UGC-NET

1. Critically examine the text and answer the questions that follow:

Animal bring us tranquillity.

Cats sleep through a war. Dog’s ignore your sister’s

cancer, forgive betrayals and rations,

while all morning a man cannot bear his own

betrayal after sleeping with two women

But a log will not mount one bitch after

another nor want to kill himself

for being a cad:

            and quails are monogamous

says the encyclopaedia. The baboon

has a harem but he is not tormented

by claims for equal time. But then

I forget how troubled I was when I saw

At seventeen after quarrelling

With my father about my mother’s rights,

A female ape with a blade striped shout

Soft out patiently with her long hands, then

Sniff, and lick lettuce leaves clean for her lord

And master while he growled all through.

1. Comment on the ironic ‘implications’ of betrayal in the poem?

2. Identify the antithetical elements projected in the poem?

3. What is the narrator’s position on female rights?

4. How does the poem address the issue of sexuality?

5. What is the implication of growing at the end of the poem?

SECTION II

There are 15 questions in this section. Each question to be answered in 30 words and carries 5 marks each            (15x5=75)

1.          Comment on the addressee in Shakespeare’s sonnet?

2.          What is Comedy of Manners?

3.          What is Pastoral Elegy?

4.          Define Keats’ concept of ‘negative capability?’

5.          Justify the title ‘Songs of Innocence?’

6.          Explain ‘Victorian Dilemma.’

7.          Comment on the intersection of human and the natural world with reference to any one novel of Hardy.

8.          What does the thunder say in ‘The Wasteland?’

9.          What is the significance of cave in ‘A Passage to India?’

10.       What is Rushdie’s concept of ‘imaginary homelands?’

11.       Define the ‘campus novel.’

12.       Identify the elements of sublimity as defined by Longinus.

13.       What is an ‘auto telic’ text?

14.       What are the hallmarks of Anglo-American feminism?

15.       Differentiate between a ‘readerly’ and a ‘writerly’ text?

SECTION III

Attempt one out of the five electives. All the sub questions in the selected electives are to be answered (Max: word limit 200 words) (Marks 12x5=60)

                       

Elective I: History of English Language, English Language Teaching

1. Discuss the evolution of English language with reference to diverse influences.

2. Trace the sources of addition to English vocabulary in the Renaissance period and specify their domain with example.

3. How does the Indian English consonantal system differ from that of standard English?

4. What do you understand by Register? Explain with reference to English with example.

5. Discuss the difference between approach and method in language teaching?

Elective II: Indian Writing in English

1. “The post-independence Indian English poets evolved their own poetics.” Examine.

2. Bring out the significance of locale in the fiction of R.K. Narayan.

3. How do Mahesh Dattani’s plays reflect his social custom?

4. ‘Train to Pakistan’ fictionalizes history. Discuss.

5. Examine the role of translation in the emergence of Indian Literature in English.

Elective IV: American or Non British Literatures

1. Examine the eclectic nature of Emerson’s transcendentalism.

2. Critically comment on the representation of race and identity in Afro-American poetry.

3. Discuss multiculturalism as reflected in contemporary Canadian fiction.

4. Account for the anticolonial nature of African writing.

5. Consider the major concerns of Australian women poets.

Elective V: Literary Theory and Criticism

1. What are the tenets of romantic criticism? Explain with reference to any critic of your choice.

2. Examine the contribution made by Franz Fanon in theorizing coloniality.

3. Attempt a critique on the notion of a homogenous Indian feminism.

4. How does Marxian ideology influence literacy studies? Illustrate your answer with an example.

5. Account for the broadening of literary studies and its merger with cultural studies.

SECTION V

Answer any one of the following (1000 words) 40 marks

1. Myth, memory and history in Post-colonial writing.

2. The confessional milieu in American poetry.

3. Drama in both literature and Theatre.

4. Decolonising English literary studies.

5. English in contemporary India.