Kerala University B.A. Supplementary Degree Examination ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

B.A. Supplementary Degree Examination, August/September 2009
Part – III : ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Main Paper – I : Poetry
(For 2006 Admn.)

Time: 3 Hours Max. Marks: 100

I. Annotate any five of the following :

1) ... compared to this
All honour's mimic; all wealth alchemy.
2) These steep woods and lofty cliffs
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake !
3) If winter comes, can spring be far behind ?
4) Might she have loved me ? Just as well
she might have hated, who can tell ?
5) But what cared I that set him on to ride
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride ?
6) O wake in me, my darling
The knife of day is bright
To cut the thread that binds you
Within the flesh of might.
7) A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
8) The unwanted speak in
strident voices. Silence holds terror for them. (5×4=20 Marks)

P.T.O.7022 -2-

II. Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :

What can I but enumerate old themes ?
First that sea-rider Oisin'led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs of courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride ?
And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
The Countess Cathleen was the name I gave it;
She, pity crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy,
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.
1) Who is Oisin ?
2) What does ‘allegorical dreams' allude to ?
3) Who is the ‘faery bride' ?
4) What does ‘The Countess Cathleen' refer to ?
5) ‘... brought forth a dream' – what was the dream ? (5×2=10 Marks)

III.Write on any five of the following, each in a paragraph of about eighty words :

1) Comment on the metaphysical conceits in ‘The Sun Rising'.
2) What was Wordsworth's attitude to nature during his first visit to Tintern
Abbey ?
3) How does Shelley identify himself with the westwind ?
4) How are the lovers engraved on the grecian urn luckier than lovers in reality ?5) Comment on the allusions to celtic myths in ‘The Circus Animals' Desertion'.
6) What does the journey of the Magi symbolise ?
7) How does Walcott condemn colonialism in ‘A Far Cry from Africa' ?
8) Who are the ‘unwanted' in ‘Home is a Concept' ? (5×4=20 Marks)

IV. Examine ‘Lycidas' as a pastoral elegy.
OR
‘Ode on a Grecian Urn' is a poem celebrating the “permanence of art" – Discuss.
(1×20=20 Marks)

V. Examine ‘Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines,' as a unique poem in its treatment of lost love.
OR
‘A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom' – Discuss with reference to
‘Birches'. (1×20=20 Marks)

VI.Write on any two, each in a paragraph of about eighty words :

1) The lyric
2) The role of emotion and imagination in poetry
3) The criteria of judgement of greatness in poetry. (2×5=10 Marks)