FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR RECRUITMENT TO POSTS
IN BPS – 17, UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 2000
ENGLISH LITERATURE, PAPER – I
TIME ALLOWED: 3 HOURS MAXIMUM MARKS:100
NOTE: Attempt FIVE questions in all, including question No.7 which is Compulsory. Select questions from each Part. All questions carry equal marks.
PART – I
Q.No.1. Wordsworth’s verdict about Blake (on his death) was that “There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott”. Elaborate with reference to Black’s works.
Q.No.2. Discuss Wordsworth’s work as “an expression in an age of doubt of the transcendent in nature and the good in man” (J.S. Mill)
Q.No.3. Shelley’s weaknesses as a writer have always been evident; rhetorical abstraction; intellectual arrogance; and movements of intense self-pity. But in great poems like the “West Wind” or great prose works like “Defence”, it is precisely these limitations that he transcends, and indeed explodes. Discuss.
OR
In spite of diverse material and frequent digressions DON JUAN (Byron) does have a strong principle of thematic unity exemplified by the recurring motif of appearance versus reality. Comment and illustrate.
PART – II
Q.No.4. Discuss J. S. Mill as an important figure in British empiricism.
OR
Lamb seldom permitted his profounder views of life to appear above the humorous, pathetic and ironical surface of his writings. Discuss with reference to his “Essays”.
Q.No.5. George Eliot is generally credited with changing the nature of the English Novel. Discuss the change with reference to the novelists’ works
Q.No.6. Write short notes on TWO of the following:
(a) The Cult of Art for Arts’ sake (b) Negative Capability (c) Decadence (d) Liberal humanism
COMPULSORY QUESTION
Q.No.7. Write only the correct answer in the Answer Book. Don’t reproduce the questions.
(1) Romanticism (if it can be pinpointed) is usually assumed to date from:
(a) Publication of “Intimations of Immortality” (b) The beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign (c) The Reform Bill of 1832 (d) Publication of “Lyrical Ballads” and its preface (e) 1800 – 1801
(2) Which of the following would a Romantic Poet be most likely to use?
(a) A “feathered chorister” (b) A “member of the plumy race” (c) A “bird” (d) A “tenant of the sky” (e) An “airy fairy”
(3) Wordsworth’s Poetry always reflects:
(a) The creation of abstract concepts (b) An endorsement of the scientific tradition (c) The creation of an original philosophy (d) An examination of extraneous matters (e) His belief in a world to come.
(4) Byron’s Poetry is ambiguous and has a vividness of phrasing which sometimes reaches the point of abstraction:
(a) True (b) False
(5) “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” is a satirical attack on contemporary writers who had annoyed Byron.
(a) True (b) False
(6) In 1850, Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate.
(a) True (b) False
(7) Mary Anne Evans is the same person as George Eliot.
(a) True (b) False
(8) Keats’ widespread appeal is to the Reader’s interest in the supernatural.
(a) True (b) False
(9) The literary figure who had the most pronounced effect on Keats was:
(a) Dante (b) Shakespeare (c) Wordsworth (d) Shelley
(10) Shelly was a firm believer in all of the following except:
(a) Personal freedom (b) The individual’s responsibility to society (c) The power of love (d) Human conduct based on conviction
(11) Shelley’s poetry used all of the following components for themes except:
(a) Worship of God (b) Passion (c) Narcissism (d) Emotional self-indulgence
(12) The prose of the Romantic period had a tendency to:
(a) Objectify the issue in terms of a cause (b) Advance a single system to the public (c) Allow the writer to draw on his (d) Be brooding and meditative. own personality
(13) Charles Lamb’s “Dream Children” is notable for its:
(a) Crushing tragedy (b) Humor (c) Whimsical Pathos (d) Cynicism
(14) The Victorian age can be dated by which of the following events and years:
(a) Mills’s “on liberty’ (1859) to end of century (1900) (b) Reform Bill (1832) to end of Boer War (1902) (c) Birth of Tennyson (1809) to his death (1892) (d) Tennyson’s Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) to death of Queen Victoria (1901)
(15) Which of the following works ‘had the greatest influence on the Victorian Age?
(a) Mill’s “On Liberty” (b) Tennyson’s “In memoriam” (c) Darwin’s “Origin of Species” (d) Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” (e) Ruskin’s “The stones of Venice”
(16) In which of. the following Genres did Victorian Literature achieve its greatest success:
(a) Drama (b) Epic Poetry (c) Lyric Poetry (d) The Essay (e) The Novel
(17) Identify the sources of the quotations listed below:
1. “Hail to thee blithe spirit”
- “Spirit of beauty that dost consecrate”
-
“Paint/Must never hope to reproduce the- faint Half Flush that dies along her throat”.
-
” Where are the songs of Spring? Ay,- where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too
- “Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu”,
-
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting”
-
“A hand may first and then a lip be kist;
For my part, to such doings I’m a stranger”
- “My hair is grey, but not with years, nor grew it white, In a single night”
A “May Last Duchess”
B “To a skyLark”
C “Ode to Autumn”
D “Don Juan”
E “The Prisoner of Chillon”
F “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
G “Intimations of Immortality’ (Ode)
H “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”