The Relationship between Poetry and Music as Stated in Plato’s "Republic"


The Harmonious Nexus: Unveiling the Poetic-Musical Relationship in Plato's "Republic"

The Educational Significance of Poetry and Music in Plato's Ideal Republic

Plato
428/427 or 424/423
– 348/347 BC

Plato
, who makes his famed The Republic the entreaty of all possible discussions on all the aspects of citizenship and an inquiry into the nature of justice and the organization of a perfect society, brings both poetry and music within his preview. Book III of the Republic, in particular, is concerned with the education of the ideal civilization for his ideal republic. The two kinds of education are mental and physical, and mental education includes the cultivation of both music and poetry. Criticizing the doctrines of atheism and materialism, Plato reaffirmed his idealistic position and asserted his belief in the moral government of the universe and the immortality of the soul. Yet, Plato’s attitude is not of ecstatic enthusiasm but rather of a subdued and resigned acceptance. Music and poetry, if they are finding a place in his somewhat Utopian republic, must not exist as parries. They must subserve, the kind of education Plato seeks, and for that, many aspects of music, as of poetry, must be pruned. It is with this didactic intention that Plato finds a harmony and co-relation between music and poetry. In his The Republic, Plato went so far as to banish some types of artists from his ideal society because he thought their work encouraged immorality or portrayed base characters, and that certain musical compositions caused laziness or incited people to immoderate actions. Plato attacks poetry and music on four basic grounds: moral, emotional, intellectual and utilitarian.

The Tripartite Unity: Exploring the Interconnectedness of Music, Poetry, and Dance in Plato's Perspective

In Plato’s system music and poetry were not two dichotomous entities. In the broad classical sense ‘Music’ concerned the entire domain of the Muses and consisted of all that we today call the fine arts. Further, in the classical ages, instrumental music was very closely related to verbal poetry since they both had the same provenance: they originated in the common historical sources of primitive prayers and working chants. Consequently none of them could be monastic. The old nation of Mousike therefore included the triumvirate of music, poetry and dance. Even if dance did not always exist with the others, they poet and the composer were the same person and practiced the same art. At this point it may also be pointed out that both poetry and music affect the listener in a sub rational fashion, and that both are concerned with the communication of feelings rather than of knowledge. The bifurcation of lexis and melon, verbal poetry and pure music, occurred only in the Attic phase of the Grecian civilization. But both Plato and Aristotle believed in their traditional identity and attacked textless music and musicless poetry.

The Regulation of Words, Modes, and Rhythms: Plato's Stance on the Content and Expression of Poetry and Music

Plato begins his consideration of ‘music’ with ‘songs and tunes’, and by declaring that these consisted of three elements: words, mode and rhythm. In a way, words are the common constituents of both poetry and music, and therefore Plato enjoined the same conditions for both. Therefore dirges lamenting the dead are to be entirely prohibited. Similarly drinking songs which like poetry about lasciviousness and lavishness, promote intemperance and moral laxity must be avoided words, which reflect either the immoral nature of the gods or injustices being rewarded, must be similarly avoided. Again, in the ideal state, harmonies which expressed excessive sorrow and relaxation were to be banished completely.

Plato next proceeds to discuss the various modes to be used in music. He rejects mixed Lydian and Extreme Lydian because they are modes suitable for dirges, and since of their weak and sentimental quality. Since, drunkenness softness and idleness have already been criticized in poetry as in the texts of music, the relaxing modes – certain Ionian and Lydian modes described as ‘languid’ – are to be rejected, especially because they are of no use in training soldiers only the Dorian and the Phrygian modes may be brought into play in his republic and Plato would also emphasizes that not only the mode but even the musical instruments must be selected in accordance with the need to mature soldiers. He emphatically declares:
     “We shan’t need for our music and song a multiplicity of strings or a wide harmonic range. “(Book III).

Many stringed instruments such as harps and the zithers would be banned only the lyre, the cythera and the shepherd’s simple pipe would be acceptable. Plato does not discuss ‘rhythms’ at length since his mentor Socrates lacking in musical knowledge blindly favours all rhythms which are smooth, graceful and in harmony with the words.

  It is noteworthy that much more than in the case of poetry – implying literature in general – Plato considers music to be of great importance in the education of the soul. Beauty and grace are the gifts of music, and since even the soul of the guardian ought to be beautiful and graceful, music would be of great value. Here Plato does not give up aesthetic judgment though he makes aesthetic subservient to morality both in the case of music and of poetry.

Plato's Artistic Criteria: Selective Approach to Poetry and Music in Education

            Thus, in Plato’s Discourse poetry and music are not only cognate in nature, but also interpenetrate each other as co-existent arts. Further, the kinds of poetry and music to be fostered must be selected according to the principle of education ideal citizens. As in the case of enervating or sentimental poetry, music must not ‘soften a man as iron is softened in a furnace’ or make him ‘a feeble fighter’. They must both produce ‘a proper adjustment’. Just as Plato would banish all poets who are not didactic, he would not ‘allow’ those musicians who weaken the spirit.Plato's attack has caused more misunderstanding than light . Different parties of different ages have used or misused such a critical views. nevertheless Plato's views were conditioned by his age and by certain specific circumstances of his time. And therefore , his condemnation is not of universal one.


Reference: Plato The Republic. trans. Desmond lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974 

Analysis of P.B. Shelley’s "Ode to the West Wind": Adoration of Powerful Force and the Poet's Reformist Words


Unleashing the Winds of Change: P.B. Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind and the Poet's Revolutionary Vision

An Ode to the West Wind: Reverence for a Mighty Force and the Poet's Call for Global Dissemination

Portrait of Shelley,
by Alfred Clint (1829)

P.B. Shelley’s 
"Ode to the West Wind"is a remarkable poem that exhibits the adoration of a powerful force and conveys the poet's reformist ideas through vivid imagery and passionate language. Written in 1819, Shelley's ode explores the themes of nature, change, and the role of the poet as a catalyst for societal transformation.

P.B. Shelley‘s "Ode to the West Wind" addresses the west wind as a powerful force and asks it to scatter the poet's reformist words throughout the world. It is written in a spirit of exaltation; it is a dignified strain in praise of West Wind. The metrical effects are very beautiful here and in doing so Shelley unifies the content of the poem by focusing the first three stanzas on the powers of the wind and the last two stanzas on the poet's desire to use these powers to spread his words throughout the world.

The Mighty West Wind: A Catalyst for Revolution and Renewal

One of the central elements of the poem is the portrayal of the West Wind as a symbol of immense power and energy. Shelley describes the wind as a "wild spirit" and a "destroyer and preserver" that possesses the ability to bring both destruction and renewal. This adoration of the West Wind reflects the poet's fascination with natural forces and his belief in their potential for revolutionary change. By aligning himself with this force, Shelley seeks to harness its power to bring about a transformative impact on society.

"The Decaying Multitudes: Symbolic Leaf Fall and Societal Degeneration in Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind'

Shelley bids the West Wind as a magician who sweeps away the dead leaves in autumnal nature by remaining it invisible. Here the “Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes” of leaves are decomposing on the ground. But symbolically the ‘multitudes’ refers to the entire human society, which, the poet thinks, in a state of degeneration.

The Dual Nature of the West Wind: Destruction and Preservation

Next the poet describes how with the onset of spring shepherds go out with their flocks of sheep for tending on the green field. The gentle breeze similarly, the poet imagines, causes the buds to bloom and carry the fragrances from one place to another. The West Wind carries the seeds with wing-like devices down to the ground where those remain dormant. During spring, however, when Zephyr, the warm and gentle wind will blow across the land, the seeds, shooting forth from the ground, will grow into plants. Thus the West Wind becomes both a “destroyer and preserver”:
“Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver, hear, oh, hear!”

Clouds and Chaos: Shelley's Vivid Imagery and Supernatural Allusions in 'Ode to the West Wind'

In the second stanza, Shelley refers to the scientific fact that clouds are created in the sky out of the evaporation of water from the surface of the water bodies on earth. But in the immediate context of the poem, he must have observed the clouds to have been accumulated right from the surface of the ocean up to the great heights of the sky. He imagines the clouds as the inter-connected boughs of the ocean and the sky. Shelley compares the clouds ravaged by the power of the wind to the uplifted hair of a Maenad, woman-worshiper of Bacchus, in order to convey the sense that the West Wind operates possessed by some supernatural force.

Before the coming of winter West Wind passes over earth destroying the old degenerate things and making horrible sounds. All such passing destruction are copied in the third stanza. The howling of the wind is imagined by the poet to be the dirge or the funeral song for the closing year. Shelley here addresses the clouds, accumulated from the surface of the ocean up to the great heights of the sky, as “angels of rain and lightning” because they obviously indicate that rain and lightning are approaching soon.

During summer the Mediterranean and the Roman palaces and, the towers which remain submerged, are all quiet as if they seem to be sleeping because no storms appear to ruffle the surface of the sea in that season. But the wind agitates the sea and the palaces seem to quiver on account of the tremendous motion of the waves:
“And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day”

The Poet's Personal Struggles and Revolutionary Aspirations

The fourth stanza of the poem Shelley refers to the troubles, sorrows and the bitter disappointment of life which are inevitable to every human being. Shelley was no exception to it. More importantly, as he was an idealistic and Romantic, he was deeply hurt by the bitter experiences of life. He bids the west wind to uplift his moral stands.

Again, Shelley here must have tried to bring home a political philosophy. The old palaces and towers symbolize corrupt, degenerate and old power, old order and institutions. All these should be destroyed, the poet dreams along with the sea, in order to make way for new beginning. As an idealist and as an extremely sensitive soul, Shelley was in much distress to see mankind exploited and being dehumanized by the corrupt, degenerate and old political powers and institutions. He wanted to see mankind reach an ideal state of life based on fraternity, equality and democracy. And that is why he was seeking revolution, which he refers to as his “sore need”. Believing firmly in democracy and individual rights, Shelley supported movements to reform government and he believed that the poetry he wrote had the power to bring about political reform. The poem "Ode to the West Wind" obliquely refers to his desire to spread his reformist ideas when it says, "Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!" Shelley desires the irresistible power of the wind to scatter the words he has written about his ideals and causes, one of which was opposition to Britain’s monarchical government as a form of tyranny.

The Harmonious Strife: Structure and Language in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind

Moreover, the poem's structure and language contribute to its depiction of the poet as a reformer. Divided into five stanzas, each consisting of fourteen lines, the ode follows a terza rima rhyme scheme. This formality and discipline in structure juxtapose the chaotic and tumultuous imagery of the West Wind, emphasizing the poet's role as a guiding force amid the turbulence of the world. The poet implores the wind to "make me thy lyre" and use him as a vessel to spread his reformist words. Shelley's desire to be an instrument in the hands of the West Wind signifies his aspiration to inspire change through his poetry.

Harnessing the Storm: Shelley's Revolutionary Imagery and Language in "Ode to the West Wind"

Throughout the poem, Shelley employs vivid and evocative imagery to convey his reformist ideas. He describes the wind's ability to scatter the "pestilence-stricken multitudes" and to carry the "winged seeds" of transformation. This imagery highlights the poet's belief in the power of words to spread revolutionary ideas and provoke societal change. The wind's role as a "driven cloud" and a "black rain" symbolizes the poet's desire to challenge established norms and conventions, to disrupt the status quo, and to create space for new possibilities.

Furthermore, Shelley's choice of words and phrases throughout the poem adds to its reformist undertones. He speaks of the "dead thoughts" and "loose passions" that he wishes the wind to sweep away, signifying a rejection of traditional modes of thinking and a call for intellectual and emotional liberation. The repeated use of verbs such as "drive," "compel," and "scatter" underscores the poet's urgency and determination to bring about radical transformation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, P.B. Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"exemplifies the adoration of a powerful force and showcases the poet's reformist words. Through the depiction of the West Wind as a symbol of immense power, the poem conveys Shelley's fascination with natural forces and their potential for revolutionary change. The structure, language, and imagery employed by the poet highlight his role as a reformer, aspiring to use his poetry as a catalyst for societal transformation. By exploring the adoration of a powerful force and conveying his reformist ideas, Shelley's ode remains a timeless testament to the poet's unwavering belief in the ability of words to inspire change.


References

How Shelley approached the Ode to the west wind : Forman, H. Buxton (Harry Buxton), 1842-1917 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/howshelleyapproa00formuoft

The English Poets Vol. 4 : Ward, Thomas Humphry, Ed. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.39822

Analysis of Thomas Hardy's "In Time of The Breaking of Nations" : Glorious Triumph of Love and Life


Thomas Hardy's poem "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" is a poignant reflection on the enduring power of love and life amidst the turmoil and transience of human conflicts. The poem which is an elegy on the First World War, written in 1915, consists of three brief stanzas, each conveying a distinct image that contributes to the overall theme. The title word "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" significantly echoes God’s words that He will break the nations and bring destruction (The Bible, Jeremiah LI 20). Ironically enough the optimist Thomas Hardy is here boldly contesting God’s words. He voices the glorious triumph of love and life over the onslaught of war and destruction.

War brings about variegated changes in the social, political and economic life of a nation. But even in the midst of these changes the basic preoccupations of life go on unchanged and undisturbed. The snap shots of the daily life are here given in the three stanzas of the poem. Read More Poetry

In the first picture we find a farmer engaged in his usual work in the field. He is harrowing clods slowly and silently with the help of his old horse. They are tired and so they are half asleep.
Read More Poetry The sight is not a welcome aspect of the society. The man's slow, silent walk and the horse's stumbling and nodding create an atmosphere of weariness and exhaustion. This image symbolizes the toil and hardship that individuals endure in their daily lives, even during times of upheaval and discord. Here none the young one present on work but gone to war; the old infirm are engaged in industrious jobs. Despite of old and infirm life continues in its flow:
“Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.”

The burning of couch grass in the second stanza suggests the continuity of human labour. The smoke is described as lacking flame, implying that it lacks the destructive force associated with fire. This image represents the persistence of ordinary life and its continuity despite the rise and fall of ruling dynasties and the passing of time. It suggests that the simple, mundane aspects of existence will persist beyond the grand political dramas that shape nations. It is not disrupted even by the rise and fall of kings, rulers and ruling dynasts:

“Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.”

Last but not the least, the picture of the two young lovers whispering words of love to each other suggests eternal flow of love. War’s annals will fade, but the story of love and lovers never sink into oblivion. Read More Poetry Hardy introduces a maid and her "wight," a term meaning a person or creature. They are depicted whispering, suggesting an intimate and private connection between them. The speaker states that the stories of war will fade away into obscurity before the tale of the maid and her companion is forgotten. This image highlights the enduring nature of personal relationships and the love that sustains individuals even in the face of the erasure of historical records.The force of love sustains life even in the midst of the terror of war:
“Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.”

In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'
has a simplicity of diction and rhythmic in sounds. Read More Poetry The ballad form of abab end-rhyme scheme creates a folk lore tradition in this poem. Again, here Hardy has recorded the eternal truths of life not with romantic exuberance, but with classical restrain. 
Overall, Hardy's poem conveys a sense of hope and resilience in the face of conflict and upheaval. It celebrates the steadfastness of everyday life and the power of love to transcend the transitory nature of human events. Despite the breaking of nations and the passing of dynasties, the poem suggests that love and life endure, offering a glimmer of light and hope in the darkness of the world.


References

The Poetry Of Thomas Hardy : Thomas Hardy : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lp_the-poetry-of-thomas-hardy_thomas-hardy-richard-burton

UGC NET Solved Paper II ; Subject -- English ; December : 2010


ENGLISH
Paper – II
Note : This paper contains fifty (50) objective type questions, each question carrying two(2)marks. Attempt all the questions.


(ALL THE ANSWERS ARE COLOURED. I HAVE TRIED TO GIVE LOGIC BEHIND ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS. WITHOUT SYLLOGISTIC FORMAT YOU NEED AN ELFIN TOWER TALL HEAD.)
 
1. Jeremy Collier’s A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage attacked among others.
(A) John Bunyan
(B) Thomas Rhymer
(C) William Congreve
(D) Henry Fielding

<Note: When the work of Congreve and his colleagues was attacked by the clergyman Jeremy Collier as licentious, Congreve replied with Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698). >


2. The Crystal Palace, a key exhibit of the Great Exhibition, was designed by
(A) Charles Darwin
(B) Edward Moxon
(C) Joseph Paxton
(D) Richard Owen

< Note: Crystal Palace, famous exhibition hall was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, England. Because of its great size and its innovative use of glass and iron in prefabricated units, it was a milestone in the development of modern architecture. >
3. Influence of the Indian Philosophy is seen in the writings of
(A) G.B. Shaw
(B) Noel Coward
(C) Tom Stoppard
(D) T.S. Eliot

4. In which of his voyages, Gulliver discovered mountain-like beings?
(A) The land of the Lilliputians
(B) The land of the Brobdingnagians
(C) The land of the Laputans
(D) The land of the Houyhnhnms

< Note: Brobdingnag is the nation of giants visited by Gulliver in Part II. The people are sixty feet tall and everything else in their land is sized in proportion, on a scale of one foot to one inch. Though the giants of Brobdingnag are repulsive to look at closely, they are sound in their politics in many ways. The king of that land felt “whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.” The king of Brobdingnag is not only much like Swift’s mentor, Sir William Temple, he is both a Tory mouthpiece and a humanist, and possibly Swift’s ideal of a good monarch. >

5. Patrick White’s Voss is a novel about
(A) the sea
(B) The capital market
(C) The landscape
(D) The judicial system

< Leichhardt , a 19th-century German explorer, planned to cross Australia from east to west and, with a party of six, started from the Condamine River in March, 1848. His last expedition was the subject of the novel Voss (1957) by Australian Nobel laureate Patrick White. It covers mostly the expedition through wild barren lands of Australia.>

6. Although Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney writes in English, in voice and subject matter, his poems are
(A) Welsh
(B) Scottish
(C) Irish
(D) Polish

< Haney’s poetry, beginning with Death of a Naturalist (1966), is rooted in the physical, rural surroundings of his childhood in Northern Ireland. >

7. To whom is Mary Shelley’s famous work Frankenstein dedicated?
(A) Lord Byron
(B) Claire Clairmont
(C) William Godwin
(D) P.B. Shelley

<Some scholars have identified Frankenstein as the source of the genre of science fiction, which seeks to define the place of man in the universe. Both the idea of a 'mad scientist' and the concept of creating a person in a laboratory originated with Frankenstein. Following Mary Shelley's lead, authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, and, more recently, Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury have created horror stories whose protagonists face problems brought about by science gone awry.>

8. Which among the following poems by Philip Larkin records his impressions while traveling to London by train?
(A) “Aubade”
(B) “Church Going”
(C) “The Whitsun Wedding”
(D) “An Arundel Tomb”

< “At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade.”-
“The Whitsun Wedding”>

9. The English satirist who used the sharp edge of praise to attack his victims was
(A) Ben Jonson
(B) John Donne
(C) John Dryden
(D) Samuel Butler

10. One of the most famous movements of direct address to the reader – “Reader, I married him” – occurs in
(A) Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
(B) Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
(C) Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
(D) George Eliot’s Middlemarch

< Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre CHAPTER XXXVIII--CONCLUSION
Reader, I married him.  A quiet wedding we had:  he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.  When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said ->

11. Langland’s Piers Plowman is a satire on
(A) Aristocracy
(B) Chivalry
(C) Peasantry
(D) Clergy

< The 14th-century poem The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, better known as Piers Plowman, is generally attributed to William Langland. Three distinct versions of it exist, the first c. 1362, the second c. 1377, and the third 1393 or 1398. It has been described as "a vision of Christ seen through the clouds of humanity."  A religious allegory, the work is written as a dream vision, a popular medieval form in which a story is presented as if the author had dreamed it. Piers Plowman is also a famous example of alliterative verse. >

12. Which of the following thinker concept pair is correctly matched?
(A) I.A. Richards – Archetypal Criticism
(B) Christopher Frye– Mysticism
(C) Jacques Derrida– Deconstruction
(D) Terry Eagleton– Psychological Criticism

< I.A. Richards – New Criticism
Christopher Frye–
 Jacques Derrida– Deconstruction
Terry Eagleton–political Criticism>

13. Sexual jealousy is a theme in Shakespeare’s
(A) The Merchant of Venice
(B) The Tempest
(C) Othello
(D) King Lear

<Othello is a tragedy on the theme of Sexual jealousy by English playwright William Shakespeare. It was written in about 1604 and first performed that year for King James I at Whitehall Palace in London.  >

14. The title, The New Criticism, published in 1941, was written by
(A) Cleanth Brooks
(B) John Crowe Ransom
(C) Robert Penn Warren
(D) Allan Tate

15. Which of the following is not a Revenge Tragedy?
(A) The White Devil
(B) The Duchess of Malfi
(C) Doctor Faustus
(D) The Spanish Tragedy

< The White Devil: John Webster’s great tragedy The White Devil, produced in 1612 depicts a world of extravagant passions, dark intrigue, and fratricidal violence. Despite its melodramatic themes, Webster's The White Devil is redeemed by his soaring poetic dialogue and his grasp of human psychology.

The Duchess of Malfi: John Webster’s great tragedy The White Devil staged about 1614 is even better than The White Devil.

The Spanish Tragedy:Thomas Kyd ‘s Spanish Tragedy (1589?) is best Senecan Revenge Tragedy in the use of shocking and horrifying melodramatic situations.>

16. Who of the following playwrights rejects the Aristotelian concept of tragic play as imitation of reality?
(A) G.B. Shaw
(B) Arthur Miller
(C) Bertolt Brecht
(D) John Galsworthy

< Brecht's narrative style, which he called epic theater, was directed against the illusion created by traditional theater of witnessing a slice of life. Instead, Brecht encouraged spectators to watch events on stage dispassionately and to reach their own conclusions. To prevent spectators from becoming emotionally involved with a play and identifying with its characters, Brecht used a variety of techniques. Notable among them was the Verfremdungseffekt (alienation or estrangement effect), which was achieved through such devices as choosing (for German audiences) unfamiliar settings, interrupting the action with songs, and announcing the contents of each scene through posters. Brecht temporarily returned to a more traditional dramatic mode in Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches (1941; The Private Life of the Master Race, 1944), an attack on the fascist government of Germany under Hitler. >

17. The label ‘Diasporic Writer’ can be applied to
I. Meena Alexander
II. Arundhati Roy
III. Kiran Desai
IV. Shashi Deshpande
The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) I and IV are correct.
(B) II and III are correct.
(C) I, II and IV are correct.
(D) I and III are correct.

18. The letter ‘A’ in The Scarlet Letter stands for
I. Adultery
II. Able
III. Angel
IV. Appetite
The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) I and II are correct.
(B) II and III are correct.
(C) I, II and IV are correct.
(D) I, II and III are correct.

< Scarlet Letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin—a badge of shame—for all to see. WIKI>

19. A monosyllabic rhyme on the final stressed syllable of two lines of verse is called
(A) Moonshine
(B) Feminine rhyme
(C) Masculine rhyme
(D) Eye rhyme

20. A fatwa was issued in Salman Rushdie’s name following the publication of :
(A) Midnight’s Children
(B) Shame
(C) Satanic Verses
(D) Grimus

21. “There is nothing outside the text” is a key statement emanating from
(A) Feminism
(B) New Historicism
(C) Deconstruction
(D) Structuralism

22. The Augustan Age is called so because
(A) King Augustus ruled over England during this period
(B) The English writers imitated the Roman writers during this period
(C) The English King was born in the month of August
(D) This was an age of sensibility

23. One of the important texts of Angry Young Man Movement is
(A) Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
(B) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
(C) Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
(D) The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles

24. Whom does Alexander Pope satirise in the portrait of Sporus ?
(A) Lady Wortley Montague
(B) Joseph Addison
(C) Lord Shaftsbury
(D) Lord Harvey

UGC
25. The hero of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine was born as a
(A) Carpenter
(B) Goldsmith
(C) Shepherd
(D) Fisherman

26. In a letter to his brother George in September 1819, John Keats had this to say about a fellow romantic poet: “He describes what he sees –I describe what I imagine – Mine is the hardest task.” The poet under reference is
(A) Wordsworth
(B) Coleridge
(C) Byron
(D) Southey

<John Keats’ letter to his brother George, September 1819>

27. A sequence of repeated consonantal sounds in a stretch of language is
(A) Alliteration
(B) Acrostic
(C) Assent
(D) Syllable

28. Reformation was predominantly a movement in
(A) Politics
(B) Literature
(C) Religion
(D) Education

29. The motto “only connect” is taken from
(A) Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo
(B) Rudyard Kipling’s Kim
(C) H.G. Wells’ The History of Mr. Polly
(D) E.M. Forster’s Howards End

30. English Iambic Pentameter was brought to its first maturity in
(A) sonnet
(B) Dramatic verse
(C) lyric
(D) Elegy

31. Who among the following was not a member of the Bloomsbury Group?
(A) Lytton Strachey
(B) Clive Bell
(C) E.M. Forster
(D) Winston Churchill

32. The concept of human mind as tabula rasa or blank tablet was propounded by
(A) Bishop Berkley
(B) David Hume
(C) Francis Bacon
(D) John Locke

33. The terms ‘resonance’ and ‘wonder’ are associated with
(A) Stephen Greenblatt
(B) Terence Hawkes
(C) Terry Eagleton
(D) Ronald Barthes

34. The rhetorical pattern used by Chaucer in The Prologue to Canterbury Tales is
(A) ten-syllabic line
(B) eight-syllabic line
(C) Rhyme royal
(D) ottava rima

( In middle English all the consonants and final 'e' is sounded  from general prologue:
Whan that A-pril with his show-res soot-e
The droughte of March hath perced to the root-e,
And bathed e-very vein-e in swich li-cour,
Of which ver-tu en-gen-dred is the flowr;
Whan Ze-phy-rus eek with his sweet-e breeth
In-spired hath in e-very holt and he-eth
)

35. Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in the year
(A) 1859
(B) 1879
(C) 1845
(D) 1866


< Few books have rocked the world the way that On the Origin of Species did. Influenced in part by British geologist Sir Charles Lyell’s theory of a gradually changing earth, British naturalist Charles Darwin spent decades developing his theory of gradual evolution through natural selection before he published his book in 1859. The logical—and intensely controversial–-extension of Darwin’s theory was that humans, too, evolved through the ages. For people who accepted the biblical view of creation, the idea that human beings shared common roots with lower animals was shocking. In this excerpt from On the Origin of Species, Darwin carefully sidesteps the issue of human evolution (as he did throughout the book), focusing instead on competition and adaptation in lower animals and plants. >

36. Who of the following is the author of Juno and the Paycock ?
(A) Lady Gregory
(B) W.B. Yeats
(C) Oscar Wilde
(D) Sean O’Casey
< Referring to Ireland here is the famous remark in Juno and the Paycock: “The whole country's in a state o' chassis.>

37. The title of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is taken from a play by
(A) Christopher Marlowe
(B) William Shakespeare
(C) Ben Jonson
(D) John Webster

38. “Silverman has never read Browning.” This is an example of
(A) Chiasmus
(B) Conceit
(C) Zeugma
(D) Metonymy

39. The term ‘Intentional Fallacy’ is first used by
(A) William Empson
(B) Northrop Frye
(C) Wellek and Warren
(D) Wimsatt and Beardsley

40. “Recessional: A Victorian Ode”, Kipling’s well-known poem,
I. laments the end of an Era
II. Marks a new commitment to scientific knowledge
III. Expresses the sincerity of his religious devotion
IV. Was occasioned by Queen Victoria’s 1897 Jubilee Celebration
The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) I, II and III are correct.
(B) III and IV are correct.
(C) I and IV are correct.
(D) I, III and IV are correct.

41. Who among the following is not a Restoration playwright?
(A) William Congreve
(B) William Wycherley
(C) Ben Jonson
(D) George Etherege

42. Which famous Romantic poem begins with the line : ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! / Bird thou never wert” ?
(A) “Ode to a Nightingale”
(B) “To the Cuckoo”
(C) “To a Skylark”
(D) “To the Daisy”

43. Who among the following Victorian poets disliked his middle name ?
(A) Arthur Hugh Clough
(B) Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(C) Gerard Manley Hopkins
(D) Algernon Charles Swinburne

<One striking example is his comment that life at Oxford in the 1860s "did not encourage the growth of heterosexual responses." He is often ironic, in a way appropriate to his subject. In describing how young Gerard hated his middle name, Martin observes that it could not have escaped the young poet that his father intended to lay on him the qualities of the word "manly." Re: @http://articles.latimes.com/1991-06-18/news/vw-865_1_gerard-manley-hopkins>

44. Aston is a character in Pinter’s
(A) The Birthday Party
(B) The Caretaker
(C) The Dumb Waiter
(D) The Homecoming

45. Byron’s English Bards and Scottish Reviewers is about
I. the survey of English poetry
II. Evangelism in English poetry
III. Contemporary literary scene
IV. The early English travelers
The correct combination for the statement, according to the code, is
(A) III and IV are correct.
(B) II, III and IV are correct.
(C) I and II are correct.
(D) I and III are correct.

46. Which Eliotian character utters the question – “Do I eat a peach” ?
(A) Marina
(B) Prufrock
(C) Sweeney
(D) Stetson

47. Which among the following works by Daniel Defoe landed him in prison and the pillory ?
(A) The True-Born Englishman
(B) Captain Singleton
(C) The Shortest Way with Dissenters
(D) Moll Flanders
< For publishing the pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1703), English novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe was placed in the pillory, where an English mob could torment him. Defoe’s pamphlet satirized the intolerance of the Church of England toward Dissenters—Protestants who refused to accept the authority of England’s established church—at that time. >

48. The arrival of printing in fifteenth century England was engineered by
(A) Sir Thomas Malory
(B) John Gower
(C) John Barbour
(D) William Caxton

49. About which nineteenth century English writer was it said that “He had succeeded as a writer not by conforming to the Spirit of the Age, but in opposition to it” ?
(A) Lord Byron on Coleridge
(B) Coleridge on Keats
(C) Hazlitt on Lamb
(D) De Quincey on Crabbe

(William Hazlitt's The Spirit of the Age)

50. The Restoration comedy, The Double Dealer was written by
(A) John Dryden
(B) William Wycherley
(C) William Congreve
(D) George Etherege


References: 
Wikipedia,
History of English Literature - Elbert,
Social History of England- Dr. Amio Sutradhar,
Twentieth Century Views- Ronald Paulson

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