Gauhati University 2007 Post Graduate Diploma Journalism (Oriya) Poetry I: Chaucer to Romantics - Question Paper

2007
ENGLISH
SECOND PAPER
Full Marks: 80
Time: three hours
The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the ques.
(New syllabus)
(Poetry I: Chaucer to Romantics)
1. Write essay-type answers for any 4 of the following: 15×4=60
a) Analyze Chaucer's reasons for structuring the Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales in the manner of a 'gallery'. Comment, with illustrations from the text,
on his option of characters-in terms of inclusion and omission.
b) explain the 'addressee' in Shakespeare's sonnets. Would you say that they
'personalize' the poems? ans with adequate examples from your text.
c) Assess the 'I-thou' relationship within the format of John Donne's poems.
Would you say that these are merely intellectual exercises rather than love
poetry?
d) Note how both Dryden and Pope bring in the personal into the public sphere
in terms of their handling of social satire. explain the similarities and
differences of their approaches with reference to their poems.
e) Write an. essay on Blake's, representation of 'God'/'divinity' in the Songs of
Innocence and Experience. Illustrate your ans with reference to the
symbols he uses in his poetry.
f) Contrast the images and stylistic devices used by Wordsworth (in Composed
upon Westminster Bridge) and Byron (in Bk XI, Don Juan) in their
rendering of their ideas of contemporary London. How do they achieve their
effects in 2 entirely various genres (the lyric vis-à-vis narrative verse)?
g) "I fall upon the thorns of life/l bleed ... is a phrase that made Shelley
notorious in modernist critical assessments. explain the reasons for this with
examples from the text.
h) Trace the ideas of 'forgetfulness' and 'memory' evoked by Keats in Ode to a
Nightingale. How do they contribute to notions of 'romantic melancholy'
that is discernible in the period when he was writing?
2. Write short notes on any 2 of the following: 5×2=10
a) The Shakespearean Sonnet
b) Narrative Poetry of the Romantic Period
c) The use of the Heroic Couplet in Poetry
d) Conceits in Metaphysical Poetry
3. Answer, with reference to the context, any 2 of the following: 5×2=10
a) "Oh carve not with thy hours my
love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine
antique pen..."
b) "Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings,
and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war,
and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us
sleep as well
And better than thy stroke..."
(c) "The hum of multitudes was there,
but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls
raising their innocent hands."
(d) "Where queens are formed and future
heroes bred,
Where unfledged actors learn to laugh
and cry,
Where infant punks their tender voices try,
And little Maximins the gods defy."

Earning:   Approval pending.