List Of Important Questions From PAPER-II of C.U. English Honours

Students should understand that most of the books prescribed by the Calcutta University (C.U.) for all the three years of English Honours course had been in circulations for a really long time. After each decade some of these books are changed but not all of it. The University of Calcutta had recently revised its syllabus in 2010. And no new questions are formed at all. If there is a new question in the exam, then it is just same question which is being 'asked in a different manner'. Then why they do it?

To test your knowledge and 'question interpretation skills'.

Most of the C.U. English Honours books have just three to five major questions which are repeated after a gap of two years.

Take for example 'Rape of the Lock'.

There are few major important questions like :

• Rape of the Lock as mock-epic.
• Character of Belinda
• The Eighteenth Century Society
• Game of Ombre
• Toilette Scene
• Use Of Supernatural Machinery

So these questions are used repeatedly after a gap of few years. Just have a look on the last year's Question Paper and prepare for those which were not included in it.

Here are the lists of questions from C.U. English Honours Paper-II

Rape of the Lock [14 marks]

• Critically examine Pope’s “The Rape of The Lock” as a mock epic. [2012]
• Comment on the Pope’s treatment of Belinda in The Rape of The Lock. [2012]
• Show how Pope’s use of the ‘machinery’ of the sylphs in “The Rape of The Lock” heightens both the satire and the poetry. [2011]
• Belinda’s toilette mirrors the position and folly of eighteenth century high society.  [2011]
• Do you agree with the view that The Rape of the Lock is a balanced critique of eighteenth century society? Give reasons for your answer. [2010]
• Examine The Rape of the Lock as a mock epic poem. [2010]
• Do you think that the introduction of Ariel and the sylphs heightens the artistic effect of The Rape of the Lock? Give reasons for your answer. [2009]
• Consider Pope’s treatment of Belinda with critical reference to the toilet scene in The Rape of the Lock, Canto 1. [2009]
• Show how Pope ‘at once’ delights and lashes the age in The Rape of the Lock. [2008]
• How successful is Pope’s attempt at the hero-comical? Discuss with particular reference to the first three cantos of The Rape f the Lock. [2008]

Paradise Lost [14 marks]

•      In “Paradise Lost”, Book I Milton uses a number of epic conventions. Discuss. [2012]
•      What idea do you form of Satan from your reading of his speeches in “Paradise Lost”, Book I? ’ [2012]
•      Comment on the Invocation to “Paradise Lost”, Book I. [2011]
•       Show how Milton in “Paradise Lost”, Book I, never lets us forget that despite his heroic stature and grand rhetoric, Satan s essentially the ‘infernal serpent’ [2011]
•     Comment on the Milton’s description of Hell in Paradise Lost, Book 1. [2010]
•     Discuss Milton’s use of epic similes in Book 1 of Paradise Lost and sow how they are elated to this theme. [2010]
•     Is Satan I Paradise Lost, Book 1, a portrait of absolute evil, or a figure of human contradictions? [2009]
•     The greatness of Paradise Lost lies in Milton elevated style. Illustrate from Book 1. [2009]
•    Discuss with particular reference to Paradise Lost Book 1, Milton’s use of traditional epic devices in his poem. [2008]
•      Write a note on Milton’s presentation of Beelzebub and Belial in Paradise Lost Book  [2008]

List of Questions from Poems of C.U. English Honours Paper-II.

Good Morrow & To His Coy Mistress [14 marks]

• “John Donne’s The Good Morrow is an unconventional love poem”. Discuss? [2012]
• How does Marvell treat the ‘carpe diem’ theme in “To His Coy Mistress”? [2011]
• Consider Donne’s “The Good Morrow” as a metaphysical poem. [2010]
• Analyse the logical structure of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” [2010]
• Are there any contemporary references in Donne’s The Good Morrow? Cite an instance. [2010]

The Tyger & The Lamb [14 marks]

• Comment on the Blake use of symbols in “The Lamb” and “The Tiger”. [2012]
• “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” Explain this line with reference to “The Lamb” and “The Tiger”. [2011]
• How do Blake’s poems The Lamb and The Tyger show the “two contrary states of the human soul”? [2010]
• Examine Blake’s use of symbols in The Lamb and The Tyger. [2010]
• What qualities does Blake ascribe to the Lamb? [2010]

       Tintern Abbey [14 marks]

•          Wordsworth’s ”Tintern Abbey” is an autobiographical poem. Do you agree? Justify your answer. [2012]
•          ”Tintern Abbey” records different stages in Wordsworth’s appreciation of Nature. Discuss. [2011]

         Kubla Khan [14 marks]

•     Critically analyse Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” as a romantic poem. [2012]
•      Can “Kubla Khan” be described as an incoherent poem? Give reasons for your answer. [2011]

         Ode to the West Wind and Ode to a Nightingale [14 marks]

•       Show with reference to “Ode to the West Wind”, how Shelly uses objects of nature as vehicles of his own personality and thought. [2011]
•       Do you read “Ode to a Nightingale” as a poem of escape or a reflection of the human condition. Give reasons for your answer. [2011]

           To a Skylark and Ode To Autumn [14 marks]

• In ‘To a Skylark’ Shelly tells its reader that his skylark is much more than an ordinary bird. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. [2012]
• Write critical appreciation of John Keats’s ‘To Autumn’ [2012]

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Social world of Pride and Prejudice: C.U. English Honours Part-II Notes

This C.U. English Notes Would Be Helpful For Part-II Students.

Would you agree with the view that the social world of Pride and Prejudice shows a concern with wealth, property and marriage? Give reasons for your answers.

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen was first published in 1813. No one before or even after her has so perfectly combined all the relevant elements and aspects of the social novel of manners to achieve such as effective end as Jane Austen. In her novels true wit and good manners serve to define the character’s worth in the world they inhabit. The elaborate description of dress and manners serves to record a particular social milieu. Austen uses ‘Social behaviour’ as the ‘external manifestations’ of a character’s internal moral and psychological conditions.

Pride and Prejudice presents a society in which mothers hunt after suitable young man for their marriageable daughters, and neighbourly jealously is assiduously cultivated. Mrs. Bennet cannot forgive Miss Lucas for being thr first partner of Bingley at the Maryton ball, and Miss Lucas cannot forget that it was Jane who danced twice with Mr. Bingley. Collins, Charlotte and Lady Lucas equally calculates how long Mr. Bennet will live, since at the event of the death, her daughter would be the mistress of the Longbourne Estate, entailed to the nearest male heir of Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet on hearing of Mr. Collins, feels disbelieve, then think Collins being ‘taken in’, thirdly trusts that they would never be happy. With all its amusing satire, it is a faithful picture of the rural society Jane Austen saw.

Elizabeth violates the social code by walking un-escorted from Longbourn to Bingley’s house to see indisposed Jane. Bingley’s sisters stamp her, as unmannerly and ridicule her ‘almost wild’ look have the list of accomplishments expected of an eighteenth century society lady. A thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages along with a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of the voice and the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. Despite exaggeration, it is based on actual rigorous standards set by eighteenth century thinkers.

One of the unforgettable scenes in the novel is that in which Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. The solemn yet ludicrous way in which he proceeds systematically first to pay compliments to her beauty and virtues, then enumerates the points in favour of his marriage with her is superbly artistic in its careful elaboration. An old mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility, Mr. Collins is the product of imperfect bringing up and defective patronage in an undesirable social set up. Collins’s patroness Lady Catherine is blind in her pride of rank and wealth. In the contrast to Darcy, she is setting a bad example of manners to her parish and is more vulgar than Mrs. Bennet whose conduct often puts Elizabeth to shame. Lady Catherine was shocked on hearing that Bennet sisters were brought up without a governess. A governess is like a treasure, an essential ingredient to social prestige.

The only sensational incident is the Lydia’s elopement with Wikham. The silly fascination of teenagers like Lydia and Kitty for military officers is shown as a social problem, which peace loving guardians like Mr. Bennet cannot tackle. The elopement is a social scandal. The Bennets are almost shattered, Mr. Bennet is devastated. But the Gardiner’s prove a great help and consolation. Jane Austen uses the incident ironically as a blessing in disguise. It rouses the lover Darcy to prove in every way how much he care for Elizabeth and he family. In the process he becomes a better man and a true hero. Darcy would never have thought of marrying into such a family, and indeed, as soon as the event took place during Elizabeth’s stay near Pemberley, she thought that now it was all over with budding love-affair between Darcy and herself.

In a discussion of manners, minor characters also serve as remarkable illustrations. Sir William is a perfect snob and hypocrite. He is awestruck at the very sight of Rosings, though ‘St. James’ is always on his lips. The whole business of his life is to store his memory with anecdotes and noble names, so that he can pass them off at suitable opportunities for his personal acquaintances.

Jane Austen is often called superficial, enamored of the costumes of life. But her novel Pride and Prejudice is by no means a didactic novel. It is primarily a social novel of entertainment in the realistic background of rural life. Her constant and powerful irony gives an extra dimension to her record of social life.

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Minor Characters

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Discuss the theme and title of Bate’s story “The Ox” - CU English Honours Notes

This C.U. English Notes Would Be Helpful For Part-II Students.

Discuss the theme and title of Bate’s story “The Ox”.

The title of the short story is usually pregnant with significance. The craft is first illustrated by the apt choice of the title, for ‘embryonic idea’ of the story is encapsulated in the title which consists of a phrase or two to three words. Brevity being the soul of the art of the short story writing, the title is the first index of the writer’s craftsmanship. The title of the short story is a foretaste of the ‘message’ contained in the story itself. The title also acts as the metaphor to the writer who builds up his or her story, after peeling off the layers of meaning inherent in the title. The great master in the art of short story as also famous for their use of suggestive titles.

The title of the H.E. Bate’s short story ‘The Ox’ is a fine example of what is known as ‘the art of suggestion’. He aims to present the bare essentials of action and dialogue, leaving the reader to form his own responses. The title ‘The Ox’ illustrates not only the qualities of Bate’s style and his attitude but also a characteristic theme—‘an obsession with pain. Pain stretched to breaking point, pain prolonged beyond all seeming endurance’ – yet not by any means, beyond all seeming enduranced’ – yet not by any means, beyond the bounds of possibility. One of H.E. Bate’s great strengths is to show a mainly and unsentimental pity for those that suffer alone.

“The Ox” is really the story of Mrs. Thurlow who suffers discomfort towards the limits of endurance and bears hers discomfort in addition to her existence using the fortitude of the ox. Several time Mrs. Thurlow continues to be in compassion for an ox. Mrs. Thurlow is a versatile women. At half-past seven everyday she pushed her great rusty bicycle lower the hill and at six every evening she pushed it back, loaded with gray bundles of washing, oilcans, sacks, cabbages, old newspapers. She never rode the bicycle but always dragged it. Her relationship to it was that of a beast to cart. She was the ox tugging the trolley. Slopping along its side, her flat heavy feet pounding shatteringly along under mud-stained skirt. Her face and the body ugly with lumpy angles of bones, she was just like a animal of burden.

Mrs. Thurlow is represented as a work machine. All day long she laboured for several people, washing and cleaning. She never went beyond her regular boundary. Even at home she had no respite from work. In the field, Mrs. Thurlow pined up her skirt so that it struck out behind her like a thick stiff tail making her look like bony ox. She did washing from five to six in the morning, and again from seven to nine in the evening. She worked by candlelight. At eleven she went to bed. She fell asleep almost at once, but throughout the night her mind seemed to work on. She even dreamt of pushing her bicycle and cleaning. In a word, the burden of work, the labour and suffering had all become a part and parcel of her existence. Mrs. Thurlow transformed herself as it were into an allegorical figure-endurance.

Mrs. Thurlow endured not only the pain of work but also the pain of her family life. For fifteen years she had hoarded the scrubbing and washing money of fifty four pounds for her two sons under a mattress. Her husband stole this after committing a murder. With the loss of money her dream of providing better future for her sons are also lost. She sent away her sons to her brother’s house in order to save them from stigma but they refused to leave their affluent uncle’s home. This blow was proverbially the last straw on the camel’s back. Mrs. Thurlow predicament became more painful when the tyres of her bicycle got punctured.

The theme of ‘pain beyond measure’ is adequately represented in ‘The Ox’. It is a tale of women’s pain and suffering, resulting from ceaseless work and a series of misfortunes. But she proved that she had built up a kind of resistance which enabled how to ward off one calamity after another. She faced these with an ‘Ox’ like tenacity and passivity. Hence it shows the significance and appropriateness of the title “The Ox”.

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C.U. English Honours PART-II Question Paper 2011 [Fourth Paper]

2011

ENGLISH-HONOURS

Fourth Paper

Full Marks-100

The figures in the margin indicate full marks.

Candidates are required to give their answers in their own words as far as practicable.

Group-A

Answer any two questions:                                                                                                                         16 x 2

1. (a) Comment on the use of irony in Pride and Prejudice.

Or

(b) Examine any two comic characters in Pride and Prejudice.

2. (a) Jane’s actions embody a disturbing powerful statement of woman’s claim to independence. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.

Or

(b) Would you consider Jane Eyre as a Gothic novel? Answer with reference to the text.

3. (a) Comment on the Dickens’ portrayal of Brownlow and Nancy in Olive Twist.

Or

(b) Consider Oliver Twist as a social document of its time.

4. (a) Critically examine Hardy’s portrayal of Clym Yeobright in The Return of the Native.

Or

(b)Comment on the view that true subject of the novel, The Return of the Native, is the background, Edgon Heath.

5. (a) Examine the mother-son relationship in Sons and Lovers.

Or

(b) Consider Sons and Lovers as a modern novel.

Group-B

Answer any two of the following questions:                                                                                       16 x 2

6. Araby is realistic story about the adolescence. Do you agree with this view? Answer with reference to the text.

7. Analyse the theme of pain and suffering in The Ox.

8. Is The Fly a successful short story? Give reasons to your answer.

Group-C

9. Comment on any four of the following literary terms:                                                                         4 x 4

a.       Picaresque Novel

b.      Third Person Narrative

c.       Setting

d.      Theme

e.      Character

f.        Sub-Plot

g.       Naturalism

h.      Historical Novel

Group-D

10. Give the substance of any one of the following and add a short critical note:                           15 + 5

a)      The novel’s spirit is the spirit of complexity. Every novel says to the reader: “Things are not as simple as you think”. That is the novel’s eternal truth, but it grows steadily harder to hear amid the din of easy, quick answers that come faster than the question and block it off.  In the spirit of our time, it’s either Anna or Karenin who is right, and the ancient wisdom of the Cervantes, telling us about the difficulty of knowing and the elusiveness of truth, seems cumbersome and useless.

The novel’s spirit is the spirit of continuity: each work is an answer to preceding ones, each work contains all the previous experience of the novel. But spirit of our time is firmly focused on a present that is so expansive and profuse that it shoves the past off our horizon and reduces time to the present moment only. Within this system the novel is no longer a work (a thing made to last, to connect the past with the future)but one current event among many, a gesture with no tomorrow.

b)       When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down razed,

 and brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungary ocean gain

Advantage on the Kingdom of the shore.

And the firm soil win of the watery main.

Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchanging of the state,

Or state itself confounded to decay.

Ruin hath taught me this to ruminate:

That Time will come and take my love away,

This Thought is as death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

      

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C.U. English Honours PART-II Question Paper 2011 [Third Paper]

2011

ENGLISH-HONOURS

Third Paper

Full Marks-100

The figures in the margin indicate full marks.

Candidates are required to give their answers in their own words as far as practicable.

Group-A

1. (a) Analyse the Murder Scene in Edward II and show how far it ‘moves pity and terror’ necessary in a tragedy.                                                                                                                                                       16

Or

(b) “Character is destiny”- Is this true of Edward II? Justify your answer.                       

                     

2. (a)Write a note on Shakespeare’s use of soliloquies in Macbeth.                                                       16

Or

(b) Examine the use of dramatic irony in Macbeth.

3. (a)’Twelfth Night is comedy built on the principle of contrast’. Discuss with suitable examples from the text.                                                                                                                                                                 16

Or

(b) Analyse the character of Feste and the significance of his role.

4. (a)Would you regard The School For Scandal as a belated specimen of Comedy of Manners? Justify your answer.                                                                                                                                                       16

Or

(b) Critically analyse the curtain-scene in The School Of Scandal.

Group-B

5. Answer any one of the following:                                                                        4 x 4

        I.            Anagnorisis

      II.            Antagonist

    III.            Climax

    IV.            Hamartia

      V.            Denouement

    VI.            Hubris

  VII.           Dramatic Irony

VIII.          Foil

    IX.           Chorus

      X.            Poetic Justice

Group-C

6. Write brief notes on any ten of the following question:                                   2 x 10

a)      ”This will be god news to the common sort

                 What is the good news?”           

b)      ‘Fair blows the wind for France’

Name the speaker. What is he referring to?

c)       “All tremble at my name – and I fear none.”

Why does the speaker say this?

d)      “My heart is an anvil unto sorrow,

Which beats upon it like the Cyclops hammer.”

Explain the allusion.

e)      “What hand are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes.”

Why does the speaker say this?

f)       “Men must not walk too late”

Who is the speaker? Explain the line.

g)      Who needs the ‘divine’ more than the physician? When was this comment made?

h)      What is the first apparition shown to Macbeth by the Witches?

i)        “Time, thou must untangle this, not I”- What is the speaker unable to ‘untangle’?

j)        How does Sir Toby plan to frighten Viola/ Cesario?

k)      Why does the clown say that ‘they praise me and make an ass of me’?

l)        “Run after the same peevish messenger.” Who is the ‘peevish-messenger’? Who gives this order?

m)    “Madam, you have done me wrong,

Notorious wrong”?

How has the speaker been wronged?

n)      Why is Sir Peter vexed with Lady Teazle?

o)      Why, according to Joseph Surface, is Snake not to be trusted?

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C.U. English Honours Question Paper 2010 [Second Paper]

How to make most out of the 2010 C.U. English Honours Second Paper Question Paper?

A.      Do not concentrate on the questions from these texts as they are not included in the New Syllabus, namely:

1.       Sidney- Loving In Truth

2.       Gray- Elegy Written In a Country Churchyard

3.       Cowper- The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk

Rest of the question paper contains questions from the text which is included in New Syllabus.

Concentrate on the Questions from the ‘The Rape of the Lock’ and ‘Paradise Lost’ because it contains the standard questions which are repeated after an interval of few years.

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Widsith: C.U. English Honours Notes

Widsith- Old English                                                                    [Short Note]

“Widsith” i.e. ‘the far traveller’s historical importance lies in the fact that it is the earliest literary endeavour of the Teutons. It consists of nearly 150 lines of verse. It gives a catalogues of kings of whom there is no trace in history. So it may be said to serve as an index of the Germanic heroes. It gives certain hints as to the nature and the function of the Anglo-Saxon Ministral, The Scop. The core of the work finely reflects the heroic attitude to the bard’s function and gives us a fascinating glimpse of the Germanic world as it appeared to the imagination of the Anglo-Saxons. 

The text of this book is found in the Exeter Book. However this poem cannot be a true auto-biography. It is a view of Germanic history and geography as it appeared to a Northumbrian bard of the seventh century drawing on the traditions of his people. The most striking feature of “Widsith” is its catholicity; praise is meted out impartiality to Huns, Goths, Franks, Danes, Swedes, Angles, Wends, Saxons, Lang bards and many others. It also gave a bird’s eye view of the subject matter of Germanic heroic poetry and reminds us that heroes of that poetry were not regional or national but common to all Germania.

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