University of Delhi M.A. English, Entrance Exam 2017

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI

M.A. ENGLISH, ENTRANCE EXAM 2017

Q.1) Who views Shelley as “a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain”?

[1] Walter Pater

[2] A.C. Swinburne

[3] Matthew Arnold

[4] T.S. Eliot

Answer: Matthew Arnold – Shelley hailed from an aristocratic family, and yet he lived a life of simplicity and penury. He was opposed to tyranny and exploitation. His heart went out in sympathy for the downtrodden and helpless classes of society. His outlook, thinking and writings were humanist par excellence. His lyrical poem and prose won the acclaim of all, but critics like Mathew Arnold and T. S. Eliot berated his thinking and writings. Modern research has dispelled many of the illusions about Shelley’s character and personality. He is no longer an ineffectual angel, self-isolated and self-centered, who like his own Skylark, breaks into rapturous melody in the highest regions of poetic imagination. Nor do we now regard him as “an enchanted child” who throughout his life ‘retained the idiosyncrasies of childhood, expanded and matured without differentiation’ – (Francis Thomson’s views)

Q.2) Wordsworth calls himself ‘a Worshipper of Nature’ in:

[1] Intimations of Immortality

[2] Tintern Abbey

[3] The Prelude

[4] The Solitary Reaper

Answer: Tintern Abbey – Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth is not only about Wordsworth’s return to Tintern Abbey after 5 years, but also about his return to nature itself. Throughout almost all of his work, Wordsworth emphasizes the importance of nature to a person’s intellectual and spiritual development. This poem not only emphasizes that importance, but also relates nature to the divine. In this poem, Wordsworth seems Pantheistic. Pantheism is the view that the Universe (and Nature on Earth) is the only thing worthy of the deepest kind of reverence. Pantheists think that the best way to understand God is to relate to nature. Wordsworth calls himself a “worshipper of nature” with a “far deeper zeal of holier love,” and it is obvious that he not only loves nature, but also reveres it. Nature has helped him get through tough times in his life, and when he was lonely the thought of nature made him happy. Wordsworth goes on to say that nature has given him a “sublime” gift. This sublime, or divine, gift allows Wordsworth to understand the “unintelligible world” and “see into the life of things.” Through nature, he understands God and everything God created. This thought process is similar to a section of Hartley’s Observations on Man, which says that the pleasures that we enjoy can be understood through nature. Wordsworth says that nature is “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul, of all my moral being.” This relates to Rousseau’s A Discourse upon the Origin Inequality. Rousseau says that in the state of of nature, man is the most pure and moral. Society corrupts man and makes him wicked because he desires artificial faculties. In Tintern Abbey Wordsworth worships nature for how pure and simple it is.

Q.3) The poet who first used the term ‘Negative Capability’ was:

[1] William Wordsworth

[2] S.T. Coleridge

[3] John Keats

[4] P.B. Shelley

Answer: John Keats – Negative capability was a phrase first used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 to characterise the capacity of the greatest writers (particularly Shakespeare) to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability of the individual to perceive, think, and operate beyond any presupposition of a predetermined capacity of the human being. According to him, Negative Capability is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Q.4) ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ is a statement by:

[1] John Milton

[2] William Shakespeare

[3] T.S. Eliot

[4] Ruskin

Answer: William Shakespeare – This proverb is the based on the words of Polonius in “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare. Brevity is the soul of wit is the phrase of multiplicity of meanings. In the first sense, it means that a good piece of writing or a good speech should be brief and concise. And in another sense, it implies that the funny speech should be short. Otherwise, it tends to lose and decrease its Flavour. If we go for another hand, then it is explored on the word level, and its meanings are interesting. There is the purpose of ‘wit’ is debatable, which here refers to ‘knowledge,’ ‘wisdom,’ ‘Intelligence’ during the Shakespearean era.

Q.5) Who calls poetry “the breadth and finer spirit of all knowledge”?

[1] William Wordsworth

[2] P.B. Shelley

[3] John Keats

[4] S.T. Coleridge

Answer: William Wordsworth – Wordsworth says in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads that “Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing……its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and universal.” It embodies truth which is its own testimony. “Poetry is the image of man and nature.” The poet looks at the world in the spirit of love and beauty. The poet recognizes the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows and feels, and lives and moves. So Wordsworth holds that “Poetry is the breath and fine spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of a”! science.” The objects of the poet’s thoughts are everywhere covering the vast empire of human society. As a result, om the reader of poetry must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified.Thus “poetry is the first and last of all knowledge – it is as immortal as the heart of – man.”

Q.6) The phrase ‘Pathetic fallacy’ is coined by:

[1] Milton

[2] Coleridge

[3] Carlyle

[4] John Ruskin

Answer: John Ruskin – The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attributing of human emotion and conduct to all aspects within nature. It is a kind of personification that is found in poetic writing when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent. The British cultural critic John Ruskin coined the term in his book, Modern Painters (1843-60). Ruskin coined the term “pathetic fallacy” to attack the sentimentality om that was common to the poetry of the late 18th century, and which was rampant among poets including Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, od Shelley, and Keats. Wordsworth supported this use of personification based on emotion by eclaiming that “objects… derive their influence to not from properties inherent in them… but from such as are bestowed upon them by the minds of those who are conversant with or affected by these objects.” The old order was yd beginning to be replaced by the new just as Ruskin addressed the matter, and the use of the pathetic fallacy markedly began to disappear.
The meaning of the term has changed significantly from the idea Ruskin had in mind. Ruskin’s original definition is “emotional falseness”, or the falseness that occurs to one’s perceptions when influenced by violent or heightened emotion. For example, when a person is unhinged by grief, the clouds might seem darker than they are, or perhaps mournful or perhaps even uncaring.
There have been other changes to Ruskin’s phrase since he coined it: The particular definition that Ruskin used for the word has since become obsolete. The word “fallacy” nowadays is defined as an example of a flawed logic, but for Ruskin and writers of the 19th century and earlier, “fallacy” could be used to mean simply a “falseness”. In the same way, the word “pathetic” simply meant for Ruskin “emotional” or “pertaining to emotion”

Q.7) Identify the poet whom Queen Victoria regarded as the perfect poet of ‘lo and loss’:

[1] Tennyson

[2] Browning

[3] Swinburne

[4] D.G. Rossetti

Answer: Tennyson – Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson’s work, writing in her diary that she was “much soothed & pleased” by reading “In Memoriam A.H.H.” after Albert’s death. The two met twice, first in April 1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, “very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with a fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, oddly dressed, but there is no affectation about him.” Tennyson met her a second time nearly two decades later, and the Queen told him what a comfort “In Memoriam A.H.H.” had been.

Q.8) ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ was dedicated to which of the following:

[1] Queen Elizabeth

[2] William Shakespeare

[3] Geoffrey Chaucer

[4] Philip Sidney

Answer: Philip Sidney – “Shepherd’s Calendar”, originally The Shepheardes Calender was Edmund Spenser’s first major poetic work, published in 1579. In emulation of Virgil’s first work, the Eclogues, be Spenser wrote this series of pastorals to begin his career. The twelve eclogues of The Shepheardes Calender, dealing with such themes as the abuses of the church, Colin’s shattered love for Rosalind, praise for Queen Elizabeth, and encomia to the rustic Shepherd’s life, are titled for the months of the year. Each eclogue is preceded by a woodcut and followed by a motto describing in the speaker. The opening line of each eclogue expresses characteristics of the month, and the poem as a whole charts common accuracy of the seasons, the toil and celebrations of the village year. The precision of the description of birds, flowers, and harvests is balanced by an underlying theme of the hardships and rituals that each season entails. Each pastoral in the poem can be classified into one of three categories, identified as moral, plaintive, or re-creative. However, Spenser’s models were rather the Renaissance eclogues of Mantuanus. The title, like the entire work, is written using deliberately archaic spellings, in order to suggest a connection to medieval literature, in and to Geoffrey Chaucer in particular. The hypoem introduces Colin Clout, a folk character originated by John Skelton, and depicts his life as a shepherd through the twelve months of the year. The Calender encompasses considerable formal innovations, anticipating the even more virtuosic Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (The “Old” Arcadia, 1580), the classic pastoral romance by Sir Philip Sidney, with whom Spenser was acquainted.

Q.9) The originator of the Oxford Movement was:

[1] William Shakespeare

[2] John Keble

[3] Christopher Marlowe

[4] Philip Sidney

Answer: John Keble – The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church members of the Church of England which eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology. They thought of Anglicanism as one of three branches of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
The movement’s philosophy was known as Tractarianism after its series of publications, the Tracts for the Times, published from 1833 to 1841. Tractarians were also disparagingly referred to as “Newmanites” (before 1845) and “Puseyites” (after 1845) after two prominent Tractarians, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey. Other well-known Tractarians included John Keble, Charles Marriott, Richard Froude, Robert Wilberforce, Isaac Williams and William Palmer.

Q.10) ‘Art for art’s sake’ found its foremost adherent in:

[1] Wordsworth

[2] Byron

[3] Browning

[4] Wilde

Answer: Wilde – “Art for art’s sake” is the usual English rendering of a French slogan from the early 19th century, “l’art pour l’art”, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only “true” art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, or utilitarian function. Such works are sometimes described as “autotelic”, from the Greek autoteles, “complete in itself”, a concept that has been expanded to embrace “inner-directed” or “self-motivated” human beings.
The term is sometimes used commercially. A Latin version of this phrase (“ARS GRATIA ARTIS”) is used as a motto by Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer and appears in the circle around the roaring head of Leo the Lion in its motion picture logo.

Q.11) Which one of the following poets was conferred the title Poet Laureate in the year 1813?

[1] Tennyson

[2] Byron

[3] Southey

[4] Wordsworth

Answer: Southey – Robert Southey (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called “Lake Poets”, and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has long been eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey’s verse still enjoys some popularity.
Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The last has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted for the screen in the 1926 British film, Nelson. He was also a renowned scholar of Portuguese and Spanish literature and history, translating a number of works from those two languages into English and writing a History of Brazil (part of his planned History of Portugal, which he never completed) and a History of the Peninsular War. Perhaps his most enduring contribution to literary history is the children’s classic The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story, first published in Southey’s prose collection The Doctor. He also wrote on political issues, which led to a brief, non-sitting, spell as a Tory Member of Parliament.

Q.12) The Romantic period in British literature is less generally believed to have commenced from:

[1] The publication of ‘Intimations of Immortality’

[2] The beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign

[3] The Reform Bill of 1832

[4] The publication of ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’

Answer: The publication of ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ – The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is an essay. composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition (published in January 1801, and often referred to as the “1800 Edition”) of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. It has come to be seen as a de facto manifesto of the Romantic movement.

Q.13) ‘Hellenism’ connotes:

[1] Love for poetry

[2] Ancient culture and art

[3] Greek culture and art

[4] None of the above

Answer: Greek culture and art – Hellenism may refer to Hellenistic period, the period between the death of Alexander the Great and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome. At this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its peak in Europe, Africa and Asia, experiencing prosperity and progress in the arts, exploration, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint and the philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele and the Greek adoption of Buddhism.

Q.14) “Poetry is the Criticism of life” is a view held by:

[1] Wordsworth

[2] Byron

[3] T.S. Eliot

[4] Arnold

Answer: Arnold – Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822-15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic I who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.

Q.15) You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her – you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. Above all – I need not say it – she was pure
From the above passage, we can infer that the writer’s attitude to the Angel in the House is one of:

[1] complete adulation

[2] muted ambivalence

[3] ironic critique

[4] pure detachment

Answer: ironic critique

Directions (Qs. Nos. 16 and 17): Questions are based on the following passage:
Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish’d care Of thousand bright inhabitants of air!
If e’er one vision touch’d thy infant thought, Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught,
Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, The silver token, and the circled green,
Or virgins visited by angel-pow’rs, With golden crowns and wreaths of heav’nly flowers,
Hear and believe! thy own importance know, Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some secret truths from learned pride conceal’d, To maids alone and children are reveal’d:

Q.16) What is/are the idea/s that the above extract confirm/s?

(A) The immense compliments on the beauty and attire of the protagonist

(B) The poet alludes to elements to classify spirits

(D) The adverse effects of excessive vanity on the society

[1] (B) and (C)

[2] (A) and (B)

[3] (A) and (C)

[4] (C) and (D)

Answer: (A) and (B)

Q.17) These lines are written in:

[1] Iambic pentameter

[2] Iambic tetrameter

[3] Heroic couplets

[4] Blank verse

Answer: Heroic couplets – A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden in the Restoration Age.

Q.18) Which of the following revolutions had an impact on the Romantic Revival?

1. American Revolution

2. Napoleonic wars

3. Industrial Revolution

4. French Revolution

[1] 1 and 4

[2] 3 and 4

[3] 1 and 2

[4] 2 and 3

Answer: 3 and 4 – Industrial Revolution: The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system.
Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were British. By the mid-18th century Britain controlled a global trading empire with colonies in North America and Africa, and with some political influence on the Indian subcontinent, through the activities of the East India Company. The development of trade and the rise of business were major causes of the Industrial Revolution.
French Revolution: The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history.

Q.19) Which according to Aristotle are the essential elements of tragedy?

1. Medium of imitation

2. Form of action

3. Object of imitation

4. Purgation of pity and fear

[1] 2

[2] 2 and 3

[3] 1 and 3

[4] 4

Answer: 4 – Catharsis (from Greek katharsis meaning “purification” or “cleansing”) is the purification and purgation of emotions-particularly pity and fear-through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body.

Q.20) Which among the following does not have the Carpe Diem motif?

1. Marvell’s “To His coy Mistress”

2. Herrick’s “To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time”

3. Henry King’s “Sic Vita”

4. Milton’s “Lycidas”

[1] Only 1 and 2

[2] Only 4

[3] Only 1, 2 and 3

[4] All of the above

Answer: Only 4 – “Lycidas” is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, entitled Justa Edouardo King Naufrago, dedicated to the memory of Edward King, friend of Milton at Cambridge. He drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales in August 1637. The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed. While many of the other topoems in the compilation are in Greek and Latin, “Lycidas” is one of the poems written in English. Milton republished the poem in 1645.

Q.21) Match the names of the authors given in column (A) with the pen names given in column (B):

Column (A)

(A) Marian Evans

(B) H.H. Munro

(D) Charles Lamb

Column (B)

(i) Boz

(ii) Elia

(iii) Saki

(iv) George Eliot

[1] A-i, B-ii, C-iii, D-iv

[2] A-ii, B-iv, C-i, D-iii

[3] A-iv, B-iii, C-i, D-ii

[4] A-iii, B-iv, C-i, D-ii

Answer: A-iv, B-iii, C-i, D-ii

Directions (Qs. Nos. 22 to 25): Questions are based on the following passage:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell. An poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke: why swell’st thou then? One sort sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

Q.22) Identify the figure of speech used in addressing death?

[1] Alliteration

[2] Personification

[3] Invocation

[4] Apostrophe

Answer: Personification – Personification is a type of metaphor and a common literary tool. It is when you assign the qualities of a person to something that isn’t human or that isn’t even alive, like nature or emotions. There are many reasons for using personification. It can be used as a method of describing something so that others can more easily understand it. It can be used to emphasize a point. It can be used to help paint a picture in your mind. You may use personification without even knowing it.

Q.23) Why are “Rest and sleep” described as “pictures” of death?

[1] Because they give pleasure

[2] Because they prefigure death

[3] Because they resemble death in their stillness

[4] Because they are metaphors for death.

Answer: Because they resemble death in their stillness

Q.24) The poem is an example of:

[1] Ode

[2] Sonnet

[3] Epic

[4] Ballad

Answer: Sonnet – A sonnet is a poem in a specific form containing 14 lines and 14 words in each line. It originated in Italy; Giacomo da Lentini is credited with its invention.
The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it signified a poem of 14 lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history. Writers of sonnets are sometimes called “sonneteers”, although the term can be used derisively.

Q.25) The author of the passage is:

[1] in thinking that death will bring pleasure

[2] afraid of death

[3] welcoming death

[4] All of the above

Answer: welcoming death

Q.26) Who is the author of the play Samson Agonistes?

[1] Sophocles

[2] Sir Philip Sidney

[3] John Milton

[4] T.S. Eliot

Answer: John Milton

Q.27) From which work is the title of Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World taken?

[1] Dante’s The Divine Comedy

[2] Sir Thomas More’s Utopia

[3] Shakespeare’s The Tempest

[4] Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

Answer: Shakespeare’s The Tempest – The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610-11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skillful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous tempest, to cause his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples to believe they are shipwrecked and marooned on the island. There, his machinations bring about the revelation of Antonio’s lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso’s son, Ferdinand.

Q.28) Thackeray’s Henry Esmond captures the spirit of:

[1] The Middle Ages

[2] The Elizabethan Age

[3] The Age of Queen Anne

[4] The Victorian Age

Answer: The Age of Queen Anne – Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714)
became Queen of England, Scotland and
Ireland between 8 March 1702. On 1 May
1707, under the Acts of Union, two of her
realms, the kingdoms of England and Scotland,
united as a single sovereign state known as
Great Britain. She continued to reign as Queen
of Great Britain and Ireland until her death.

Directions (Qs. Nos. 29 and 30): Read the passage below and fill in the blanks with the most appropriate answer from among the choices given below in questions:
Bul is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in wart of a wife. However, little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.

Q.29) The passage is an example of:

[1] satire

[2] hyperbole

[3] irony

[4] antithesis

Answer: Irony (meaning ‘dissimulation, feigned ignorance’), in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case.
Irony can be categorized into different types, including: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one’s meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection. Other forms, as identified by historian Connop Thirlwall, include dialectic and practical irony.

Q.30) By associating the possession of a ‘good fortune’ with ‘a desire for a wife’, the writer appears to suggest:

[1] the destabilizing of element of romance in marriage

[2] the need for compatibility in marriage

[3] the castigation of morality

[4] the destruction of the social fabric

Answer: the destabilizing of element of romance in marriage

Q.31) Which of the following statement(s) about psychoanalytic criticism is/are true?

1. It is rooted in Sigmund Freud’s notion of psychoanalysis and his theory of the repression of the unconscious

2. It is broadly based on the assumption that it is the author’s repressed emotions which as are at work in a literary text.

3. This mode of criticism imbibes certain mental processes which were termed as displacement and condensation into the consideration of literary texts.

4. This method does not take into account figurative language.

[1] All of the above

[2] Only 4

[3] Only 1

[4] 1, 2 and 3

Answer: 1, 2 and 3 – Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of “reading” employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author’s own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author’s psyche. One interesting facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a literary key for the decoding.

Q.32) Which of the following statement(s) is/are true?

(A) William Wordsworth talks about spots of time in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

(B) John Keats’ notion of egoistical sublime can be read as his critique of Wordsworth’s theory of poetry.

(D) Poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility is alluded to in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

[1] All of the Above

[2] (D)

[3] (A) and (D)

[4] (B), (C) and (D)

Answer: (B), (C) and (D)

Q.33) Identify the genre to which “Hudibras”, “MacFlecknoe”. “The Rape of the Lock” and “The Dunciad” belong:

[1] Georgic

[2] Medieval fantasy

[3] Mock-heroic

[4] Lampoon

Answer: Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroic-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that they become absurd.

Q.34) Which of the following refers to the text- oriented literary approach?

[1] Phenomenology

[2] Philology

[3] Feminist Literary Theory

[4] Reception Theory

Answer: Reception Theory is a version of reader response literary theory that emphasizes each particular reader’s reception or interpretation in making meaning from a literary text. Reception theory is generally referred to as audience reception in the analysis of communications models.

Q.35) Which one of the following regards a text as a system of signs?

[1] Marxist Literary Theory

[2] Feminist Literary Theory

[3] Semiotics and Deconstruction

[4] Psychoanalytical Theory

Answer: Semiotics and Deconstruction – Semiotics is the theory of the production and interpretation of meaning. Semiotics is the theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactic, and pragmatics. Semiotics can be used to manipulate any type of art or communication, either in writing or built by using different type of imagery. Semiotics may be considered difficult, as it implements the use of signs to explain other signs ultimately creating a story in an image, with or without words, Deconstruction is a method of textual analysis and investigation emerging from the works of Jacques Derrida in the 1960s and 1970s. Deconstruction can be defined as a way of understanding how something was created, usually things like art, books, poems and other writing. Deconstruction is usually known as a theory used in the study of literature or philosophy which says that a piece of writing does not have just one meaning and that the meaning depends on the reader. Sometimes deconstruction looks at how an author can imply things he does not mean. It says that because words are not precise, we can never know what an author meant.

Q.36) “It is the writer’s special gift of remaining in doubts and uncertainties, or sympathizing with many points of view, and not trying to assert himself or herself by ‘irritable reaching after fact and reason’.” Which among the following does this passage discuss?

[1] Ruskin’s concept of pathetic fallacy

[2] Aristotle’s theory of imitation

[3] Keats’s notion of negative capability

[4] Coleridge’s doctrine of the willing suspension of disbelief

Answer: Keats’s notion of negative capability – Negative capability was a phrase first used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 to characterise the capacity of the greatest writers (particularly Shakespeare) to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability of the individual to perceive, think, and operate beyond any presupposition of a predetermined capacity of the human being.

Q.37) Jacques Derrida’s early essay “Structure, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” responds to:

[1] Marx’s theory of labour

[2] Heidegger’s theory of being

[3] Levi-Strauss’s study of myth

[4] Heisenberg’s uncertainty

Answer: Levi-Strauss’s study of myth – Claude Levi-Strauss (28 November, 1908-30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology.In structural anthropology, Claude Lévi- Strauss, a French anthropologist, makes the claim that “myth is language”. Through approaching mythology as language, Lévi- Strauss suggests that it can be approached the same way as language can be approached by the same structuralist methods used to address language Levi-Strauss clarifies, “Myth is language, functioning on an especially high level where meaning succeeds practically at ‘taking off’ from the linguistic ground on which it keeps rolling. Lévi-Strauss breaks down his argument into three main parts. Meaning is not isolated within the specific fundamental parts of the myth, but rather within the composition of these parts. Although myth and language are of similar categories, language functions differently in myth. Finally, language in myth exhibits more complex functions than in any other linguistic expression. From these suggestions, he draws the conclusion that myth can be broken down into constituent units, and these units are different from the constituents of language. Finally, unlike the constituents of language, the constituents of a myth, which he labels “mythemes,” function as “bundles of relations”:

Q.38) What is Daphne’s chosen form of metamor- phosis at the end of her pursuit by Apollo in Ovid’s well-known poem?

[1] A deer

[2] A dragon

[3] A laurel tree

[4] The evening star

Answer: A laurel tree

Q.39) Which among the following is the main Greek royal dynasty in Homer’s. The Iliad?

[1] Cadmus

[2] Argonauts

[3] Atreus

[4] Autolycus

Answer: Atreus – In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae.Atreus and his twin brother Thyestes were exiled by their father for murdering their half- brother Chrysippus in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge in Mycenae, where they ascended to the throne in the absence of King Eurystheus, who was fighting the Heracleidae. Eurystheus had meant for their stewardship to be temporary, but it became permanent after his death in battle.According to most ancient sources, Atreus was the father of Pleisthenes, but in some lyric poets (Ibycus, Bacchylides) Pleisthenides (son of Pleisthenes) is used as an alternative name for Atreus himself.

Q.40) Match the names of the poets given in column A with the first line of their poems given in column B:

Column A

(A) Philip Larkin

(B) Ted Hughes

(D) Sylvia Plath

Column B

(i) “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead”

(ii) “Do not go gentle into that good night”

(iii) “Once I am sure there’s nothing going on”

(iv) “I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed”.

[1] A-i, B-ii, C-iii, D-iv

[2] A-iv, B-ii, C-i, D-iii

[3] A-iii, B-iv, C-ii, D-i

[4] A-iv, B-iii, C-i, D-ii

Answer: A-iv, B-iii, C-i, D-ii

Q.41) Who among the following women poets, has used the image of witch in her signature poem ‘Her Kind’?

[1] Elizabeth Bishop

[2] Anne Sexton

[3] Mary Shelley

[4] Sylvia Plath

Answer: Anne Sexton (Nov. 9, 1928-Oct. 4, 1974) was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional poems. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Themes of her poetry include her long battle against depression and mania. suicidal tendencies, and various details from her private life, including her relationships with her husband and children.

Directions (Qs. Nos. 42 to 45): The names of four authors are given below. The questions are based on them.

(A) M.G. Vassanji

(B) V.S. Naipaul

(D) Michael Ondaatje

Q.42) Match the titles given below with the names of the authors given above.

(i) A House for Mr. Biswas

(ii) Anil’s Ghost

(iii) Fly Away Peter

(iv) The In-between World of Vikram Lall

Options:

[1] A-iv, B-iii, C-ii, D-i

[2] A-i, B-ii, C-iii, D-iv

[3] A-iv, B-i, C-iii, D-ii

[4] A-ii, B-iii, C-iv, D-i

Answer: A-iv, B-i, C-iii, D-ii

Q.43) Which among the following are the themes that are common to the oeuvres of this group of writers?

1. Displacement(s)

2. The question of identity

3. War

4. Ethnicity and Roots

[1] All of the above

[2] Only 3

[3] 1, 2 and 3

[4] 1, 2 and 4

Answer: 1, 2 and 4

Q.44) Who among the four has/have won Booker Prize?

[1] None

[2] Only (c)

[3] Only (b) and (d)

[4] (b), (c) and (d)

Answer: Only (b) and (d) – Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, (born 17 August 1932), is a British writer and Nobel Laureate who was born in Trinidad. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad and Tobago, his bleaker later novels of the wider world, and his autobiographical chronicles of life and travels. He has published more than thirty books, both of fiction and non-fiction, over some fifty years.Philip Michael Ondaatje, (born 12 September 1943), is a Sri Lankan-born Can- adian poet, novelist, editor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General’s Award, the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Prix Médicis étranger. Ondaatje is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing him as one of Canada’s most renowned living authors.

Q.45) Who among the four is/are not natural citizen(s) of the country(ies) in which they hold citizenship?

[1] All of the above

[2] Only (c)

[3] (a) and (d)

[4] (a), (b) and (d)

Answer: (a), (b) and (d)

Directions (Qs. Nos. 46 to 48): Questions are based on the extract from David Damrosch’s ‘What is world literature’?
I take world literature to encompass all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language. In its most expansive sense, world literature could include any work that has ever reached beyond its home, but a work only has an effective life as world literature whenever and wherever, it is present within a literary system beyond that of its original culture.

Q.46) Which among the following texts would not, according to this formulation, qualify as world literature?

[1] The Communist Manifesto

[2] I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

[3] Dhonraicharit mans

[4] Epic of Gilgamesh

Answer: Dhonraicharit mans

Q.47) In this passage the author defines ‘an effective life’ of a literary work primarily through:

[1] translation and circulation

[2] sales figures from publishers

[3] cultural hegemony

[4] linguistic hierarchy

Answer: translation and circulation

Q.48) World literature for the author is:

[1] a methodological problem

[2] a selective corpus

[3] a literary space

[4] all literatures of the world

Answer: a selective corpus

Q.49) The Enchantress of Florence is:

[1] the official biography of Sophia Loren

[2] a novel by Salman Rushdie

[3] a scholarly monograph on Italian cinema

[4] an account of Italian music in the contemporary era

Answer: A novel by Salman Rushdie – Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (born 19 June 1947) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on separate occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. His epic fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the subject of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries. He combines magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations. The Enchantress of Florence is the ninth novel by Salman Rushdie, published in 2008. According to Rushdie this is his “most researched book” which required “years and years of reading”.The central theme of The Enchantress of Florence is the visit of a European to the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court and his claim that he is a long lost relative of Akbar, born of an exiled Indian princess and an Italian from Florence. The story moves between continents, the court of Akbar to Renaissance Florence mixing history, fantasy and fable.

Directions (Qs. 50 to 52): Questions are based on the following passage:
“The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. No matter how much qualifying the book might later need, it made impossible a repetition of the old lies. In all its crudeness, melodrama and claustrophobia of vision, Richard Wright’s novel brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture. A blow at the white man, the novel forced him to recognize himself as an oppressor. A blow at the black man, the novel forced him to recognize the cost of his submission. Native Son assaulted the most cherished of American vanities: the hope that the accumulated injustice of the past would bring with it no lasting penalties, the fantasy that in his humiliation the Negro somehow retained a sexual potency -or was it a childlike good nature? – that made it necessary to envy and still more to suppress him.”

Q.50) The old lies’ is not a reference to:

1. Representation of Black Americans as transcending categorizations.

2. Representation of Black Americans merely as a social victim.

3. Representation of Black Americans that hastens to confine him to the very tones of violence he has known all his life.

4. Representation of Black American as a unique person.

[1] Only 1

[2] Both 2 and 3

[3] Only 4

[4] Both 1 and 4

Answer: Both 1 and 4

Q.51) The praise for Richard Wright was contested on the ground that it:

[1] Propagated violence as an answer American racism.

[2] Neglected to criticize the sexism of black men in their conduct towards black women.

[3] Projected a one-dimensional view of black men

[4] Did not allow the black man to speak for himself

Answer: Projected a one-dimensional view of black men

Q.52) Which among the following theories is the dominant ideological underpinning to the plot of Native Son?

[1] Marxism

[2] Existentialism

[3] Nihilism

[4] Anarchism

Answer: Marxism is a methodology of philosophical, sociological, political and economic analysis that explores class relations and societal conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and a dialectical view of social transformation.

Direction (Qs. No. 53): The question is based on the following passage, taken from the speech of an eminent personality:
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks giving’s with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy- a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilt of practices more shocking and bloodier than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Q.53) Why does the speaker rant against the celebration of Independence Day in the U.S.?

[1] Because the day is celebrated with too much pomp and revelry

[2] Because of the double standards regarding the treatment of black slaves in the U.S. which the celebrations highlight

[3] Because the celebrations represent an expression of unabashed jingoism

[4] Because the celebrations resemble the celebrations worthy of a nation of savages

Answer: Because of the double standards regarding the treatment of black slaves in the U.S. which the celebrations highlight

Q.54) Substantive equality by all for all African- Americans residing in the United States was obtained only after:

[1] The abolition of slavery in 1865

[2] The passing of the fourteenth and the fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

[3] The Civil Rights Act of 1964

[4] The ascendancy of Barack Obama to the Presidentship of the U.S.

Answer: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88-352, 78 stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and US labour law in the United States the outlaws discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin.

Q.55) Which of the following works has been authored by Henry James?

[1] The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

[2] The Heart of the Matter

[3] Of Human Bondage

[4] Daisy Miller

Answer: Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James that first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in June- July 1878, and in book form the following year. It portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates when they meet in Switzerland and Italy.

Directions (Qs. Nos. 56 to 58): Each of the definitions given below, indicate the term that best fill up the blanks.

Q.56) …………… is a regional, temporal and social variety within a single language.

[1] Dialect

[2] Register

[3] Slang

[4] Isogloss

Answer: Dialect

Q.57) ………… is stylistic functional variety of a dialect or language. It may be narrowly defined by reference to subject matter (field of discourse, fishing, gambling, sports etc.) to the medium or mode of discourse (printed material, written letter, message on tape etc.) or to the level of formality, that is style.

[1] Register

[2] Slang

[3] Pidgin

[4] Isogloss

Answer: Register

Q.58). …………is a contract language, mixture of elements from different natural languages. Its use is usually restricted to certain groups, e.g., traders and seamen.

[1] Dialect

[2] Register

[3] Slang

[4] Pidgin

Answer: Pidgin

Directions (Qs. Nos. 59 to 62): Questions are on the following poem:
Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me-
The Carriage held but just Ourselves- And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility-
We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess-in the Ring-
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun-
Or rather-He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill-
For only Gossamer, my Gown- My Tippet-only Tulle-
We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground-
The Roof was scarcely visible- The Cornice-in the Ground-
Since then-’tis Centuries-and yet Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity-

Q.59) How has the poet structured each stanza of the poem?

[1] The first and third lines of each stanza rhyme

[2] Each stanza is constructed as a single sentence

[3] Each stanza begins with the word “We” and ends with a common noun

[4] In each stanza, all four lines have the same number of beats

Answer: Each stanza is constructed as a single sentence

Q.60) Death is polite. Which stanza besides the first supports this conclusion?

[1] The second stanza

[2] The third stanza

[3] The fourth stanza

[4] The fifth stanza

Answer: The second stanza

Q.61) The speaker of the poem is someone who has died. How can the speaker’s tone best be described?

[1] Angry and bitter

[2] Energetic and curious

[3] Frantic and frightened

[4] Calm and measured

Answer: Calm and measured

Q.62) What is the main theme of the poem?

[1] While immortality may seem like a great gift, it is actually a heavy burden

[2] Death is something to be feared and avoided at all costs.

[3] It is often difficult and painful for someone who lived a long life to accept death

[4] Death may signify the end of life, but it is also linked to immortality

Answer: Death may signify the end of life, but it is also linked to immortality

Q.63) In which Indian language did Malik Muhammad Jayasi compose his works?

[1] Braj Bhasha

[2] Bhojpuri

[3] Awadhi

[4] Hindi Khari Boli

Answer: Awadhi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh and Terai belt of Nepal. Awadhi was classified as Eastern Hindi by George Abraham Grierson, who commissioned the Linguistic Survey of India.

Directions (Qs. Nos. 64 to 67): Questions are based on the following poem:
Yesterday a woodpecker. Diverted by the hollow knocking
We clambered on an embankment to watch, if we coul [4].
Somewhere near, but the intermittent tap-tapping receded,
drawing us in strands through the thin white trees.
And there it was: high on the bare trunk that emerged
through the roof of a shabby house, striking like a goggled alpinist on the last overhand below a dreamed-of summit.
What views there must have been. Intent upon a hold,
Head poised back, gauging, then the small, sunlit chisel ringing clear, It side-stepped, side-stepped away from us until it was half-hidden
where two branches formed a ‘v’ (“How it clings on!” someone said) then prodded back, rapidly,
as if to give this route another chance. lofty, on the verge.
Then, abruptly, it was in flight, southward, brown and ordinary, whirring
to stay aloft, dipping and cresting and dipping again a wave on a sea.

Q.64) In stanza one, the phrase ‘tap-tapping’ is an example of:

[1] Alliteration

[2] Rhyming

[3] Habitation

[4] Assonance

Answer: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. Assonance does not have to be a rhyme; the identity of which depends merely on sequence of both vowel and consonant sounds.

Q.65) In the second stanza ‘goggled alpinist compares the woodpecker to:

[1] a skier

[2] a mountaineer

[3] an explorer

[4] A tree lover

Answer: A mountaineer

Q.66) The poet describing the woodpecker in flight as ‘brown/and ordinary’ implies that the woodpecker:

[1] failed to make holes in the white trees

[2] tended to lose its way while flying

[3] got drenched by the waves on the sea

[4] is an extraordinary bird

Answer: tended to lose its way while flying

Q.67) The images used in the poem are:

[1] from everyday life

[2] images that highlight the difference between bird and man

[3] anthropomorphic

[4] expressive of envy at the freedom and flight of the woodpecker

Answer: from everyday life

Q.68) Which Urdu novelist wrote the famous novel, of which River of Fire is a translation – or rather transcreation?

[1] Saadat Hasan Manto

[2] Intizar Husain

[3] Qurratulain Hyder

[4] Ghalib

Answer: Qurratulain Hyder (20 January 1927-21 August 2007) was an influential Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post partition of India. Popularly known as “Ainee Apa” among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of twriter and pioneer of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880-1943). Her errormother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894-1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published s her first novel.

Directions (Qs. Nos. 69 to 73): Read the extract given below and answer.
There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthalapurana, or legendary history, of its own. Some god or goodlike hero has passed by the village-Rama might have rested under this pipal- tree, Sita might have dried her clothes, after her bath, on this yellow stone, or the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the country, might have slept in this hut, the low one by the village gate. In this way, the past mingles with the present, and the gods mingle with men to make the repertory of your grandmother always bright. One such story from the contemporary annals of my village I have tried to tell. The telling has not been easy. One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own, the spirit that is one’s own. One has to convey the various shades and omissions of a certain thought-movement that looks maltreated in an alien language. I use the word ‘alien’, yet English is not really an alien language to us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up.

Q.69) This extract emphasizes the importance of the relationship between:

[1] Epic and history

[2] Literature and politics

[3] Location and narrative

[4] Gods and demons

Answer: Location and narrative

Q.70) The relationship between the past and the present is set out in terms that suggest that the text was first published at:

[1] the high noon of the freedom struggle

[2] the twilight days of the East India Company

[3] the close of the nineteenth century

[4] the middle ages

Answer: the high noon of the freedom struggle

Q.71) The extract seeks to privilege:

[1] the authority of religious texts

[2] the authority of historical texts

[3] the voice of the legend

[4] the spoken voice

Answer: the voice of the legend

Q.72) The term ‘alien’ suggests a measure of:

[1] cordiality

[2] caution

[3] distance

[4] ignorance

Answer: caution

Q.73) The concluding lines of the extract build a contrast between:

[1] the source and target language

[2] the source and target audience

[3] the letter and the spirit

[4] various versions of a written text

Answer: the source and target language

Directions (Qs. Nos. 74 to 77): Read the following passage by J.M. Coetzee, ‘White Writing’ and answer questions which follow:
Yet the topos of the garden, the enclosed world entire to itself, is more extensive than the Judaeo- Christian myth of Eden. In its isolation from the great world, walled in by oceans and an unexplored northern wilderness, the colony of the Cape of Good Hope was indeed a kind of garden. But the future promised by the Cape seemed to be less of the perfection of man in a recovered original innocence than of the degeneration of man into brute.
Again and again visitors to the colony warned that, from lack of any spur to activity in the economically stagnant hinterland, colonists were declining into the idle and brutish state of the Hottentots.

Q.74) The geography being described in this passage belongs to the present-day:

[1] Nigeria

[2] South Africa

[3] Zimbabwe

[4] Ghana

Answer: South Africa

Q.75) The author draws a parallel between the Cape colony and the garden of Eden to underscore:

[1] His personal preference for the Biblical myth of origin

[2] To highlight the way colonial authors understood and explored the new colony

[3] To establish connections between different cultural practices

[4] To trace the origins of modern civilizations.

Answer: To highlight the way colonial authors understood and explored the new colony

Q.76) The possibility of “declining into the idle and brutish state of the Hottentots” is a classic example of the myth of:

[1] Racial degeneration

[2] Outcome of colonialism

[3] European masculinity

[4] Cannibalism

Answer: Racial degeneration

Q.77) The passage is an example of:

[1] Marxist analysis

[2] Feminist historiography

[3] Fictional representation occupation of colonial

[4] Colonial discourse analysis

Answer: Colonial discourse analysis

Directions (Qs. Nos. 78 to 80): The next three questions are based on the extract below:
The telling of tales is often thought to be characteristic of all human discourse, and it is fashionable to speak of narrative as a universal form of expression, one that is applied both to the life experiences of individuals and to the dramas of social interaction. Storytelling in oral cultures in turn is seen as the foundation on which the novel is built in literate ones, and the activity is regarded as the focus of much creativity. Blind Homer was the model, putting all his non-literate imagination into the epic. In discussing storytelling, we are clearly leading into the topics of fiction and the novel. But not all storytelling is fictional; it can also involve personal narratives. However, although typically it is associated with oral cultures, with “the singer [or teller] of tales.” In his article on the subject, Walter Benjamin sees the storyteller disappearing with the arrival of the novel, whose dissemination he with the advent of printing, and no longer directly linked with experience in the same way as before.

Q.78) Which of the following statements about story telling is/are true?

(a) It is a creative expression.

(b) It may involve fiction.

(d) It is considered to be part of the narrative discourse.

[1] (a) and (c)

[2] (b) and (d)

[3] (b) and (c)

[4] All are true

Answer: All are true

Q.79) What is the author trying to discuss?

[1] The different genres of storytelling.

[2] The major changes caused by the advent of printing.

[3] The shift from an oral to a literary culture.

[4] The various forms of human discourse.

Answer: The shift from an oral to a literary culture

Q.80) Which of the following statements is true?

[1] The novel is the form that is the most suitable to capture dramas of social interaction.

[2] Compared to oral cultures, in literate cultures the focus is on creativity due to presence of the novel.

[3] Walter Benjamin argues that the printing press took over the role of storytelling.

[4] Homer is the model for all storytellers.

Answer: Walter Benjamin argues that the printing press took over the role of storytelling

Q.81) Match the names of books/journals given in the list below with the names of the movements given in the second list: Books/Journals

(a) The Yellow Book

(b) The Germ

(d) The Flowers of Evil

Movement

(i) Pre-Raphaelite Movement

(ii) Decadent Movement

(iii) Aesthetic of Renaissance

[1] a-iii, b-ii, c-i, d-ii

[2] a-iii, b-i, c-iii, d-ii

[3] a-i, b-ii, c-iii, d-i

[4] a-ii, b-iii, c-i, d-ii

Answer: a-iii, b-i, c-iii, d-ii

Q.82) Given below are three statements. Say which among them is/are true:

(a) “Segregation” is used in a negative sense in the passage.

(b) The use of “negroes” shows that the author is prejudiced against the blacks.

[1] Only (a) is true

[2] (a) and (b) are true

[3] (b) and (c) are true

[4] (b) is true

Answer: Only (a) is true

Directions (Q.No. 83 to 86): Fill in the blanks by choosing the most appropriate word from among the options given below:
The history of the Sanskrit language and its social ……(83) …… has long been an object of interest to Sanskritists, for this is a ……(84) …… history that holds considerable theoretical interest. The Sanskrit cosmopolis did not come into being…. (85) ….. with the appearance of the Sanskrit language. Its development was slow and …. (86) …..

Q.83)

[1] sphere

[2] control

[3] experiment

[4] prevarication

Answer: sphere

Q.84)

[1] curious

[2] lopsided

[3] exasperating

[4] representative

Answer: curious

Q.85)

[1] randomly

[2] consecutively

[3] spontaneously

[4] simultaneously

Answer: simultaneously

Q.86)

[1] rapid

[2] tentative

[3] vigorous

[4] exponential

Answer: tentative

Q.87) Which sequence would make a coherent passage from the sequence given below?

(a) Earlier, even if questions about colonial power were raised, they were discussed mainly to document official measures and administrative shifts in the structures of the Raj.

(b) From a predominant emphasis on economic issues, there has been a visible shift towards the ideological, cultural and political dimensions of the colonial’ encounter.

(c) They were unsuccessful in addressing the complexity of colonial power, especially its cultural construction and modes of dissemination.

(d) Much has changed in the study of colonialism since the time when the history of colonial India was plotted in terms of economic drain or the history of administrative change.

(e) Such economic statist approaches were common to both colonialist and nationalist historiography.

[1] (b), (d), (a), (c), (e)

[2] (a), (d), (b), (c), (e)

[3] (d), (b), (a), (e), (c)

[4] (c), (d), (a), (e), (b),

Answer: (d), (b), (a), (e), (c)

Directions (Qs. Nos. 88 to 90): Questions are based on the given excerpt:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Q.88) Among the following poetic devices identify the one that cannot be found in the line “Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle”?

(a) Transferred Epithet

(b) Onamatopoeia

(d) Personification

[1] Only (a)

[2] Only (c)

[3] Only (b)

[4] None of the above

Answer: Only (a)

Q.89) Pick the odd one out:

[1] Bells

[2] Choirs

[3] Orisons

[4] Shells

Answer: Shells

Q.90) Based on the tone of the poem, identify the one from the list that best qualifies the poem.

[1] Allegory

[2] Elegy

[3] Burlesque

[4] Parody

Answer: Elegy – An elegy is a sad poem, usually written to praise and express sorrow for someone who is dead.

Q.91) A figure popularly known as the Father of Humanism is:

[1] Pico Della Mirandola’s

[2] Erasmus

[3] Machiavelli

[4] Petrarch

Answer: Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero’s letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. Petrarch’s sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model bug for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the “Dark Ages”. This standing back from his time was possible because he straddled two worlds- the classical and his own modern day.

Q.92) ‘Pastoral’ suggests:

(a) Highly benign setting

(b) Idealised and artificial setting

(d) The mythical Golden Age

Options:

[1] (a) and (b)

[2] (b) and (c)

[3] (c) and (d)

[4] All of the above

Answer: All of the above

Q.93) Identify the figure of speech used in the following lines:
“I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice,
I flee above the wind, yet can I not arise”.

[1] Personification

[2] Anti-thesis

[3] Oxymoron

[4] Metaphor

Answer: Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).

Q.94) Identify the figure of speech used in the following passage:
But when those meek eyes first did seem
To tell me, Love within you wrought-
O Greta, dear domestic stream!
has not, since then, Love’s prompture deep,
Has not Love’s whisper evermore
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar?

[1] Apostrophe

[2] Personification

[3] Metaphor

[4] Transferred epithet

Answer: Apostrophe (Greek, apostrophe, “turning away”; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory figure of speech. It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a 3rd party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes absent from the scene. Often the addressee is a personified abstract quality or inanimate object.

Q.95) “One day I wrote her name upon the strand” is a part of which sonnet sequence?

[1] The Shepherd’s Calender

[2] The Faerie Queen

[3] Amoretti

[4] Epithalamion

Answer: Amoretti is a sonnet cycle written by Edmund Spenser in the 16th century. The cycle describes his courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. Amoretti was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby. It was printed as part of a volume entitled Amoretti and Epithalamion. The volume included the sequence of 89 sonnets, along with a series of short poems called Anacreontics and Epithalamion, a public poetic celebration of marriage. Only six complete copies remain today, including one at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and one at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

Q.96) Which meter is applied to the following lines?
Moving of the earth brings harms and feans, Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.

[1] Iambic pentameter

[2] Iambic tetrameter

[3] Iambic trimeter

[4] None of these

Answer: Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The word “tetrameter” simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs.

Q.97) The romantic comedies are termed ‘Romantic’ because:

(a) Their plots and major themes involve love and desire.

(b) They are related to the so-called ‘romances’.

(d) End with marriage/the promise of marriage arising from some discovery

[1] (a) and (b)

[2] (b) and (c)

[3] (c) and (d)

[4] All of the above

Answer: All of the above

Q.98) Who introduces the story of Faustus in the Prologue to the play ‘Doctor Faustus’?

[1] The Chorus

[2] Faustus

[3] Mephistopheles

[4] Wagner

Answer: The Chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. Greek tragedy had its beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of 50 men danced and sang dithyrambs-lyric hymns in praise of the god Dionysus.

Q.99) Which among the following writers first used blank verse in English poetry?

[1] Sir Thomas Wyatt

[2] William Shakespeare

[3] Earl of Surrey

[4] Milton

Answer: Earl of Surrey – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517- 19 January, 1547), an English nobleman, was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the sonnet form that Shakespeare later used, and Surrey was the first English poet to publish blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil’s Aeneid. Together, Wyatt and Surrey, due to their excellent translations of Petrarch’s sonnets, are known as “Fathers of the English Sonnet”. While Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English, it was Surrey who gave them the rhyming meter and the division into quatrains that now characterises the sonnets variously named English, Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnets.

Q.100) Sir John Falstaff is one of Shakespeare’s greatest:

[1] Comic figures

[2] Historical figures

[3] Romantic figures

[4] Tragic figures

Answer: Comic figures – Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who is mentioned in five plays by William Shakespeare and appears on stage in three of them. His significance as a fully developed character in Shakespeare is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A notable eulogy for Falstaff is presented in Act II, Scene III of Henry V, where Falstaff does not appear as a character on stage, as enacted by Mistress Quickly in terms that some scholars have ascribed to Plato’s description of the death of Socrates after drinking hemlock. By comparison, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is presented by Shakespeare as the buffoonish suitor of two married women.