UPSC Mains ENGLISH-LITERATURE-PAPER-II 2012

W. H. Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts, that resonates with the poetic narratives of art of the Romantic and Victorian period

Spiritus Mundi in the Second Coming as a storehouse of the world's phantasmagoria

The thematic and symbolic significance of the Mosque, Caves and Temple in E. M. Forster's 'A Passage to India'

D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers' is as much autobiographical as Dicken's David Copperfield.

Jimmy Porter as a spokesman of Britain's new educated class with its anxieties and frustrations

It was not until the 1920s that new notions of time and states of mind have been stressed with greater impact in twentieth century novel. Elucidate with examples.

Explain with references, how modern drama with its disjointed and ambiguous deliberations that blur the distinction between reality and illusion, serves to intensify the dreadful angst of the protagonist.

The time theme of T. S. Eliot's poems is real, exactly as birth, death and love are real. Elucidate with reference to his poems.

How does A. K. Ramanujan represent in his poems kaleidoscopic patterns of the Indian panorama and culture.

Critically analyse how the stream of consciousness technique, used to depict the labyrinth of the subtleties of human mind, is executed with prowess and precision in Mrs Dalloway and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

How would you respond to the view that of all the Indian novels Kanthapura is the most comprehensively and intimately Gandhian?

He spits. E moves to the centre, halts with his back to auditorium. E: Charming spot (He turns, advances to front, halts facing the auditorium) Inspiring prospects (He turns to V) Let's go. V: We can't. E: Why not? V: We are waiting for G. E: (Despairingly), Ah! (Pause) You're sure it was here ?

What?

That we were to wait.

He said by the tree. (They look at the tree) Do you see any others?

What is it?

I don't know. A willow.

Where are the leaves?

It must be dead.

No more weeping.

Or perhaps it's not the season.

Looks to me more like a bush.

A shrub

A bush

What are you insinuating? That we've come to the wrong place.

He should be here.

He didn't say for sure he'd come.

And if he doesn't come?

We will come back tomorrow.

And then the day after tomorrow.

Possibly.

And so on.

The point is.

Until he comes.

You're merciless.

We came here yesterday.

Ah no, there you're mistaken.

What did we do yesterday?

What did we do yesterday?

Yes.

Why.... (Angrily) Nothing is certain when you're about.

In my opinion we were here.

(Looking round) You recognise the place?

I didn't say that.

Well?

That makes no difference.

All the same....that tree.... (turning round the auditorium)....that bog.

Identify the key areas of conflict in the conversation by focusing on the opposites.

Comment on the style of minimal language used by the dramatist.

How does the scene reflect an absurdity?

How does the playwright succeed in subverting the audiences' comfortable illusions?

How do the characters express a universal theme through their conversation?

Father, when he passed on left dust on a table full of papers left debts and daughters a bed-wetting grandson named by the toss of a coin after him,

How does the narrator describe his father?

Which are the subliminal expressions that reveal the attitude of the narrator?

Comment on the imagery and irony expressed.