English Literature

The tendency to hanker after a utopia is a perfectly human desire. Like many narratives about voyages to nonexistent lands,   Gulliver�s Travels   explores the idea of utopia�an imaginary model of the ideal community. The idea of a utopia is an ancient one, going back at least as far as the description in Plato�s Republic   of a city-state governed by the wise and expressed most famously in English by Thomas More �s   Utopia. The literal meaning of Utopia is no place, nowhere. Thomas More gave this term to his ideal commonwealth.   Swift incorporates the key concepts of Plato �s and More �s utopias into his own narrative, though his attitude toward utopia is much more skeptical. One can see the different lands of Gulliver�s travels as the parody of utopian literature. Hence Gulliver's Travels can be regarded as a mock Utopia. One of the main aspects about these famous historical utopias is the tendency to privilege the collective group over the individual. The...

12. YEAR 2014 Attempt any FOUR questions. All questions carry equal marks.  1. Discuss Richard Wiber as an urban poet with reference to his poems you have read. 2. Critically evaluate Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich. 3. Write a critical appraisal of Sylvia Plath's poem Poppies in October. 4. Analyse the character and role of Joe. Trace in JAZZ by Toni Morrison. 5. "Trial" and "Judgment" act as transmitters of public heat in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Discuss. 6. Silence speaks out volumes and drives people mad in Mourning Becomes Electra by O'Neil. Discuss the statement with due textual support. 7. Earnest Hemingway is famous for his condensed, crisp and journalistic style of writing. Discuss the narrative techniques he uses in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

12. YEAR 2014 Attempt any FOUR questions. All questions carry equal marks. 1. Bring out the rationale of Bacon against "Of Superstition". 2. Write a comprehensive note on different satirical devices used by Swift in Gulliver's Travels. 3. What safeguards does Russell suggest against a teacher becoming a tool in the hands of government in "Functions of Teacher". 4. Discuss in detail Edward Said's arguments about how culture is used to promote interests of Imperial Powers. 5. How does Seamus Heaney prove in the essay "The Redress of Poetry" that poetry brings human existence into a fuller life? 6. What are the benefits and drawbacks of rising to a great place? Discuss in light of Bacon's "Of Great Place". 7. Compare and contrast the stylistic features of Swift and Bacon. Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

12. YEAR 2014 Attempt any FOUR questions. All questions carry equal marks. 1. "The plot of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE has an exactness of structure and symmetry of form." Discuss. 2. "Though born on the Heath, Eustacia was emotionally alien to it." Comment. 3. How does Dickens deal with the theme of Death and Resurrection in A TALE OF TWO CITIES? 4. "Jane Austen was a moralist of eighteenth century". Do you agree with this statement. 5. Discuss the significance of the fact that Trollope's novel BARCHESTER TOWERS is told from the third person omniscient point of view. 6. Trace the development of Adam Bede's self-realization through a process of emotional turmoil within him. 7. Write critical notes on any TWO of the following: (i) Methodism in Adam Bede (ii) Jane Austen's Morality (iii) Thomas Hardy's Concept of Tragedy (iv) Objects and Places in Barchester Towers Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

12. YEAR 2014 Attempt any FOUR questions including Question No. 1 which is COMPULSORY. All questions carry equal marks.  1. Explain with reference to the context any THREE of the following passages: (i) "If we say that we have no sin, We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us. Why then belike we must sin, And so consequently everlasting death." (ii) "Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it." (iii) Man of agony ..... That is the only name I have for you, That, no other --- ever, ever, ever! (iv) "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good neame Robs me of that which not en...

12. YEAR 2014 Attempt any FOUR questions including Question No. 1 which is COMPULSORY. All questions carry equal marks.  1. Explain with reference to the context any THREE of the following. (i) Is it possible? To spy it in any eye That truth as oft as chance or die, The truth whereof can any try; Is it possible? (ii) The mean diet, not dainty fair; Wisdom joined with suppleness, The night discharged of all care Where wine the wit may not oppress. (iii) Goe, and cathc a falling starre Get with child a mandrake roote, Tell me, where all the past years atre, Or who cleft the Divels foot. (iv) All these and more came flocking, but with looks Downcast and damp, yet such wherein appeared Obscure some glimpses of joy to have found their Chief (v) Some secret truths, from learned pride concealed To maids alone and children are revealed What though no credit doubting wits may give! The fair an dinnocent shall still believe. 2. Compare the Summoner with the Clerk in The Prologue to the Cante...

11. YEAR 2013 Attempt any FOUR questions. All questions carry equal marks.  1. The most forceful theme can be conveyed through the imagery of a poem. Discuss with close reference to at least two poems from your course. 2. By referring closely to Plath's poems prescribed in the syllabus, discuss which two poems are typical of her poetic attitude? 3. Write a detailed note on the dominant thematic concern in Adrienne Rich's poem Final Notation. 4. Discuss the character and role of Violet in the novel Jazz (Morrison). By what particular devices and effects is she conveyed? How much sympathy do you have for her? 5. The freedom which the technique of Expressionism allowed Miller to express some of his thematic concerns artistically is clearly evident in the play The Crucible. Discuss. 6. "O'Neil's Placing a Greek theme in the middle of the last century has written the most modern of all his plays." Discuss the play Mourning Becomes Electra in the light of this state...