‘brink’, ‘bull’, ‘calf’, ‘crook’, ‘dirt’, ‘dregs’, ‘down’,‘knife’, ‘fellow’, and so on. Such a list including nouns, verbs, adjectives etc may be enlargedsimply.

Indeed, the Scandinavian language has immediately influenced and enriched theEnglish language in its vocabulary, grammar and significance.

2 Write brief philosogical notes :

Wine : It is one of the pre-christian Latin loan words which the Angles and Saxonshad aquired from the Romans before they went to Britain. The O.E. form of the word waswin and is from Latin vinum.

Gift : The O. E. form of the word was gift and the word “the price paid by a suitorin consideration of receiving a woman to wife” and in the plural marriage, wedding. Thescandinavian word ‘gift’ modified the word not only with regard to pronunciation but alsowith regard to meaning for the modern meaning of the word has come from the Scandinavianword.

4. Write brief note on— Front Vowels:Since the front of the tongue assumes various degrees of height inside the mouth,

these vowels are termed front vowels. These are identified as below —/i:/as in beat, key, receive, people, measle./i/ as in bit, pit, gym, mist, city./e/ as in bait, great, play, rein, they./E/ as in bet, get, set tell, fell./ae/ as in at, bat, ass, fat, man.Out of these front vowels, /i/ and /e/ are highly diphthongal which implies that

during their production the tongue glides upward in the mouth so that they end with a muchhigher sound than th one with which they begin. It may also be pointed out here that Englishuses various orthographic symbols to represent specially the vowels /i/ and /e/

4. Nasal consonants : The nasal consonants are /m/,/n/,/o/./m/

During the articulation of /m/ the two lips make a girm contact with each other,thereby shutting off the oral passage of air. The vocal cordas vibrate, producing voice. /m/os tjis a vpoced bilabial natals. Words like smoke, smell etc.

/n/The articulation of /n/ the oral closure is effected by the tip or blade of the tongue

making a firm contact against the aveolar ridge. The soft palate is lowered and thus thenasal passage of air is open. The vocal cords vibrate, producing voice. /n/ can thus bedescribed as voiced alveolar nasal. Words like tenth, snake etc.

/h/During the articulation of /h/ the oral closure is effected by the back of the tongue

making a contact with the soft-palate. The soft palate is lowered, thereby opening the nasalpassage of air. /h/ is thus a voiced celar nasal. Words are anger, sing.

5 i) Scan the following lines :Higher still and higher


..................................And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.

HiÞgh-er / stiÞll and / hiÞgh-erFroÞm the / eaÞrth thou / spriÞng-est,LiÞke a / cloÞud of / fiÞ-re;The bluÞe / deÞep thou / wiÞng-estAnd siÞng- / ing stiÞll / dost soÞar / and soÞar- / ing ev- / er siÞng- / est.The first four lines are trochaic trimeter with an iambic substitution in the first foot

of the fourth line. The last line is an iambic hexameter as well as hypermetrical.

6 ii) Identify and explain the figures of speech of the following passage :The boast of heraldry the pomp of pow’rAnd all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,Awaits alike th’inevitable hour.The paths of glory lead but to the grave.There are several figures of speech in the given passage:i) There is a ease of personification – ‘boast of heraldry’, ‘pomp of power’ and ‘all

that’... are abstract ideas.ii) There is a ease of Periphrasis in ‘the inevitable hour’.iii) There is a Epigram in ‘the paths .... grave’iv) Another personification in ‘the paths .... grave’v) There is a Metononymy, too, in lead but to the grave.vi) There are Alliteration in pomp and power.

7 i) Write the substance of the poem and critical note of the diction, imagery andmetre.“Four scans fill the measure of the year............................................................Or else he would forgo his mortal nature.”

Substance: The poet describes four seasons in this poem. Spring season is clean and takesthe beautiful form of the easiest way. In summer he shows htat after spring he loves to thinkdeeply and dreams high nearest into heaven. Autumn is the season of mists and belowfruitfulness and the harvester crosses a threshold book. Winter is the season of decay anddesolation.

Comment : This poem is simple nature poem. The theme of the poem is a well conceivedwork of art. It is a reflective poem. First the poet gives the picture of the measurement offour seasons in a year. It is also in th emind of man. It reflects on the power of imaginationto trancendent all material elements.

The poet’s diction is simple yet appropriate and his imagery is distinctly clear. It isthroughly lyrical and subjectivity and imaginative propensity. The poem well testifies to thepoet; reminiscence of the seasons is given well manner.

The poem is thoroughly personal and reflective in nature. The poet analyses clearly.It gives a lyrical grace and a tender appeal. It is a poem of 14 lines. The lines are alternativerhyme scheme. Four lines are stanzaic form and a concluding couplet. The lines are all quitemelodious.Trusteeship : The word is a grand example of hybrids of words formed from elementsderived from two or more different languages. It contains scandinavian trust, a French


suffix -ee and English suffix -ship: (trust+ce+ship)=trusteeship. Jesperson says: “Such aword as trusteeship is eminently characteristic of the composite character of the language.”

Admiral : Admiral which was formerly admiral, is of Arabic origin. It is a fragment of thephrase amir-al-bahr which means ‘commender’ of the sea.

Brethren : It is an instance of double plural formed from the original plural brother. Whenbrethen came to be used collectively for the members of a single family it became necessaryto have a second plural to express brothers of many families and brethren was formed byadding to brether the -en ending. In Modern English we restrict brothers which replacesbrethen to those of one family and use brethren for those who call one another brotherthough belonging to different families.

Phonic transcription :..................................................(space to be written)


1 Essay `PLEASURES OF READING POETRY

Poetry is variously defined. Dr. Johnson defines poetry as ‘metrical composition’, Wordsworthdefines it as the ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’. Coleridge says that poetry isthe metrical arrangement of words. Carlyle declared poetry as ‘musical thought’. Accordingto Mathew Arnold, poetry is ‘simply the most delightful and perfect form of utterance thathuman words can reach.’ Mr. Watts Dunton defines poetry as ‘the concrete and artisticexpression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language.’ Aristotle considerspoetry is superior to philosophy and history and Sidney, Coleridge agree with the view ofAristotle. Wordsworth says that truth is carried alive to the heart through poetry. It ‘is theimpassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.’

Poetry cannot be defined just as life and love connot be defined. Poetry throughsound and words create vibrations in the heart. It creates beautiful forms which transmitthe sense of beauty in the hearts of the readers. Poetry thrills and moves the hearts andbroaden the awareness of things. It does not teach but it gives the highest wisdom. Itappeals to the higher understanding and develops and sustains the emotions of love, beauty,sympathy. It attunes our hearts to the infinite. So its pleasure is profound, it deepens ourawareness and commumicates the intimate sense of things, it makes the readers discoverlife and nature anew. So its pleasure is the pleasure of discovery of the finer and deepervalues of life.

A poet can make sad things beautiful and sordid things wonderful. Coleridge hasmade beautiful poetry out of his dejection and Yeats says that he will create poetry out of“the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”. Macbeth’s despairing speech ‘To-morrow andTo-morrow’ moves us with the realisation of the reality of life.

A poet speaks through music, words and images. He interprets life in objectiveterms in sounds, rhyme, rthym, imagery. These technical devices produce thrills in the sensesand heart and carry the poet’s emotional apprehension of life and nature into the heart ofthe readers. Poetry creates beautiful pictures and sounds which give us pleasure. A. C.Bradley says : poetry strikes us as ‘creation’, and the nature of poetry ‘is to be not a part,now yet a copy, of the real world ... but to be a world by itself, independent, completeautonomus.’

It is true that music words and images are important for creating an objectivepicture of truth in poetry, but mere technical virtuosity of sheer music is not enough forpoetry and connot provide deep and ensuring pleasure. It can regale the ears and eyes, butcannot satisfy the heart. Music produces an incantation which catches the heart instantly,but mere music may enchant us but will not move and thrill our consciousness. The appealof poetry springs from the effect upon us of sound with a clearly defined intellectual content,perfectly fused with it. Poetry has not only an emotional appeal, it has an intellectual appeal,words and images are intellectural symbols of the poet’s emotion. Again, sheer music ormere tapstry of words and images cannot satisfy the readers. There must be some meaningin a poem. Spenser’s exquisite melody or Keats’ pictures communicate the sense of their


Elective English(Eighth Paper: Essay and Unseen)


beautiful self but Swinburne’s poetry often cloys with its virtuosity. Poetry which consists inthe union of highest thoughts and highest music gives us profound pleasure.

Man is a lover of beauty. The reading of poetry satisfies his desire for beauty.Poetry takes us to higher reality and we have a temporary imaginative excursion with thepoet. Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale carries us to the height of imagination, and we experiencethe beauty of nature for a time. We share with the poet the beauty of the pictures paintedOn a Grecian Urn. We participate in the song of The Skylark as Shelley does and enjoy theBower of Bliss with Spenser. It is the poetry of Macbeth that allows a glimpse into thetortured conscience of Macbeth. King Lear’s lacerated heart in laid bare in his poeticutterances. According to T. S. Eliot poetry gives the essences of things while prose givesthe superficial aspects.

Poetry appeals to the imagination. It enables us to see in our imagaintion the beautyof the snow ‘sparkling to the moon’ and takes us to the wonderland : “Sand-strewn concerns,cool and deep/where the winds are all asleep” or to the ideal land of “magic casements,opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.” Poetry sharpens appreciationof Nature. We appreciate the sights and sounds and smell of Nature as we read Keats’description of the romantic world of the Nightingale in the leaves of trees. It also intensifiesenjoyment of common experiences of the solitary reaper cutting corn and singing in thevalley or the daffodils dancing inthe lake. It broadens our sympathy with “the rude forefathersof Hamlet”. It again stimulates our understanding of the sterility and deadness of moderncivilization when we T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Cleanth Brooks, in the preface to himbook, Understanding Poetry writes: “Poetry gives us knowledge. It is a knowledge of ourselvesin relation to the world of experience, and to the world considered, not statistically, but interms of human purposes and values. We can get the effect of poetry by finding a way tocontemplate and perhaps to comprehend our human urgencies.” T. S. Eliot says about thepleasure and function of poetry : “The experience of a poem is the experience of a momentand of a life time.” (The Experience of Poetry)

According to Horace, poetry delights and teaches (utile and dulce). Longinusexphasises sublimity in poetry which has the effect of ‘transport’ it works like a charmcarrying the readers aways with it. Sidney thinks that the pleasure of poetry comes fromthe example of perfection presented to him by the poet. Coleridge very precisely definesthe pleasure of poetry. He insists that one must distinguish between the ultimate and immediateend. The immediate aim of poetry is the communication of truth through pleasure. Metre isessential to poetry because it produces the emotional excitement which communicates thepleasure of truth. Arnold has faith in the power of poetry which is its peculiar pleasre : “Inpoetry as a criticism of the life under the conditions fixed for scuh a criticism by the laws ofpoetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find... as time goes on and as otherhelps fail, its conslation and stay.”

Thus the ultimate pleasure of poetry comes form the discovery of truth about lifeand nature. Keats means this when he says that a new world swims into hsi ken on rreadingCapman’s translation of Homer’s epic. Its pleasure is not provisional or just a moment’semancipation from the pressure of reality, but it is enternal– it comes from the profoundknowledge into feeling. We know the horros of war though the reading of poetry of Owenand Sassoon : we experience the ecstasy of love by reading Browning’s The Last RideTogether or Tow in the Compagna, we know the benign influence of religion by reading thepoetry of Herbert and Hopkins.

“This world”, said Novalis “is not a dream, but it ought to become one”. The kingdomof poetry is not of this world. Its allegiance is “a devotion to something a far.” It is nto fromthe spere of sorrow, but sorrow is transmuted into joy – because it is the joy of discovering


the truth of life. It shows the grandeur underlying the sorriness of things and sorrinessunderlying the grandeur.

2 Write a substance of the passage and a critical note on its theme and prose style.

Substance : There is a great amusement of reading books. Reading is importantbecause it develops the mind. Reading is a vital skill in finding a good job. A person is limitedin what they can accomplish without good reading and comprehension skills. We need toread and research to build on the good ideas and expose the bad ideas before they bringdestruction.

Comment : The subject matter of the passage is singular which is reading books.Here the author discusses about this subject. The central point of his discussion is struck inthis passage.

The passage is well-written in simple and impassioned expressions. The authorsapproach is argumentative. His illustrations are well chosen and serve to make his contentioneasily convincing. All the same tike, a strongly reflective note is marked all through.

The author’s style is simple. But there are used lengthy sentences. It is madeprococative by his serious thoughts on a universal matter and his expository and illustrativetreatment. His arguments are well substantiated by brief and apt illustrations. The authorfollows a logical effort to arrive at his conclusion.

3 a) Why did the speaker not know his father well in his early childhood?

The speaker did know his father very well in his early childhood. After the speaker’sbirth his father went on continuously travelling about. His father would come back home allof a sudden now and then. And he came with foreign servants. The speaker also saw hisfather all of sudden. He did not know his father very well. As a result the speaker did notknow his father did not know his father very well in his early childhood.

b) Whom does the speaker mean by foreign servants?

The speaker’s father would now and then come back home when he came bacehome with foreign servants. The speaker felt very eager to make friends. A young Punjabiservant Lenu. Lenu is the foreign servant. The speaker means Lenu punjabi servant.

c) Who was Lenu and why did the speaker think it glorious to have Lenu?

Lenu was a young Punjabi servant whom the speaker’s father came with him. Thepleasant and friendly of the reception he got from them would have been important personof Ranjit Singh. The whole Punjabi nation of the Mahabharata. They were warriors. Theyhad sometimes fought and lost, that was clearly the enemy’s fault. For this reason it wasglorious to have Lenu.

d) Why did the members of the speaker’s family hanker after anything thatwas foreign?

There were some reasons the members of the speaker’s family strong desire afteranything that was foreign. First caged in the house they were rescuing of foreign part hada peculiar charm for the speaker. Another reason Gabriel the Jew, with his embroidered


Jaberdire, who came to sell altars and scente oils, stirred the speaker also. The huge Kabulis,with their dusty, laggy trousers and knapsacks and bundles wrought on his young mind afearful fascination.

e) What did the speaker and others do when his father came back home?

The speaker and others do when his father came back home, anyhow they wouldbe content with wandering round the company of his servants. They did not reach hisimmediate presence.

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