4. (a) Write a criticism, with specific references to the text, of any three of the following: The Book of the Duchess; The Parlement of Foules; The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale; The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale; Sir Thopas. (b) Write on any three of the following topics: the adaptation of story to teller in The Canterbury Tales; the mediaeval sermon or the mediaeval romance as illustrated in Chaucer's works; the character of Pandarus or of Criseyde. 5. (a) What is the evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and London was an actor and the author of the plays and poems bearing his name? (b) Write on any three of the following topics: Jonson's contribution to comedy; characteristics of the drama in the years between the death of Shakespeare and the closing of the theatres; Dryden's heroic plays; Dryden's theories concerning the drama. FINAL HONOUR ENGLISH. SECOND PAPER. Any three questions. A. 1. State briefly Reynolds' arguments for painting the general and neglecting the specific form in landscape. Give Ruskin's criticism of Reynolds' view. 2. What does Ruskin mean by the Pathetic Fallacy? State the chief distinctions which he marks in its use. Give and consider his critical remarks on the following passages: (a) The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold. (b) They rowed her in across the rolling foamThe cruel, crawling foam. (c) Whose changing mound and foam that passed away, Might mock the eye that questioned where I lay. 3. Give a brief sketch of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in England, pointing out its effect on painting and poetry. Use the poetry of Rossetti for illustrative material. 4. Write a short critique of the life and poetry of one of the following: Morris, Dobson, Lang, Henley, Symons. 5. (a) What do you mean by "the new Celtic Idealism"? Give a brief account of the work of W. B. Yeats or Fiona Macleod. (b) Point out precisely what seems the element of Celtic idealism in this poem entitled "The Rose Upon the Rood of Time": Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! The Druid gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Sing in their high and lonely melody. Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, In all poor foolish things that live a day B. 4. (a) Name the chief writers of comedy between 1660 and 1700 and give the titles of each dramatist's best known plays. Characterize the comedy of this period and discuss its relation to the life of the time. (b) Trace the history of sentimental comedy and show its relation to eighteenth century thought and expression. Make clear the significance of the plays of Steele, Goldsmith, and Reynolds. 5. (a) What was Ibsen's contribution to the drama in technique and subject matter? Contrast Ibsen with Maeterlinck and show what influences moulded each. (b) Characterize the dramatic work of any three of the following: Pinero, Shaw, Synge, Galsworthy, Bennett. ENGLISH. FINAL HONOURS. THIRD PAPER. Part I. (Three questions are to be answered). 1. Write notes on three of the following: (a) The Blank Verse in Alastor and Hyperion. (d) Keats's use of vowels. (e) Keats's Sonnets. (f) La Belle Dame Sans Merci. 2. (a) Give some account of Shelley's philosophical ideas, and of his political sympathies. (b) "Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." -From A Defence of Poetry. What did Shelley add to the opinions received from Diderot, Godwin and other thinkers, which makes it possible to number him among the poets he describes here? 3. (a) What were the main characteristics of English Romanticism in the later 18th century? Romantic novelists influence Shelley? How far did the (b) "To the last he (Shelley) was the enchanted child. He is still at play, save only that his play is such as manhood stops to watch, and his playthings are those which the gods give their children. The universe is his box of toys. He teases into growling the kennelled thunder, and laughs at the shaking of its fiery chain. He dances in and out of the gates of heaven; its floor is littered with his broken fancies." Discuss. (c) Discuss one of the following: (1) The Revolt of Islam. (2) Prometheus Unbound. 4. (a) "I find I cannot exist without Poetry-without eternal Poetry-half the day will not do the whole of it-I began with a little, but habit has made a Leviathan." "I never can feel certain of any truth but from a clear conception of its Beauty." "To me manners and customs long since passed whether among the Babylonians or the Bactrians are as real, or even more real than those among which I now live." -From letters to George Keats, 1818. What do these sentences reveal of Keats's poetic thought? (b) Describe Keats's character as shown in his letters. 5. (a) Comment on the interest in the Middle Ages shown in the later 18th century, considering Chatterton in particular. How far was this interest an element in Keats's poetry? (b) Discuss the influence of Ovid, Bocaccio, Marlowe, upon Keats. Compare Marlowe's ideal of beauty with the Greek ideal. Part II. Answer (a) or (b) in Question 1. 1. (a) Write an essay on one of the following subjects: Hooker's Prose Style. Drummond's Poems. Political Theorists in the 17th century. The Metaphysical Poets. John Hales of Eton. Writers of Diaries and Memoirs in the 17th century. |