PYQs

Chaucer
1) Write short notes of the following: 10x3-30 (a) The Wife of Bath on
marriage
2) Identify the lines and critically analyse them :
She was so charitable and so pitous
She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale hounds hadde she that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel- breed.
But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;

3) Chaucer is seldom harsh on his characters and yet he does not condone
their vices. Discuss with reference to the General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales.
4) 'Sovereignty over men is a woman's ambition." Discuss the wife of
Bath's views on marriage in the light of this statement. (15)

5) Comment on the theme of violence that underlines the wife of Bath's

Prologue and Tale (15)
6) Comment on the Wife of Bath's privileging of "Experience" over
"auctoritee". 15
7) Does the presence of 'anti-feminist' elements in the Wife of
Bath's portrait strain her claim to independence ? Give reasons for your
answer. 20
Or
8) Do you consider the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale a unified whole ?
Give reasons for your answer .. 20
 9) Identify and critically examine the following lines :

He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen,

That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men,
... What sholde he studie and make hymselven wood,
Upon a book in cloystre alwey to poure,
Or swynken with his handes, and laboure,
As Austyn bit? how shal the world be served?

OR

(b) Identify the speaker, contextualise and critique the

following excerpt :

But shortly myn entente I wol devyse:

I preche of no thyng but for coveityse.
Therfore my theme is yet, and evere was,
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
Thus kan I preche agayn that same vice
Which that I use, and that is avarice. 10

10) Write an essay on the concept of pilgrimage in Raleigh's 'The

Passionate Man's Pilgrimage'. 20

(a) In the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales

Chaucer deliberately defers moral judgment in
order to allow the characters to present their
viewpoints to the reader. Do you agree? Support
your answer with textual examples. 15

OR
(b) The Pardoner's tale is an example of dramatic
irony, qualified by the fact that the Pardoner
recognizes his own hypocrisy. Discuss with
examples from the text. 15

Doctor Faustus
1) Role of Mephostophilis in Faustus's damnation
OR
2) Concept of "heaven" and "hell' in Doctor Faustus (10)

3) (a) Identify the following passage, explain the context and give critical
comments
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it:
Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
It being deprived of everlasting bliss ? (10)
Or
4) Write a short note on Wagner. (10)
5) The tragedy in Doctor Faustus lies in the contradiction within the
protagonist between his aspiration and the achievement". Do you agree
? Give reasons. (15)
 6) Critically examine the thematic and the dramatic significance of the
comic scenes in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. (15)

7) Identify, explain and critically comment on :

My four-and-twenty years of liberty
I'll spend in pleasure and in dalliance,
That Faustus' name, whilst this bright frame doth stand,
May be admired through the furthest land. (10)

Or

8)
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it :
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells'
In being deprived of everlasting bliss ? (10)

9) Identify the passage given below and explain with

reference to context:
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile:
'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me. (10)

10) The yearning of Faustus for greater knowledge and consequently

greater power to affect change in human life, is symptomatic of the
spirit of the Renaissance. Discuss Dr. Faustus as a typical Renaissance
hero.
 11)
'Poignance, pathos and compassion for Faustus' fate temper
and problematise moral judgement in the final phase of
Marlowe's drama.' Discuss. 20

Or
12)
'In Dr. Faustus the slapstick scenes which tickled the
groundlings' fancies unite with the seemingly fragmented action
to form a subtly ironic tragic design.' Discuss.20

13) Discuss the significance and implications of the comic scenes in Dr.
Faustus.
Or
14) "Faustus's tragedy stems from the conflict between his magnificent
aspirations and the claims of Christian Philosophy." Comment.

15) "Marlowe's Dr. Faustus is a morality play with a difference."

Elaborate. 15

16) "If the Renaissance mind was aflame with thoughts of the spiendor
of life and knowledge and power. it was also imbued with the
knowledge that these flames were the flames of hell." Critically
examine Faustus' dilemima in the fight of this statement. 15
17) Identify the lines and explain with reference to
the context :
My heart's so harden'd I cannot repent.
Scarce can I name salvation, faith or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunders in my cars
'Faustus thou art damn'd'; 10
 18) Write a short note on the significance of the Pope scenes in Doctor
Faustus. 10

19) "In Doctor Faustus, Marlowe constructs his tragic

protagonist as one who, despite being fallen and
damned, compels the audience to take note of the
perplexing choices facing him in a changing world
of desire and doubt." Do you agree? Give reasoned answer.

20) (b) Critically examine the thematic and the dramatic significance of
the comic scenes in Marloe (20)

Macbeth
1) The apparitions that witches show to Macbeth (10)

2) Macbeth is a play about crime and punishment. Do you agree ? Give a

reasoned answer. (15)
OR
3) Do you think that Macbeth is a victim of his own ambition ? Or do you
think there are other factors contributing to his downfall. Elaborate.
(15)
4) Identify the lines and explain with reference to
the context :
Come, you spirits,
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse; 10

5) Write a short note on the porter scene in Macbeth. (10)

6) "In Macbeth Shakespeare portrays a tragedy

arising out of a conflict between the Medieval
notions of kingship and the Renaissance idea of
individualism." Do you agree? Give reasons.
7) "Shakespeare's Macbeth underlines a world of violence which is
endemic to Jacobean England." (20)

Three Renaissance Poets

1) Comment on The Sunne Rising as a metaphysical poem.
2) The metaphysical conceit consists of "the most heterogeneous ideas
yoked by violence together". Illustrate your answer with reference to
any two poems by Donne.

3) Identify, explain and critically comment :

Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

4) 'Donne's poetry is marked by a dramatically honest conformation of the

challenges of love and faith. Elaborate. 15

5) Discuss the diverse connotations of love in the poetry of Donne.15

Or
 6) "The Petrarchan poets sought love that was inspiring but
unachievable." Elaborate.

7) How does Sidney supports his claim that nature's "world

is brazen that poets only deliver a golden" ?

8) Discuss the theme of seif-fashioning in .any two Renaissance poets in

your course.

9) Identify, contextualise, and critically comment on

the following lines :
What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, I
sing --
This Verse to Caryll, Muse! Is due; This, ev'n
Belinda
may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, If She
inspire, and He approve my Lays." 10

10) Write a critical note on the Cave of Spleen. 10

11) John Donne's metaphysical poetry is characterized by logical

reasoning but also achieves a balance between thought and feeling.
Discuss with reference to the poems in the syllabus. 10
7.

(a) Elizabethan poetry strongly reflects the political

attitudes, and conventions of the Tudor court.
Discuss with reference to poems in your
Course. 15
(b) Write an essay on the representations of femininity
in the poetry of the period. You may base your
answer on any two poems in the course.

(a) Identify and critically examine the following lines :

"Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to
show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of
my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make
her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain"

OR

(b) Identify and critically examine the following lines:

She's all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. 20

Gulliver Travels

1)
Identify, contextualise, and critically comment
through a close reading of the following passage:
What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
'I told him, "that since Fortune, whether good or
evil, had thrown a vessel in my way, I was resolved
to venture myself in the ocean, rather than be on
occasion of difference between two such mighty
monarchs Neither did I find the Emperor at all
displeased and I discovered by a certain accident
that he was very glad of my resolution, and so
were most of his Ministers.' 10

2) Write a short note on Lord Munodi. 10

3) Does Swift seem sceptical about the claims of science and reason?
Discuss his position with respect to Book III of Gulliver's Travels. 15

4) On examining the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver says, "I contracted such a

love and veneration for the inhabitants .... ". Do you think Gulliver's
impressions earn the author the label of a misanthrope? Justify your
answer. 15

Rape of the Lock

1)
Identify, contextualise, and critically comment on
the following lines :
What dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, I
sing-
This Verse to Caryll, Muse! Is due; This, ev'n
Belinda
may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, If She
inspire, and He approve my Lays." 10
 2) Critically comment on how The Rape of the Lock satirizes the
displaced values of a world that sets more stock in appearances than
realities. 15
3) Does The Rape of the Lock justify Pope's myth of passive womanhood
within the mock-epic structure of the poem? Explain. 15

Vicar of Wakefield
1) Identify and critically comment on the following
passage :
'But in proportion as he became contemptible to
others, he became despicable to himself His mind
had leaned upon their adulation, and that support
taken away, he could find no pleasure in the
applause of his heart, which he had never learnt
to reverence. The world now began to wear a
different aspect; the flattery of his friends began
to dwindle into simple approbation. [H]e now found
that a man's own heart must be ever given to
gain that of another. I now found, that-that-I
forget what I was going to observe: in short, sir,
he resolved to respect himself, and laid down a
plan of restoring his falling fortune.' 10

4) Write a short note on Olivia's elopement in The Vicar of Wakefield. 10

5) Discuss the complex effects of a narrative technique in Oliver

Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield where the Vicar is both the
narrator and a character in the novel. 15
 6) "If Goldsmith complicates the relation between reason and emotion, it
is only his way of undermining the dichotomy itself and breaking
through to a new understanding of experience". Do you agree that the
novel The Vicar of Wakefield reimagines and brings together sentiment
and satire? 15

Rover
1) Identify the lines and explain with reference to
the context :

Yes, I am poor. But I'm a gentleman,

And one that scorns this baseness which you practice.
Poor as I am I would not sell myself.
No. not to gain your charming high-prized person.
Though I admire you strangely for your beauty,
Yet I contemn your mind. 10

2) Write a short note on Walter Blunt in The Rover. (10)

3) "In The Rover, Aphra Behn examines the Comedy of Manners as a

marketplace which dramatises the commodification of women." Do
you agree? Give a reasoned answer. 20

4) Critically examine the title of the play The Rover. 20

Paradise Lost
6. (a) William Blake said that Milton "was of the Devil's party without
knowing it," and thought Satan the true hero of Paradise Lost. Discuss.
(b) Discuss the ways in which Book I of Paradise
Lost Milton revises and responds to Classical epic
Conventions.

(a) Write a short note on the catalogue of devils in

Book I of Paradise Lost.

Identify, contextualize and comment on the

following lines :
... The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At
evening from the top of Fesole
Or in Valdamo to descry new lands, Rivers or
mountains in her spotty globe.

General Questions
1) Discuss the diverse constructions of femininity in eighteenth-century
literature through a reading of any two texts in the paper. 15

2) With reference to any two texts in this paper, discuss whether their
comic endings fully resolve the tensions and conflicts evoked in the
text. 15

3) "The evolution of the English tragedy from the late sixteenth to the
early seventeenth centuries reflects the transition from a humanist
aspiration to a sceptical reassessment." Do you agree? Give reasons
with reference to the texts in your Syllabus. 20

4) Critically examine the statement.

 "The English theatre in the seventeenth century embodies a relentless pursuit
of individualism,ambition and power." Critically examine this statement with
reference to the texts in your Syllabus. (20)