UGC NET English November 2017
ENGLISH PAPER - II
19. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is set in __________.
(A) Surinam
(B) Abyssinia
(C) Egypt
(D) Assyria
Oroonoko is a short novel written by English author Aphra Behn (1640-89) and
published in 1688.
Oroonoko’s tale is told from the perspective of a female narrator, possibly Aphra
Behn herself. The narrator claims to have known Oroonoko during his captivity in
Suriname, South America. Suriname is a British colony at the time the narrative
takes place (the 1660s). As the novel’s full title announces, Oroonoko is not just any
old slave—he is the last descendant of a royal line, and the prince of an African
country called Coramantien (probably modern-day Ghana).
Oroonoko is the story of an African prince who deeply loves the beautiful Imoinda.
Unfortunately, his grandfather, the king, wants Imoinda also. Imoinda is eventually
sold as a slave and is taken to Suriname which is under British rule.
Oroonoko's tribe is a supplier for the slave trade. One day an English ship arrives
and the captain invites prince Oroonoko to come aboard for a meal and drinks. After
dinner, the captain takes advantage of Oroonoko's trust and takes Oroonoko and his
men prisoners. The ship then sets sail. When they arrive at their destination, Prince
Oroonoko is sold to a British gentleman named Trefry who likes and admires the
prince. As is the practice with all slaves, Oroonoko is renamed. His slave name is
Caesar. Oroonoko soon finds out that Imoinda is a slave on the same plantation, but
her slave name is now Clemene. They get back together and soon Imoinda finds out
that she is pregnant. Oroonoko tries to free his family because he does not want his
children born into slavery. His request is denied. He next leads a slave revolt but he
is betrayed and is badly beaten when he is caught. Finally, he decides that he would
rather see his family die quickly from his own hand than die the slow death of
slavery so he kills Clemene and the unborn child. He is about to kill himself but
decides to first have his revenge on those who would not give him his freedom.
Eventually he is caught and suffers a cruel and inhuman death.
20. Who published the first collected edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poems in 1918 ?
(A) Robert Bridges
(B) Coventry Patmore
(C) John Betjeman
(D) Stephen Spender
At the end of the first week of September, 1917, Robert Bridges wrote to Mrs.
Manley Hopkins, Gerard Hopkins’ mother: “I have had lately some very authoritative
appeals for the robert bridges publication of all Gerard’s poetical remains. The ‘Spirit
of Man’(1) has had a wide sale, and his poems in it have commanded a good deal of
attention.” He goes on to relate how that very afternoon he had met a man just arrived
from Petrograd who “was very urgent about having a complete edition.”(2) Just who
this man was and how he came to know of Hopkins and read his poetry remains a
mystery, but he obviously made a forceful impression upon Bridges, and it is
tempting to think that Bridges’ use of “urgent” might not be a euphemism for
justifiably stronger terms after twenty-nine years of a manifestly indifferent approach
to the printing of the poems. Indeed, Robert Bridges’ apparent grudging interest in the
publication of Hopkins’ poetry was for too many years neither very deep nor very
serious. He seems to have taken possession of Gerard’s verse, dealing with it in a
cavalier manner: at best careless and at worst controlling, and the truth is that
although it was Bridges who eventually completed the task of publishing Hopkins’
collected poetic works in 1918, he had done conspicuously little in the intervening
years since his friend’s death to make the poetry accessible to the reading public.
21. Samuel Richardson named his heroine Pamela after one of the characters in __________.
(A) Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene
(B) William Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
(C) Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
(D) Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Samuel Richardson named his heroine Pamela after one of the main characters in the
prose work The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia written by Sir Philip Sydney.
Pamela is the key character in Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Pamela: or,
Virtue Rewarded written in two volumes. Pamela Andrews or Pamela as she is called
is a 15-year old good looking maid servant who works for Mr B. As the story moves
ahead, in the second part, she marries him.
22. Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the pause from
seeing a popular American comedian. Which one ?
(A) Bob Hope
(B) W. C. Fields
(C) Jack Benny
(D) Charlie Chaplin
Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the
pause from seeing a popular American comedian. It’s Jack Benny. As Pinter said
in a lecture to students in 1962: “My characters tell me so much and no more
with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, and their
history.” But alongside that, he showed that theatrical poetry is not an ornate,
verbal appendage. He proved that it can be found in the banalities, repetitions,
evasions, and even hiatuses of everyday speech. He became famous for his use
of the pause, something he claimed to have learned from the comedian Jack
Benny. But for Pinter dramatic speech was also frequently a camouflage for
unexpressed, hidden emotion. “So often, below the word spoken is the thing
known and unspoken.”
1. Which novel did Harold Pinter borrow from the library in the 1950s and never return?
Beckett’s Murphy
2. Which newspaper wrote of The Birthday Party when it first appeared at the Lyric
Hammersmith in 1958: 'What all this means only Mr Pinter knows, for his characters
speak in non-sequiturs, half gibberish and lunatic ravings'? The Manchester Guardian
3. The tramp in Pinter’s first big hit, The Caretaker, often travels under an assumed
name. Is it: Bernard Jenkins
4. Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the pause
from seeing a popular American comedian. Which one? Jack Benny
5. The Homecoming ends with Ruth apparently agreeing to work as a prostitute and
provide sexual favours for her in-laws. But one dramatist questioned this, saying:
‘Harold, I’m sure, would never share anyone sexually. I would.’ Who was the
dramatist? Joe Orton
6. The film of The Servant was directed by Joseph Losey. But which director initially
bought the rights to Robin Maugham’s novella and commissioned a script from
Pinter? Michael Anderson
7. Which of Pinter’s plays, in its earliest draft form, had the following putative titles:
The Morning After, Faces in Shadow, A Sidelong Glance, The Photograph Album,
Long Ghosts, Closing Time? No Man’s Land
8. ‘I did not write a scene about a man masturbating his wife,’ said Pinter, publicly
objecting to a sexually explicit Italian production of Old Times. Can you identify the
director? Luchino Visconti
9. Which friend of Pinter’s, on being asked for an opinion of his two-line poem Another
Time, replied: ‘I haven’t finished reading it yet’? Simon Gray
10. For whom did Pinter volunteer to act as a speechwriter in his Nobel Prize acceptance
speech in 2005? George W Bush
23. Charles Dickens’s Bleak House is pointedly critical of England’s :
(A) Privy Council
(B) Court of Appeal
(C) Court of Chancery
(D) military courts
Bleak House, novel by Charles Dickens, published serially in 1852–53 and in
book form in 1853 and considered by some critics to be the author’s best work.
Bleak House is the story of several generations of the Jarndyce family who wait
in vain to inherit money from a disputed fortune in the settlement of the lawsuit
of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. It is pointedly critical of England’s Court of Chancery,
in which cases could drag on through decades of convoluted legal maneuvering.
18. Which of the following is NOT true of the ideal state in Thomas More’s Utopia ?
(1) Personal property, money and vice are effectively abolished.
(2) The root causes of crime, ambition and political conflict, are eliminated.
(3) There is only one religion guided by the principle of a benevolent
Supreme Being.
(4) Its priesthood, which includes some women, is limited in number.
• There is only one religion guided by the principle of a benevolent Supreme Being.
Utopia shelters numerous religions. The people therein have belief in a single god,
but the nature of that god is very different, ranging from a sort of animism, to
worship of an ancient hero, to worship of the sun or moon, to belief in a single
omnipotent, ineffable god. This last religion, according to Hyt-hloday, is in the
process of becoming dominant, though all the religions practice complete tolerance
of all the other religions. After Hythloday and his fellows spoke to the Utopians
about Christ, a good number converted and began to learn as much as they could.
These converts also were treated with the utmost respect by the faithful of other
Utopian religions. In fact, the only belief that is not tolerated is atheism, as it is seen
as immoral.
19. This Australian poet was raised in New South Wales and grew up in rural Australian
landscape. In 1946 she published her first book of poems. In 1962, she became cofounder and
president of the Wild Life Preservation Society of Queensland and served as its president several
times thereafter. Identify the poet.
(A) Dorothy Hewett
(B) Nettie Palmer
(C) Judith Wright
(D) Amy Witting
• Wright was born May 31, 1915, and raised outside Armidale in Australia’s most
populous state, New South Wales. She grew up in the rural Australian landscape, the
oldest child of three in a well-off and literate family. In 1946, the editor of Meanjin
published Wright’s first book of poems, The Moving Image, a major success in
Australian poetry. Two years before, Wright had met her husband, the philosopher J.
P. McKinney, who was a large influence on Wright’s work. Before McKinney died
in 1966, he and Wright became the parents of one daughter. In 1962, she became
cofounder and president of the Wild Life Preservation Society of Queensland and
served as its president several times thereafter. In this capacity she was instrumental
in the effort to save The Great Barrier Reef located off Australia’s northeastern
coast.
20. Which character created by Coleridge makes the following account of her harrowing
experience ?
“Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me,
even me, a maid forlorn :
They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white”.
(1) Geraldine
(2) Christabel
(3) Christabel’s mother
(4) The maid who appeared in Christabel’s dream
• The first part of Christabel poem By Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was written in the
year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset.
• The second part after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick,
Cumberland. It is probable that if the poem had been finished at either of the former
periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the
impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present
expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are
mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile
imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that
every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are
such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great and who would therefore
charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some
other man's tank. I am confident however, that as far as the present poem is
concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having
imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole,
would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking
coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggerel version of two
monkish Latin hexameters.
Yes mine and it is likewise yours;
But an if this will not do;
Let it be mine, good friend for I
Am the poorer of the two.
• I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking,
irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely,
that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may
vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four.
Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced
wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some
transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion.
My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
21. Which novel of Thomas Hardy begins with the sombre description of Egdon Heath ?
(1) Jude the Obscure (2) The Return of the Native
(3) Far from the Madding Crowd (4) Under the Greenwood Tree
• Egdon Heath is the fictional part of Wessex (also fictional) in which The Return
of the Native takes place. It is a large, uninhabited expanse covered with gorse and
heather and few trees.
• One of the most prominent figures in Hardy’s The Return of the Native is not a
human character, but the physical landmark- Egdon Heath. The heath's central role is
obvious from the beginning. The novel opens with an extensive description of the
heath at dusk. Hardy begins by saying: “A Saturday afternoon in November was
approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as
Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment”.
• Even though the main story focuses on the relationships between Eustacia Vye,
Clym Yeobright, Wildeve and Thomasin, the Heath is the central figure.
22. The metrical form of Gower’s Confessio Amantis is :
(1) iambic pentameter (2) anapestic trimeter
(3) octosyllabic couplets (4) trochaic tetrameter
• Confessio amantis, late 14th-century poem by John Gower. The Confessio (begun
about 1386) runs to some 33,000 lines in octosyllabic couplets and takes the form of
a collection of exemplary tales of love placed within the framework of a lover’s
confession to a priest of Venus. The priest, Genius, instructs the poet, Amans, in the
art of both courtly and Christian love.
23. What happens to the lock of hair at the end of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock ?
(1) It is given back to its rightful owner.
(2) It is preserved in a monument.
(3) It turns into a star.
(4) It is presented to the poet as a token of gratitude.
• The Rape of the Lock is a 'heroi-comical' mock-epic poem written by Alexander
Pope. The central character in the poem is Belinda, a young woman from the English
aristocracy who, up until the events of the poem, has led a carefree life of leisure and
maintained a good reputation. Belinda is considered a great beauty and is
particularly admired for the two curly locks of hair which hang down onto her neck.
A man known only as the Baron desires to take one of the locks so that he can boast
of its possession. With the help of his lady friend Clarissa, he cuts off one of the
locks. A fop named Sir Plume is sent to ask the Baron to give it back but the Baron
refuses. A fight ensues, during which the lock disappears, rises up into the sky and is
transformed into a star.
• The poem was inspired by real events. Lord Petre cut off a lock of hair from
Arabella Fermor. This led to a feud between the Petre abd Fermor families.
Alexander Pope was asked to write a poem about the events, in order to point out
how trivial the matter really was and to put an end to the feud.
24. The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. The above are examples of :
(1) anacoluthon (2) aposiopesis (3) asyndenton (4) antonomasia
• In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase
takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I.
Conversely, antonomasia can also be using a proper name as an archetypal name, to
express a generic idea.
• ANTONOMASIA The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. Ol’ Blue Eyes. When you
substitute a proper name for an epithet or a nickname, that’s antonomasia.
Rhetoric is often defined as “the art of language.” That might sound like a bit of a
cliché (which it is), but it’s actually quite a nice way of saying that rhetorical devices
and figures of speech can transform an ordinary piece of writing or an everyday
conversation into something much more memorable, evocative, and enjoyable.
Hundreds of different rhetorical techniques and turns of phrase have been identified
and described over the centuries—of which the 21 listed here are only a
fraction—but they’re all just as effective and just as useful when employed
successfully.
1. ADYNATON
You’ll no doubt have heard of hyperbole, in which an over-exaggeration is used for
rhetorical effect, like, “he’s as old as the hills,” “we died laughing,” or “hyperbole is
the best thing ever.” But adynaton is a particular form of hyperbole in which an
exaggeration is taken to a ridiculous and literally impossible extreme, like “when
pigs fly!” or “when Hell freezes over!”
2. ANACOLUTHON
Often used in literature to create a stream-of-consciousness style in which a
character’s thoughts flit from one idea to the next, anacoluthon describes a sudden
and unexpected break in a sentence that leads to it being concluded in a different
way than might have been expected. Although it can sometimes be due to nothing
more than a speaker losing their train of thought, in practice anacoluthon can also be
OH MY GOD I’VE LEFT THE GAS ON.
3. ANADIPLOSIS
Anadiplosis is an ingenious and memorable rhetorical device in which a repeated
word or phrase is used both at the end of one sentence or clause and at the beginning
of the next. As with practically all rhetorical devices, William Shakespeare liked
using it (“She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not
offended the king”), but you can thank George Lucas for what is now probably the
best-known example: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to
suffering.”
4. ANTHYPOPHORA
You know when you pose a question for dramatic effect and then immediately
answer it yourself? That’s anthypophora.
5. ANTIMERIA
If you’ve ever friended or texted someone, emailed or DMed something, tabled a
meeting or motorwayed your way across country, then you’ll be familiar with
antimeria, a rhetorical device in which an existing word is used as if it were a
different part of speech. More often than not this involves using a noun as if it were a
verb, a semantic process better known as “verbing” (which is actually a perfect
example of itself). Slang (and modern English in general, for that matter) loves
antimeria, but it is Shakespeare who remains the undisputed master of it. Cake, drug,
kitchen, squabble, ghost, blanket, graze, elbow, and crank were all only ever used as
nouns before he got hold of them.
6. ANTIPROSOPOPOEIA
Prosopopoeia is just a more formal name for personification, in which inanimate
objects are either described in human terms or given human characteristics. The
opposite of that is antiprosopopoeia, a figure of speech in which a person is
compared to an inanimate object. That might sound odd, but it’s actually a very
effective form of metaphor able to confer a great deal of detail or information in a
clever and often witty way—think about what it means to call someone a doormat, a
tank, a firecracker, a mattress, or a garbage disposal and you’ll see precisely how
effective it can be.
7. ANTONOMASIA
The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. Ol’ Blue Eyes. When you substitute a proper
name for an epithet or a nickname, that’s antonomasia.
8. APOSIOPESIS
In Act 2 of King Lear, the eponymous king rages against two of his daughters in a
disjointed speech that ends with the famous lines, “I will have such revenges on you
both that all the world shall—I will do such things—what they are yet, I know not,
but they shall be the terrors of the earth!” The point at which Lear’s threat of revenge
trails off, restarts, and trails off again is a perfect example of aposiopesis, a rhetorical
ploy in which an idea is left unsaid or a sentence is left incomplete purely for
emphatic effect. Why I oughta…
9. ASTERISMOS
Right. Okay. Here goes. Asterismos is the use of a seemingly unnecessary word or
phrase to introduce what you’re about to say. Semantically it’s fairly pointless to say
something like “listen!” before you start talking to someone, because they are (or at
least should be) already listening. Rhetorically, however, asterismos is a seriously
clever way of subconsciously drawing attention to what you’re about to say.
10. ASYNDETON
“We got there, the weather was bad, we didn’t stay long, we got back in the car, we
came home, end of story.” When you deliberately miss out the conjunctions between
successive clauses, you’re left with a choppy and abrupt series of phrases that
energetically push things forward, an effect properly known as asyndeton. The
opposite is called polysyndeton, when you add more conjunctions to a phrase or
clause than are strictly necessary, often with the effect of intentionally dragging it
out: “We ate and drank and talked and laughed and talked and laughed and ate some
more.”
11. CHIASMUS
Apart from the fact that it’s part of a great speech, one of the reasons why John F.
Kennedy’s famous “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country” line is so striking is that is a fine example of chiasmus, a clever
rhetorical formation in which the order of a pair of words or phrases in one clause
(your country, you) is inverted in the next (you, your country). This gives a rhythmic
and instantly memorable criss-cross pattern, AB-BA, which appropriately enough
takes its name from the X-shaped Greek letter chi.
12. CONGERY
Congery is a form of tautology, the rhetorical use of repetition. It refers to a writer or
speaker using a number of different and successive words or phrases that all
effectively mean the same thing, purely to emphasise the point. That’s it. That’s all.
Done. Finished. Finito.
13. DIALOGISMUS
In a dialogismus, a speaker either imagines what someone or something else might
be thinking (“I bet that guy’s thinking, ‘what am I doing here?’”), or else
paraphrases someone’s earlier words (“‘Don’t worry!’ she told me. ‘Everything will
be fine!’”). In either case, the speaker ends up talking not as themselves just for
rhetorical effect.
14. DYSPHEMISM
If a euphemism is a nicer turn of phrase used in place of a more offensive or
embarrassing one (like “call of nature” or “bought the farm”), then a dysphemism is
an offensive or detrimental phrase deliberately used in place of a nicer one. This
applies to everything from using an insult instead of someone’s name, to phrases like
frankenfood and junk food that try to influence what we should think of genetically
modified crops and take-out restaurants with just a few choice words.
15. EUTREPISMUS
First, we need to explain what this is. Second, we need to show how it works. And
third, we need to explain what it achieves. Eutrepismus is the numbering or ordering
of a series of phrases that are all under consideration, and it’s used to structure
arguments and speeches more clearly, making them easier for an audience to take in
and follow your train of thought.
16. EXPEDITIO
An expeditio is that instantly recognisable figure of speech in which you list a
number of alternatives, and then proceed to eliminate all but one of them. “We can
go for Italian, Mexican, or Chinese. But I had Chinese last night and you hate garlic,
so it’s going to have to be Mexican.”
17. HYPOCATASTASIS
When you say that something is like something else (“as busy as a bee”), that’s a
simile. When you say that something actually is something else (“a heart of stone”)
that’s a metaphor. But when you just go all out and label something as something
that it actually isn’t (“You chicken!”), that’s a hypocatastasis.
18. PLEONASM
When you use more words than are in actual fact absolutely really strictly necessary
in order to communicate and make your point effectively and efficiently, that’s a
pleonasm. It needn’t be as clumsy and as long-winded as that, of course, and more
often than not the term pleonasm is used to apply to what is otherwise called
“semantic redundancy,” in which extra qualifying words are used to force a point
home—like “empty space,” “boiling hot,” or “totally unique.”
19. SYNECDOCHE
A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part or component of something is
used to represent that whole—like calling a car your “wheels,” the staff of a
company the “hands,” or the film industry as a whole “Hollywood.”
20. TMESIS
Tmesis is the proper name for that fan-bloody-tastic technique of splitting a word in
half by inserting another word inside it. More often than not, the word being inserted
in the other is a swearword (you can provide your own examples for that), but it
needn’t always be—tmesis can be used any-old-how you like.
21. ZEUGMA
There are several different forms and definitions of precisely what a zeugma is, but
in basic terms it describes a figure of speech in which one word (usually, but not
always, a verb) governs or is directly related to two or more other words in the same
sentence. So you can run out of time, and out of the room. You can have a go, and a
laugh. And, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, you can go home in floods of tears and a
sedan-chair.
25. Which of the following novels by Margaret Atwood depicts the historical event of the
notorious murders committed in 1843 ?
(1) The Blind Assassin (2) Alias Grace
(3) Cats Eye (4) Oryx and Crake
• Alias Grace is a novel of historical fiction by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.
First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Canadian Giller Prize
and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story fictionalizes the notorious 1843
murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper
Canada. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James
McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was
sentenced to life imprisonment.
26. Which of the following poems by W. B. Yeats repudiates the sensual world in favour of
“the artifice of eternity”?
(1) “Under Ben Bulben” (2) “Among School Children”
(3) “Sailing to Byzantium” (4) “After Long Silence”
• "Sailing to Byzantium" is one of Yeats's most inspired works, and one of the
greatest poems of the twentieth century. It is Yeats's definitive statement about the
agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital
individual even when the heart is "fastened to a dying animal" (the body). Yeats's
solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the
sages in the city's famous gold mosaics (completed mainly during the sixth and
seventh centuries) could become the "singing-masters" of his soul. He hopes the
sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside
time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in "the artifice of eternity." In the
astonishing final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he
will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a
golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past ("what is past"), the present
(that which is "passing"), and the future (that which is "to come").
27. Which of the following characters in Moby Dick falls overboard and turns insane as a
result?
(1) Pip (2) Queequeg (3) Starbuck (4) Tashtego
• Pip, a young black boy, character in Moby Dick, who fills the role of a cabin boy
or jester on the Pequod. Pip has a minimal role in the beginning of the narrative but
becomes important when he goes insane after being left to drift alone in the sea for
some time.
• Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman
Melville. The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab,
captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white
sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee.
• Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was
out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great
American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its
author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself,[1]
and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the
world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".[2] Its opening sentence, "Call
me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
28. Which of the following poems by Seamus Heaney is dedicated to the Irish poet Paul
Muldoon ?
(1) “The Loaning” (2) “The Sandpit” (3) “A Migration” (4) “Widgeon”
• The poem is ‘Widgeon’ in the collection Station Island (1984). Heaney helped the
young Paul Muldoon get published after first meeting him in the late 1960s. His
poem, in which a bird is unnaturally made to sing, may be a comment on the forced
lyricism of Muldoon’s verse.
• Muldoon doesn’t only produce responses to the medieval in reaction to Heaney :
‘Immram’ from Muldoon’s previous volume Why Brownlee Left has debts to the
medieval Irish Imram Curaig Maile Duin (Voyag of Muldoon) via Tennyson, and (as
Heaney notes) Yeats. There may be another response to Heaney’s versions of the
medieval in Muldoon’s brief poem ‘The Briefcase’, a poem dedicated to Heany and
a matching pair for Heaney’s ‘Widgeon’ (dedicate to Muldoon).
29. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies which of the following characters is put to death ?
(1) Piggy (2) Ralph (3) Simon (4) Jack
• All of the characters in Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, are young boys
ranging in age from five or six to about thirteen. They are on an island after a plane
crash, and there are no adults to who they must answer. This environment provides
the opportunity for almost anything to happen, including murder. Three boys lose
their lives in the course of this novel.
• The first boy dies in a fire. Early in the story, the boys, in their enthusiasm, light a
fire that gets out of control. The fire becomes a conflagration which consumes a lot
of land plus a little boy with a mulberry birthmark. If he had not had this distinctive
marking, it is possible no one would have missed him.
• The second death on the island is Simon's. On a dark, stormy night, Simon crawls
out of the forest and tries to warn the others that they are the thing they should be
most afraid of--they are the only beasts on the island. In a frenzied moment, all of
the boys kill Simon, something they would probably not have done in different
circumstances.
• Piggy is the last boy to die on the island. His death, unlike the other two, is
deliberate. Roger murder Piggy by dropping a huge boulder on him, crushing both
Piggy and the conch.
• Undoubtedly Ralph would have been the next boy to die if they had not been
rescued. Ralph weeps for "end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart" at the end
of the novel. Though the boys will leave the island, what happened to all of the boys-
-and particularly the three who died--will undoubtedly never be forgotten.
• Piggy dies after he asks whether it is better to have rules or hunt and kill. After
asking this question, Roger rolls a boulder onto him. Simon dies after his
conversation with the Lord of the Flies, when he finds out the beast is inside all the
boys. Excited by their hunt, the other boys kill Simon as he tries to explain his
finding. The other boy who dies on the island is the boy with the mulberry
birthmark.
30. In Canterbury Tales who has a red face full of sores ?
(1) the Summoner (2) the Shipman (3) the Yeoman (4) the Reeve
• In Canterbury Tales, the Summoner, had a red face full of sores, ate onions, and
drank too much. He took bribes, carried a cake around like a shield, and wore a
garland of flowe...
• Pardoner of the General Prologue. He is depicted as smooth, delicate, lady-like
and honey-tongued, duplicitous in his supposedly holy dealings, extremely rich from
his deceitful profession and as a man whose very being is totally incongruous with
his career as a servant of the Church.
31. The pace of speech is called :
(1) syllable (2) loudness (3) tempo (4) pitch
32. Match the title with the author :
(a) Sexual Politics (i) Mary Ellman
(b)A Literature of Their Own (ii) Elaine Showalter
(c) Thinking About Women (iii) Helene Cixous
(d)The Laugh of the Medusa (iv) Kate Millet
Code :
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(1) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(2) (iv) (ii) (i) (iii)
(3) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
33. Which of the following historical events does Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light
Brigade” describe ?
(1) The Battle of Hastings (2) The Wars of the Roses
(3) The Battle of Waterloo (4) The Crimean War
34. Northrop Frye’s influential work, Anatomy of Criticism includes, as the subtitle
indicates, four essays. Which of the following is NOT one among them ?
(1) “Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths”
(2) “Typological Criticism: Theory of Types”
(3) “Historical Criticism : Theory of Modes”
(4) “Ethical Criticism : Theory of Symbols”
35. “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. The above is an example of :
(1) ploce (2) epizeuxis (3) plurisignation (4) diaeresis
36. In Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto”, with which of the following painters does
Andrea NOTcompare himself with ?
(1) Michelangelo (2) Leonardo da Vinci
(3) Rembrandt (4) Raphael
37. In Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels Gulliver refers to William Dampier, the famous
writer of two voyages, as :
(1) master (2) brother (3) cousin (4) uncle
38. Who among the following is NOT a character in Pride and prejudice ?
(1) Mr. Darcy (2) Miss Bingley (3) Miss Bates (4) Mr. Collins
39. “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players”,
occurs in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Which character says the line ?
(1) Jacques (2) Celia (3) Rosalind (4) Touchstone
40. Which of the following rivers are mentioned in Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy
Mistress” ?
(1) Thames and Rhine (2) Thames and Ganges
(3) Ganges and Humber (4) Thames and Humber
41. Which of the following images is NOT part of W.H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B.
Yeats” ?
(1) Mercury sinking in the mouth of the dying day
(2) Wolves running through evergreen forests
(3) Silence invading the suburbs
(4) Memory scattering like the beads
42. Who among the following is the author of Steps to the Temple ?
(1) John Donne (2) Richard Crashaw
(3) George Herbert (4) Henry Vaughan
43. Match the character with the work :
(a) Jim Dixon (i) Room at the Top 3
(b)Jimmy Porter (ii) Hurry on Down 4
(c) Joe Lampton (iii) Look Back In Anger 2
(d)Charles Lumley (iv) Lucky Jim 1
Code :
(a ) (b) (c) (d)
(1) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(2) (iv) (iii) (ii) (i)
(3) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
44. In the opening book of The Prelude Wordsworth mentions famously that he was
“fostered alike by and ”. Pick out the right pair.
(a) nature
(b)fear
(c) imagination
(d)beauty
The right combination according to the code is :
(1) (a) and (c) (2) (d) and (b) (3) (d) and (c) (4) (a) and (d)
45. The title of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood is derived from a poem by Derek
Walcott. Identify the poem.
(1) “A Far Cry from Africa” (2) “The Swamp”
(3) “Goats and Monkeys” (4) “Midsummer”
46. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is set in __________.
(A) Surinam (B) Abyssinia (C) Egypt (D) Assyria
ENGLISH PAPER - II
19. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is set in __________.
(A) Surinam
(B) Abyssinia
(C) Egypt
(D) Assyria
Oroonoko is a short novel written by English author Aphra Behn (1640-89) and
published in 1688.
Oroonoko’s tale is told from the perspective of a female narrator, possibly Aphra
Behn herself. The narrator claims to have known Oroonoko during his captivity in
Suriname, South America. Suriname is a British colony at the time the narrative
takes place (the 1660s). As the novel’s full title announces, Oroonoko is not just any
old slave—he is the last descendant of a royal line, and the prince of an African
country called Coramantien (probably modern-day Ghana).
Oroonoko is the story of an African prince who deeply loves the beautiful Imoinda.
Unfortunately, his grandfather, the king, wants Imoinda also. Imoinda is eventually
sold as a slave and is taken to Suriname which is under British rule.
Oroonoko's tribe is a supplier for the slave trade. One day an English ship arrives
and the captain invites prince Oroonoko to come aboard for a meal and drinks. After
dinner, the captain takes advantage of Oroonoko's trust and takes Oroonoko and his
men prisoners. The ship then sets sail. When they arrive at their destination, Prince
Oroonoko is sold to a British gentleman named Trefry who likes and admires the
prince. As is the practice with all slaves, Oroonoko is renamed. His slave name is
Caesar. Oroonoko soon finds out that Imoinda is a slave on the same plantation, but
her slave name is now Clemene. They get back together and soon Imoinda finds out
that she is pregnant. Oroonoko tries to free his family because he does not want his
children born into slavery. His request is denied. He next leads a slave revolt but he
is betrayed and is badly beaten when he is caught. Finally, he decides that he would
rather see his family die quickly from his own hand than die the slow death of
slavery so he kills Clemene and the unborn child. He is about to kill himself but
decides to first have his revenge on those who would not give him his freedom.
Eventually he is caught and suffers a cruel and inhuman death.
20. Who published the first collected edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poems in 1918 ?
(A) Robert Bridges
(B) Coventry Patmore
(C) John Betjeman
(D) Stephen Spender
At the end of the first week of September, 1917, Robert Bridges wrote to Mrs.
Manley Hopkins, Gerard Hopkins’ mother: “I have had lately some very authoritative
appeals for the robert bridges publication of all Gerard’s poetical remains. The ‘Spirit
of Man’(1) has had a wide sale, and his poems in it have commanded a good deal of
attention.” He goes on to relate how that very afternoon he had met a man just arrived
from Petrograd who “was very urgent about having a complete edition.”(2) Just who
this man was and how he came to know of Hopkins and read his poetry remains a
mystery, but he obviously made a forceful impression upon Bridges, and it is
tempting to think that Bridges’ use of “urgent” might not be a euphemism for
justifiably stronger terms after twenty-nine years of a manifestly indifferent approach
to the printing of the poems. Indeed, Robert Bridges’ apparent grudging interest in the
publication of Hopkins’ poetry was for too many years neither very deep nor very
serious. He seems to have taken possession of Gerard’s verse, dealing with it in a
cavalier manner: at best careless and at worst controlling, and the truth is that
although it was Bridges who eventually completed the task of publishing Hopkins’
collected poetic works in 1918, he had done conspicuously little in the intervening
years since his friend’s death to make the poetry accessible to the reading public.
21. Samuel Richardson named his heroine Pamela after one of the characters in __________.
(A) Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene
(B) William Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
(C) Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
(D) Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Samuel Richardson named his heroine Pamela after one of the main characters in the
prose work The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia written by Sir Philip Sydney.
Pamela is the key character in Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Pamela: or,
Virtue Rewarded written in two volumes. Pamela Andrews or Pamela as she is called
is a 15-year old good looking maid servant who works for Mr B. As the story moves
ahead, in the second part, she marries him.
22. Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the pause from
seeing a popular American comedian. Which one ?
(A) Bob Hope
(B) W. C. Fields
(C) Jack Benny
(D) Charlie Chaplin
Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the
pause from seeing a popular American comedian. It’s Jack Benny. As Pinter said
in a lecture to students in 1962: “My characters tell me so much and no more
with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, and their
history.” But alongside that, he showed that theatrical poetry is not an ornate,
verbal appendage. He proved that it can be found in the banalities, repetitions,
evasions, and even hiatuses of everyday speech. He became famous for his use
of the pause, something he claimed to have learned from the comedian Jack
Benny. But for Pinter dramatic speech was also frequently a camouflage for
unexpressed, hidden emotion. “So often, below the word spoken is the thing
known and unspoken.”
1. Which novel did Harold Pinter borrow from the library in the 1950s and never return?
Beckett’s Murphy
2. Which newspaper wrote of The Birthday Party when it first appeared at the Lyric
Hammersmith in 1958: 'What all this means only Mr Pinter knows, for his characters
speak in non-sequiturs, half gibberish and lunatic ravings'? The Manchester Guardian
3. The tramp in Pinter’s first big hit, The Caretaker, often travels under an assumed
name. Is it: Bernard Jenkins
4. Pinter once admitted that he first became aware of the dramatic power of the pause
from seeing a popular American comedian. Which one? Jack Benny
5. The Homecoming ends with Ruth apparently agreeing to work as a prostitute and
provide sexual favours for her in-laws. But one dramatist questioned this, saying:
‘Harold, I’m sure, would never share anyone sexually. I would.’ Who was the
dramatist? Joe Orton
6. The film of The Servant was directed by Joseph Losey. But which director initially
bought the rights to Robin Maugham’s novella and commissioned a script from
Pinter? Michael Anderson
7. Which of Pinter’s plays, in its earliest draft form, had the following putative titles:
The Morning After, Faces in Shadow, A Sidelong Glance, The Photograph Album,
Long Ghosts, Closing Time? No Man’s Land
8. ‘I did not write a scene about a man masturbating his wife,’ said Pinter, publicly
objecting to a sexually explicit Italian production of Old Times. Can you identify the
director? Luchino Visconti
9. Which friend of Pinter’s, on being asked for an opinion of his two-line poem Another
Time, replied: ‘I haven’t finished reading it yet’? Simon Gray
10. For whom did Pinter volunteer to act as a speechwriter in his Nobel Prize acceptance
speech in 2005? George W Bush
23. Charles Dickens’s Bleak House is pointedly critical of England’s :
(A) Privy Council
(B) Court of Appeal
(C) Court of Chancery
(D) military courts
Bleak House, novel by Charles Dickens, published serially in 1852–53 and in
book form in 1853 and considered by some critics to be the author’s best work.
Bleak House is the story of several generations of the Jarndyce family who wait
in vain to inherit money from a disputed fortune in the settlement of the lawsuit
of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. It is pointedly critical of England’s Court of Chancery,
in which cases could drag on through decades of convoluted legal maneuvering.
18. Which of the following is NOT true of the ideal state in Thomas More’s Utopia ?
(1) Personal property, money and vice are effectively abolished.
(2) The root causes of crime, ambition and political conflict, are eliminated.
(3) There is only one religion guided by the principle of a benevolent
Supreme Being.
(4) Its priesthood, which includes some women, is limited in number.
• There is only one religion guided by the principle of a benevolent Supreme Being.
Utopia shelters numerous religions. The people therein have belief in a single god,
but the nature of that god is very different, ranging from a sort of animism, to
worship of an ancient hero, to worship of the sun or moon, to belief in a single
omnipotent, ineffable god. This last religion, according to Hyt-hloday, is in the
process of becoming dominant, though all the religions practice complete tolerance
of all the other religions. After Hythloday and his fellows spoke to the Utopians
about Christ, a good number converted and began to learn as much as they could.
These converts also were treated with the utmost respect by the faithful of other
Utopian religions. In fact, the only belief that is not tolerated is atheism, as it is seen
as immoral.
19. This Australian poet was raised in New South Wales and grew up in rural Australian
landscape. In 1946 she published her first book of poems. In 1962, she became cofounder and
president of the Wild Life Preservation Society of Queensland and served as its president several
times thereafter. Identify the poet.
(A) Dorothy Hewett
(B) Nettie Palmer
(C) Judith Wright
(D) Amy Witting
• Wright was born May 31, 1915, and raised outside Armidale in Australia’s most
populous state, New South Wales. She grew up in the rural Australian landscape, the
oldest child of three in a well-off and literate family. In 1946, the editor of Meanjin
published Wright’s first book of poems, The Moving Image, a major success in
Australian poetry. Two years before, Wright had met her husband, the philosopher J.
P. McKinney, who was a large influence on Wright’s work. Before McKinney died
in 1966, he and Wright became the parents of one daughter. In 1962, she became
cofounder and president of the Wild Life Preservation Society of Queensland and
served as its president several times thereafter. In this capacity she was instrumental
in the effort to save The Great Barrier Reef located off Australia’s northeastern
coast.
20. Which character created by Coleridge makes the following account of her harrowing
experience ?
“Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me,
even me, a maid forlorn :
They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white”.
(1) Geraldine
(2) Christabel
(3) Christabel’s mother
(4) The maid who appeared in Christabel’s dream
• The first part of Christabel poem By Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was written in the
year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset.
• The second part after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick,
Cumberland. It is probable that if the poem had been finished at either of the former
periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the
impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present
expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are
mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile
imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that
every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are
such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great and who would therefore
charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some
other man's tank. I am confident however, that as far as the present poem is
concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having
imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole,
would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking
coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggerel version of two
monkish Latin hexameters.
Yes mine and it is likewise yours;
But an if this will not do;
Let it be mine, good friend for I
Am the poorer of the two.
• I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking,
irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely,
that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may
vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four.
Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced
wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some
transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion.
My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
21. Which novel of Thomas Hardy begins with the sombre description of Egdon Heath ?
(1) Jude the Obscure (2) The Return of the Native
(3) Far from the Madding Crowd (4) Under the Greenwood Tree
• Egdon Heath is the fictional part of Wessex (also fictional) in which The Return
of the Native takes place. It is a large, uninhabited expanse covered with gorse and
heather and few trees.
• One of the most prominent figures in Hardy’s The Return of the Native is not a
human character, but the physical landmark- Egdon Heath. The heath's central role is
obvious from the beginning. The novel opens with an extensive description of the
heath at dusk. Hardy begins by saying: “A Saturday afternoon in November was
approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as
Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment”.
• Even though the main story focuses on the relationships between Eustacia Vye,
Clym Yeobright, Wildeve and Thomasin, the Heath is the central figure.
22. The metrical form of Gower’s Confessio Amantis is :
(1) iambic pentameter (2) anapestic trimeter
(3) octosyllabic couplets (4) trochaic tetrameter
• Confessio amantis, late 14th-century poem by John Gower. The Confessio (begun
about 1386) runs to some 33,000 lines in octosyllabic couplets and takes the form of
a collection of exemplary tales of love placed within the framework of a lover’s
confession to a priest of Venus. The priest, Genius, instructs the poet, Amans, in the
art of both courtly and Christian love.
23. What happens to the lock of hair at the end of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock ?
(1) It is given back to its rightful owner.
(2) It is preserved in a monument.
(3) It turns into a star.
(4) It is presented to the poet as a token of gratitude.
• The Rape of the Lock is a 'heroi-comical' mock-epic poem written by Alexander
Pope. The central character in the poem is Belinda, a young woman from the English
aristocracy who, up until the events of the poem, has led a carefree life of leisure and
maintained a good reputation. Belinda is considered a great beauty and is
particularly admired for the two curly locks of hair which hang down onto her neck.
A man known only as the Baron desires to take one of the locks so that he can boast
of its possession. With the help of his lady friend Clarissa, he cuts off one of the
locks. A fop named Sir Plume is sent to ask the Baron to give it back but the Baron
refuses. A fight ensues, during which the lock disappears, rises up into the sky and is
transformed into a star.
• The poem was inspired by real events. Lord Petre cut off a lock of hair from
Arabella Fermor. This led to a feud between the Petre abd Fermor families.
Alexander Pope was asked to write a poem about the events, in order to point out
how trivial the matter really was and to put an end to the feud.
24. The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. The above are examples of :
(1) anacoluthon (2) aposiopesis (3) asyndenton (4) antonomasia
• In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase
takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I.
Conversely, antonomasia can also be using a proper name as an archetypal name, to
express a generic idea.
• ANTONOMASIA The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. Ol’ Blue Eyes. When you
substitute a proper name for an epithet or a nickname, that’s antonomasia.
Rhetoric is often defined as “the art of language.” That might sound like a bit of a
cliché (which it is), but it’s actually quite a nice way of saying that rhetorical devices
and figures of speech can transform an ordinary piece of writing or an everyday
conversation into something much more memorable, evocative, and enjoyable.
Hundreds of different rhetorical techniques and turns of phrase have been identified
and described over the centuries—of which the 21 listed here are only a
fraction—but they’re all just as effective and just as useful when employed
successfully.
1. ADYNATON
You’ll no doubt have heard of hyperbole, in which an over-exaggeration is used for
rhetorical effect, like, “he’s as old as the hills,” “we died laughing,” or “hyperbole is
the best thing ever.” But adynaton is a particular form of hyperbole in which an
exaggeration is taken to a ridiculous and literally impossible extreme, like “when
pigs fly!” or “when Hell freezes over!”
2. ANACOLUTHON
Often used in literature to create a stream-of-consciousness style in which a
character’s thoughts flit from one idea to the next, anacoluthon describes a sudden
and unexpected break in a sentence that leads to it being concluded in a different
way than might have been expected. Although it can sometimes be due to nothing
more than a speaker losing their train of thought, in practice anacoluthon can also be
OH MY GOD I’VE LEFT THE GAS ON.
3. ANADIPLOSIS
Anadiplosis is an ingenious and memorable rhetorical device in which a repeated
word or phrase is used both at the end of one sentence or clause and at the beginning
of the next. As with practically all rhetorical devices, William Shakespeare liked
using it (“She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not
offended the king”), but you can thank George Lucas for what is now probably the
best-known example: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to
suffering.”
4. ANTHYPOPHORA
You know when you pose a question for dramatic effect and then immediately
answer it yourself? That’s anthypophora.
5. ANTIMERIA
If you’ve ever friended or texted someone, emailed or DMed something, tabled a
meeting or motorwayed your way across country, then you’ll be familiar with
antimeria, a rhetorical device in which an existing word is used as if it were a
different part of speech. More often than not this involves using a noun as if it were a
verb, a semantic process better known as “verbing” (which is actually a perfect
example of itself). Slang (and modern English in general, for that matter) loves
antimeria, but it is Shakespeare who remains the undisputed master of it. Cake, drug,
kitchen, squabble, ghost, blanket, graze, elbow, and crank were all only ever used as
nouns before he got hold of them.
6. ANTIPROSOPOPOEIA
Prosopopoeia is just a more formal name for personification, in which inanimate
objects are either described in human terms or given human characteristics. The
opposite of that is antiprosopopoeia, a figure of speech in which a person is
compared to an inanimate object. That might sound odd, but it’s actually a very
effective form of metaphor able to confer a great deal of detail or information in a
clever and often witty way—think about what it means to call someone a doormat, a
tank, a firecracker, a mattress, or a garbage disposal and you’ll see precisely how
effective it can be.
7. ANTONOMASIA
The Bard. The Iron Lady. The King. Ol’ Blue Eyes. When you substitute a proper
name for an epithet or a nickname, that’s antonomasia.
8. APOSIOPESIS
In Act 2 of King Lear, the eponymous king rages against two of his daughters in a
disjointed speech that ends with the famous lines, “I will have such revenges on you
both that all the world shall—I will do such things—what they are yet, I know not,
but they shall be the terrors of the earth!” The point at which Lear’s threat of revenge
trails off, restarts, and trails off again is a perfect example of aposiopesis, a rhetorical
ploy in which an idea is left unsaid or a sentence is left incomplete purely for
emphatic effect. Why I oughta…
9. ASTERISMOS
Right. Okay. Here goes. Asterismos is the use of a seemingly unnecessary word or
phrase to introduce what you’re about to say. Semantically it’s fairly pointless to say
something like “listen!” before you start talking to someone, because they are (or at
least should be) already listening. Rhetorically, however, asterismos is a seriously
clever way of subconsciously drawing attention to what you’re about to say.
10. ASYNDETON
“We got there, the weather was bad, we didn’t stay long, we got back in the car, we
came home, end of story.” When you deliberately miss out the conjunctions between
successive clauses, you’re left with a choppy and abrupt series of phrases that
energetically push things forward, an effect properly known as asyndeton. The
opposite is called polysyndeton, when you add more conjunctions to a phrase or
clause than are strictly necessary, often with the effect of intentionally dragging it
out: “We ate and drank and talked and laughed and talked and laughed and ate some
more.”
11. CHIASMUS
Apart from the fact that it’s part of a great speech, one of the reasons why John F.
Kennedy’s famous “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country” line is so striking is that is a fine example of chiasmus, a clever
rhetorical formation in which the order of a pair of words or phrases in one clause
(your country, you) is inverted in the next (you, your country). This gives a rhythmic
and instantly memorable criss-cross pattern, AB-BA, which appropriately enough
takes its name from the X-shaped Greek letter chi.
12. CONGERY
Congery is a form of tautology, the rhetorical use of repetition. It refers to a writer or
speaker using a number of different and successive words or phrases that all
effectively mean the same thing, purely to emphasise the point. That’s it. That’s all.
Done. Finished. Finito.
13. DIALOGISMUS
In a dialogismus, a speaker either imagines what someone or something else might
be thinking (“I bet that guy’s thinking, ‘what am I doing here?’”), or else
paraphrases someone’s earlier words (“‘Don’t worry!’ she told me. ‘Everything will
be fine!’”). In either case, the speaker ends up talking not as themselves just for
rhetorical effect.
14. DYSPHEMISM
If a euphemism is a nicer turn of phrase used in place of a more offensive or
embarrassing one (like “call of nature” or “bought the farm”), then a dysphemism is
an offensive or detrimental phrase deliberately used in place of a nicer one. This
applies to everything from using an insult instead of someone’s name, to phrases like
frankenfood and junk food that try to influence what we should think of genetically
modified crops and take-out restaurants with just a few choice words.
15. EUTREPISMUS
First, we need to explain what this is. Second, we need to show how it works. And
third, we need to explain what it achieves. Eutrepismus is the numbering or ordering
of a series of phrases that are all under consideration, and it’s used to structure
arguments and speeches more clearly, making them easier for an audience to take in
and follow your train of thought.
16. EXPEDITIO
An expeditio is that instantly recognisable figure of speech in which you list a
number of alternatives, and then proceed to eliminate all but one of them. “We can
go for Italian, Mexican, or Chinese. But I had Chinese last night and you hate garlic,
so it’s going to have to be Mexican.”
17. HYPOCATASTASIS
When you say that something is like something else (“as busy as a bee”), that’s a
simile. When you say that something actually is something else (“a heart of stone”)
that’s a metaphor. But when you just go all out and label something as something
that it actually isn’t (“You chicken!”), that’s a hypocatastasis.
18. PLEONASM
When you use more words than are in actual fact absolutely really strictly necessary
in order to communicate and make your point effectively and efficiently, that’s a
pleonasm. It needn’t be as clumsy and as long-winded as that, of course, and more
often than not the term pleonasm is used to apply to what is otherwise called
“semantic redundancy,” in which extra qualifying words are used to force a point
home—like “empty space,” “boiling hot,” or “totally unique.”
19. SYNECDOCHE
A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part or component of something is
used to represent that whole—like calling a car your “wheels,” the staff of a
company the “hands,” or the film industry as a whole “Hollywood.”
20. TMESIS
Tmesis is the proper name for that fan-bloody-tastic technique of splitting a word in
half by inserting another word inside it. More often than not, the word being inserted
in the other is a swearword (you can provide your own examples for that), but it
needn’t always be—tmesis can be used any-old-how you like.
21. ZEUGMA
There are several different forms and definitions of precisely what a zeugma is, but
in basic terms it describes a figure of speech in which one word (usually, but not
always, a verb) governs or is directly related to two or more other words in the same
sentence. So you can run out of time, and out of the room. You can have a go, and a
laugh. And, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, you can go home in floods of tears and a
sedan-chair.
25. Which of the following novels by Margaret Atwood depicts the historical event of the
notorious murders committed in 1843 ?
(1) The Blind Assassin (2) Alias Grace
(3) Cats Eye (4) Oryx and Crake
• Alias Grace is a novel of historical fiction by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.
First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Canadian Giller Prize
and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story fictionalizes the notorious 1843
murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper
Canada. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James
McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was
sentenced to life imprisonment.
26. Which of the following poems by W. B. Yeats repudiates the sensual world in favour of
“the artifice of eternity”?
(1) “Under Ben Bulben” (2) “Among School Children”
(3) “Sailing to Byzantium” (4) “After Long Silence”
• "Sailing to Byzantium" is one of Yeats's most inspired works, and one of the
greatest poems of the twentieth century. It is Yeats's definitive statement about the
agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital
individual even when the heart is "fastened to a dying animal" (the body). Yeats's
solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the
sages in the city's famous gold mosaics (completed mainly during the sixth and
seventh centuries) could become the "singing-masters" of his soul. He hopes the
sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside
time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in "the artifice of eternity." In the
astonishing final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he
will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a
golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past ("what is past"), the present
(that which is "passing"), and the future (that which is "to come").
27. Which of the following characters in Moby Dick falls overboard and turns insane as a
result?
(1) Pip (2) Queequeg (3) Starbuck (4) Tashtego
• Pip, a young black boy, character in Moby Dick, who fills the role of a cabin boy
or jester on the Pequod. Pip has a minimal role in the beginning of the narrative but
becomes important when he goes insane after being left to drift alone in the sea for
some time.
• Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman
Melville. The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab,
captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white
sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee.
• Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was
out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great
American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its
author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself,[1]
and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the
world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".[2] Its opening sentence, "Call
me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
28. Which of the following poems by Seamus Heaney is dedicated to the Irish poet Paul
Muldoon ?
(1) “The Loaning” (2) “The Sandpit” (3) “A Migration” (4) “Widgeon”
• The poem is ‘Widgeon’ in the collection Station Island (1984). Heaney helped the
young Paul Muldoon get published after first meeting him in the late 1960s. His
poem, in which a bird is unnaturally made to sing, may be a comment on the forced
lyricism of Muldoon’s verse.
• Muldoon doesn’t only produce responses to the medieval in reaction to Heaney :
‘Immram’ from Muldoon’s previous volume Why Brownlee Left has debts to the
medieval Irish Imram Curaig Maile Duin (Voyag of Muldoon) via Tennyson, and (as
Heaney notes) Yeats. There may be another response to Heaney’s versions of the
medieval in Muldoon’s brief poem ‘The Briefcase’, a poem dedicated to Heany and
a matching pair for Heaney’s ‘Widgeon’ (dedicate to Muldoon).
29. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies which of the following characters is put to death ?
(1) Piggy (2) Ralph (3) Simon (4) Jack
• All of the characters in Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, are young boys
ranging in age from five or six to about thirteen. They are on an island after a plane
crash, and there are no adults to who they must answer. This environment provides
the opportunity for almost anything to happen, including murder. Three boys lose
their lives in the course of this novel.
• The first boy dies in a fire. Early in the story, the boys, in their enthusiasm, light a
fire that gets out of control. The fire becomes a conflagration which consumes a lot
of land plus a little boy with a mulberry birthmark. If he had not had this distinctive
marking, it is possible no one would have missed him.
• The second death on the island is Simon's. On a dark, stormy night, Simon crawls
out of the forest and tries to warn the others that they are the thing they should be
most afraid of--they are the only beasts on the island. In a frenzied moment, all of
the boys kill Simon, something they would probably not have done in different
circumstances.
• Piggy is the last boy to die on the island. His death, unlike the other two, is
deliberate. Roger murder Piggy by dropping a huge boulder on him, crushing both
Piggy and the conch.
• Undoubtedly Ralph would have been the next boy to die if they had not been
rescued. Ralph weeps for "end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart" at the end
of the novel. Though the boys will leave the island, what happened to all of the boys-
-and particularly the three who died--will undoubtedly never be forgotten.
• Piggy dies after he asks whether it is better to have rules or hunt and kill. After
asking this question, Roger rolls a boulder onto him. Simon dies after his
conversation with the Lord of the Flies, when he finds out the beast is inside all the
boys. Excited by their hunt, the other boys kill Simon as he tries to explain his
finding. The other boy who dies on the island is the boy with the mulberry
birthmark.
30. In Canterbury Tales who has a red face full of sores ?
(1) the Summoner (2) the Shipman (3) the Yeoman (4) the Reeve
• In Canterbury Tales, the Summoner, had a red face full of sores, ate onions, and
drank too much. He took bribes, carried a cake around like a shield, and wore a
garland of flowe...
• Pardoner of the General Prologue. He is depicted as smooth, delicate, lady-like
and honey-tongued, duplicitous in his supposedly holy dealings, extremely rich from
his deceitful profession and as a man whose very being is totally incongruous with
his career as a servant of the Church.
31. The pace of speech is called :
(1) syllable (2) loudness (3) tempo (4) pitch
32. Match the title with the author :
(a) Sexual Politics (i) Mary Ellman
(b)A Literature of Their Own (ii) Elaine Showalter
(c) Thinking About Women (iii) Helene Cixous
(d)The Laugh of the Medusa (iv) Kate Millet
Code :
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(1) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(2) (iv) (ii) (i) (iii)
(3) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
33. Which of the following historical events does Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light
Brigade” describe ?
(1) The Battle of Hastings (2) The Wars of the Roses
(3) The Battle of Waterloo (4) The Crimean War
34. Northrop Frye’s influential work, Anatomy of Criticism includes, as the subtitle
indicates, four essays. Which of the following is NOT one among them ?
(1) “Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths”
(2) “Typological Criticism: Theory of Types”
(3) “Historical Criticism : Theory of Modes”
(4) “Ethical Criticism : Theory of Symbols”
35. “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. The above is an example of :
(1) ploce (2) epizeuxis (3) plurisignation (4) diaeresis
36. In Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto”, with which of the following painters does
Andrea NOTcompare himself with ?
(1) Michelangelo (2) Leonardo da Vinci
(3) Rembrandt (4) Raphael
37. In Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels Gulliver refers to William Dampier, the famous
writer of two voyages, as :
(1) master (2) brother (3) cousin (4) uncle
38. Who among the following is NOT a character in Pride and prejudice ?
(1) Mr. Darcy (2) Miss Bingley (3) Miss Bates (4) Mr. Collins
39. “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players”,
occurs in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Which character says the line ?
(1) Jacques (2) Celia (3) Rosalind (4) Touchstone
40. Which of the following rivers are mentioned in Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy
Mistress” ?
(1) Thames and Rhine (2) Thames and Ganges
(3) Ganges and Humber (4) Thames and Humber
41. Which of the following images is NOT part of W.H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B.
Yeats” ?
(1) Mercury sinking in the mouth of the dying day
(2) Wolves running through evergreen forests
(3) Silence invading the suburbs
(4) Memory scattering like the beads
42. Who among the following is the author of Steps to the Temple ?
(1) John Donne (2) Richard Crashaw
(3) George Herbert (4) Henry Vaughan
43. Match the character with the work :
(a) Jim Dixon (i) Room at the Top 3
(b)Jimmy Porter (ii) Hurry on Down 4
(c) Joe Lampton (iii) Look Back In Anger 2
(d)Charles Lumley (iv) Lucky Jim 1
Code :
(a ) (b) (c) (d)
(1) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(2) (iv) (iii) (ii) (i)
(3) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
44. In the opening book of The Prelude Wordsworth mentions famously that he was
“fostered alike by and ”. Pick out the right pair.
(a) nature
(b)fear
(c) imagination
(d)beauty
The right combination according to the code is :
(1) (a) and (c) (2) (d) and (b) (3) (d) and (c) (4) (a) and (d)
45. The title of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood is derived from a poem by Derek
Walcott. Identify the poem.
(1) “A Far Cry from Africa” (2) “The Swamp”
(3) “Goats and Monkeys” (4) “Midsummer”
46. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is set in __________.
(A) Surinam (B) Abyssinia (C) Egypt (D) Assyria
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