A Model Question Answer Set// For English Teacher ( Post Graduate ) Recruitment Examination//WBCSSC// West Bengal, India

Here is 30 short questions on Literary Topics & Grammar

                                                        

1.  Fool, said my Muse to me, look in the heart and write – What kind of advice is given by the Muse to the poet?

Do you find any anticipation of romantic theory?

Ans. Poet Sidney wants to articulate his earnest love in the poetry of his own. But he can’t compose poetry worthy of its own and lacks the faculty of poetic articulation. Hence he steals others poetry to articulate his own verse. The poetic Muse here comes to guide his rescue and instructs him to introspect. Words spoken in the core of the heart must form the real poetry, she instructs.

            The line anticipates the romantic theory of poetry as if spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions forms poetry. Read More Poetry

2. Briefly comment on the dramatic feature of Spenser’s sonnet No. 75?

Ans. Not only Sonnet No. 75 but Amoretti as a whole is unique by the virtue of its dramatic structure. The Sonnet No. 75 is a blend of lyric and dramatic. Here is the abrupt beginning, the conversational tone and the vigorous exchange which transform the Sonnet No. 75 into a miniature drama. But nowhere the lyrical grace is missing. Read More Poetry

3. What is the significance of the title of The Good Morrow by Donne?

Ans. John Donne’s The Good Morrow is a poem that stands at the threshold of a new love universe. It is like a wakening from a nightmare. Earlier the canker of fear and jealousy, the fickle foundation of sensual delights were the nightmarish experiences. But now the lovers are nearly awaken soul and a sense of serenity comes to the lovers in their true union of minds. Thus the title words rightly bids good morning to the love’s new universe. 

4. What are the chief metaphysical traits employed in virtue by George Herbert?

Ans. Virtue by George Herbert is metaphysical poem. It is also a religious poem where the central theme of divinity and unaging virtuous soul is treated through metaphysical conceits, internet of intelligence, unification of sensibility and metaphysical strikingness. The simple message of eternal divine glory of our soul in this transitory world is thus beautifully expressed in this metaphysical poem. Read More Poetry

5. What is called Mock-heroic poem? Explain its salient features in The Rape of The Lock.

Ans. A mock epic is a parody of the style and manner of a serious epic. We get mock epic when a poet uses epic style and convention for the treatment of trivial subject. Its essence lies in the contrast between a trivial theme and lofty treatment.

            The Rape of The Lock has all major features of an epic. It begins with an invocation, has heroic meter, has supernatural entities etc. But the theme is trivial i.e. the rape of the lock. It is mock epic because here is the meanest thing described in grand style. Read More Poetry

 An Ideal Teacher

6. Write a note on Blake’s use of symbols in his poetry.

Ans. Blake writes in metaphors or pure images. Again his poetry can be read on four levels – literal, moral allegorical and anagogical. Literally his poems can be read simply as a sequence of actions. Morally the poem may be read as a series of moral commands, both positive and negative. Allegorically the poem and its all actions are interpreted in terms of some dogma. Anagogically, his poem can be given a mystical reading too. Read More Poetry

7. What the different stages of spiritual growth are in Wordsworth’s poetic thought as stated in Tintern Abbey?

Ans. Wordsworth’s attitude to nature and man is revealed in Tintern Abbey. In Tintern Abbey Wordsworth has carefully analyzed the stages of his spiritual development with nature. In the first stage he had no conscious acquaintance to nature. It was to him a mere playground giving him all the feeling of physical sensation. In the second stage however, he was oscillating between purely sensuous search for Devine motion and spirits in the infinite variety of beautiful nature. Read More Poetry

8. Briefly comment on the use of supernaturalism in Christabel.

Ans. Supernatural comes most powerfully in Christabel. Right from the description of the castle in midnight, the mastiff dog, hooting of owl, Christabel’s prayer under the large oak free to the introduction of Geraldine and their sharing of the bed, supernaturalism hovers on the entire poem. The description of the palace makes it other worldly construction. But it should be remembered that supernaturalism is an organic part of the total texture of the poem. Read More Poetry

9. Do you find Kubla Khan a fragment?

Ans. Apparently Kubla Khan is ‘a fragment’ or a series of fragments. First, it is about a palace the poet had heard of; and then it is about a singer the poet had dreamt of and finally it is about a poet he had wistfully imagined of. But it can never be called an incoherent poem. Rather it is one of the most balanced, methodical and concentrated poems in English literature. It is all about poetry. The later part is very clear in its purpose; the earlier part requires symbolic interpretation. Read More Poetry

10. What does West Wind symbolize in Shelly’s Ode to the West Wind?

Ans. West Wind symbolizes a force of creative urge, a faculty of revolution and an adoration of nature. This violent gale is both a destroyer and preserver. It can while away the dead thoughts in Shelley and recreate new philosophy for mankind for their redemption from agony and suffering. Further Shelley wishes to run himself into its spirit to regenerate hope of spring everywhere. Read More Poetry

11. Keats is always searching for permanence in this transitory world. It he successful in his search in Ode To A Nightingale?

Ans. To Keats joy, physical beauty and love are hopelessly short lived and therefore a source of nostalgia and pain. Only arts provide some relief to him. He forgets for a while the all-pervading gloom of the actual world in this persuasion. Thus in Ode to a Nightingale the bird becomes the symbol of an artist and its perennial song a symbol of enduring art. Read More Poetry

12. Describe Keats' autumn as stated in To Autumn.

Ans. Autumn is such personified with decoration and feeling that it can easily elicit emotion from the readers. Here is nature herself in all her richness. Here is scented landscape in the first stanza with fruits, flowers, honey etc. In the second stanza the autumn is animated by four personification – winnower, gleaner, reaper and cider presser. In the third stanza there is the symphony of natural sounds. Read More Poetry

13. This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the seeptre and the isle-

Who is Telemachus? Who will leave the scepter and the isle and why?

Ans. Telemachus is the son of Ulysses, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey.

      Ulysses has returned to his kingdom after twenty years of Trojan War. But he cannot rest from travel. He is still passionate after the infinite vista of knowledge yet unexplored, of experience yet to acquire. Thus he is leaving the authority of ruling his Ithaca to his son to meet the unknown, unseen. Read More Poetry

14. What do you know about Dukes character in My Last Duchess?

Ans. My Last Duchess is a poem of merely fifty lines but within its brief compass Browning has rendered a vivid and moving description of both the duke and the duchess. We find the Duke of Ferrara, a powerful, proud and hard-hearted Italian Duke of the 16^th century has been widowed recently and he is going to marry a second time. From the monologue of the Duke we learn him as haughty, proud, conceited possessive and dictatorial and a murdered of his own wife. Some critics also find autobiographical sketches of Elizabeth Bennett’s unsympathetic father in the Duke. Read More Poetry

15. What kind of contrast between youth and aged can be seen in Yeats?

Ans. In contrast to his aging life, Yeats seeks something vital, productive and energetic in The Wild Swans at Coole. Yeats finds that quality in Swan’s beauteous form. The mystery and passion of it is ever energetic and appealing. These swans are opposed to the poet’s nullified emotions. They are youthful, everlasting glory. They are the excellence of beauty and have not grown old yet. Read More Poetry

16. ‘Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet weels

Even with truths that lie too deep for stint-‘

What does the speaker mean to say here?

Ans. The speaker is the soldier who wants to redeem the whole world by the untold truth that is hidden in his heart. The charioted civilization has much traveled through barbaric war and its wheels are clogged by the blood of its suffering. The soldier by the sweet wells inside of his heart will send the message of love, charity and compassion, which will wash the horror of war away.

https://ardhendude.blogspot.in/2011/02/interview-tips-for-school-service.html

17. Briefly comment on the conclusion of the poem The Hollow Men.

Ans. The Hollow Men ends with a tragic note of our frustrated catastrophe. The vast waste land of our culture with the insipid lifeless grandiloquence is really bankrupt. It is spiritually barren, hopeless, purposeless and stupid. The citizens of this waste land, that is, every modern man here dies not with color, grandeur or eloquence but with contempt, defeat and exhaustion. Read More Poetry

18. What are the heroic and villainous characteristics in Macbeth?

Ans. Macbeth is a mixed characteristic – heroic and unheroic. He is valiant, brave, a great warrior and a patriot. He has the utmost zeal for ruling his country. He is thus well respected and received by everybody. He is however, a person of ‘vaulting ambition’ who transforms an evildoer, murderer and an absolute tyrant. He thus meets his ruins ultimately. Read More Drama

19. Who is an iconoclast? Why is Shaw regarded as iconoclast? 

Ans. An iconoclast is a revolutionary person who breaks the traditional images or one who assails the cherished beliefs.

            Shaw is an iconoclast for his ‘ideas’ where are in corporate in his dramas. Here he dismisses the age-old misconceptions on various issues or ideas. He brings pragmatic revolutionary thoughts in his writing. His Arms and The Man rejects the romantic notion of patriot in and love. Rather, he projects a pragmatic may to war and love for the betterment of human civilization. Read More Drama

20. Give the acquaintance with the following characters in She Stoops to Conquer: Bridget, Bet Bouncer.

Ans. These are the minor characters mentioned in the play. Bridget is the name of the cook-maid in Mr. Hardcastle’s household.

            Bet Bouncer is the country girl with whom Tony has a love affair. Tony loves her dearly and for the same cause dislikes Neville, the lady of his mother’s choice for his marriage. Read More Drama

21. What stage properties are needed for the enactment of the play Riders to The Sea?

Ans. The stage properties required for the production of the play Riders to the sea are nets, oilskins, spinning wheel, some new boards etc. These are needed to display Irish fisher family and their life style. Read More Drama

22. Is Pride and Prejudice a husband hunting campaign?

Ans. Pride and Prejudice is the social and economic realities of women’s life in Jane Austen’s time. Marriage is such a reality and women are extremely dependent on marriage. The novel can be read as the perpetuation of the myth of marriage as the most central and desired aim in a women’s life. All the daughters of Mr. And Mrs. Bennet are in search for suitors, but it must be remembered that the text seems to hold mixed views about marriage, seeing it as a culmination of woman’s development but also as a diminishment.

23. Write a note on the autobiographical element in the novel David Copperfield.

Ans. David Copperfield is the most autobiographical writing of Dickens. Particularly David’s childhood is almost a parallel to Dickens. There is an all-pervasive atmosphere of misery in the experiences of the young child revealing Dickens’ own intense suffering in his childhood. Again David’s love for Dora Spenlow is Dickens’ own love for Maria. To add further Mr. and Mrs. Micawber are drawn very much after Dickens’ own parents. However, it is to be taken care of the harmony of fact and fancy in his novel. Read More Novel

24. What is the theme of Joyce’s story Araby?

Ans. Araby is story of childhood. It is much better than a ‘story’ and as ‘a vivid waiting’. The boy’s frustrated quest for beauty in these drab surrounding is represented of man’s universal and universally frustrated – search for the ideal: this symbolic meaning is pointed by the reference to ‘chalice’. This reminds one of the Grail legends.  Read More Short Stories

25. What is called Hyperbole? Give a suitable example.

Ans. In this figure of speech an exaggerated statement is made for emphatic statements.

Exp: Upon the brimming water among the stones are nine and fifty swans.

Here the number of swans is stated hyperbolically as the counting of the number is quite impossible by the poet. Read More Poetry

26. Write a short note on Lamb as an essayist.

Ans. Lamb is a personal essayist with his lucid language. His is the style of occasional pathos in humorous pool, nostalgia yet homely. His is intimate self revealing style with that of the similarity of Montaigne and Cowley. Essays of Elia displays his traits minutely.

27. What is called ‘case in apposition’? Give example.

Ans. When one noun follows another to describe further, the noun which follows is said to be in apposition to the noun which comes before it.

Exp. Rahul, our brilliant boy, cleared the NET exam.

Here ‘our brilliant boy’ is in apposition to Rahul.

28. Write a short paragraph on “Time is Money”.

Ans. Time and tide wait for none. It is time which we save, spend or waste and utilize or invest accordingly. As we all know money can almost buy maximum of earthly comfort and security, so also the careful use of time can make our future. Utilizing time properly we can lead to the golden gate of achievement, satisfaction and progress. But Misusing time can drag us down to a sad, bad and mad world where life is meaningless.

29. What is called free verse? Give suitable example.

Ans. Here the rhythm is determined by the subject matter. The lines do not follow a regular meter but vary from thought to thought. Rhyme is usually not used. Walt Whitman and Carl Sandbury have helped to establish this as a staple in the repertory of the modern poet. Free verse is a modern form and there fore the images and symbols used by the poet tend to be modern. Read More Poetry

Exp. He was found by the Burean of statistics to be One against whom there was no official compl  - The Unknown citizen -Auden.

30. How will you explain the punctuation to your students?

Ans. I will first explain the students about the punctuation as a mark or sign used in writing to divide sentences or phrases. I will then give them list of various punctuation marks and their functions i.e., full stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semicolon (;), question mark (?) etc. At last I will give some exercise for practicing punctuation.   

   Ardhendu   De