A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 80 (Miscellaneous)

A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

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1.  Derrida............. Deconstruction: With the publication of Writing and Difference, French philosopher Jacques Derrida pioneers the method of literary criticism known as deconstruction. Under deconstruction, texts are subjected to new methods of analysis that reveal hidden layers of meaning. The analysis examines the intent of the author, as well as how the concepts, language, and images of the text have been previously used.

2.  Psychological Criticism: Writers’ as well as creative process’s analysis. (Origin Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan)  Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)   

3.   Archetypal / Myth Criticism: Frye’s most important work, Anatomy of Criticism (1957), introduced archetypal criticism, identifying and discussing basic archetypal patterns as found in myths, literary genres, and the reader’s imagination.( origin C. G. Jung & Joseph Campbell)

4.   The correct sequence of the following schools of criticism:

  Structuralism> Deconstruction>Reader-Response> New Historicism

5.   Ezekiel’s Night of the Scorpion shares a moving picture of a mother's suffering.

 6.   Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve is widely acclaimed for its portrayal of the culture clash between whites and nonwhites, and its success at revealing the commonality of the human condition. It received rave reviews and won the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award in 1955.  A to Z (Objective Questions)  

7.  A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is the story of an Indian mother's search for a suitable match for her daughter. The tale is set against the panoramic backdrop of life in India just after the country gained independence from Britain in 1947. A to Z (Objective Questions)  

 8.   The Satanic Verses (1988) was banned in several Islamic countries. Salman Rushdie came under ‘fatwa’ for t his controversial novel, issued by Muslim countries. The book was so controversial that Rushdie had to go into hiding for several years. A to Z (Objective Questions)  

9. Amitav Ghosh’s first major novel, The Shadow Lines (1988) simultaneously traces the histories of two families, one Indian and one British, and exposes the senseless nature of the violence that accompanied the division of the Indian state of Bengal, leading to the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and then of Bangladesh in 1971. The Shadow Lines questions the validity of all sorts of boundaries, national and international. His other works include The Circle of Reason (1986), In an Antique Land (1992), and The Calcutta Chromosome (1996).

 10.  A Time to Change, Sixty Poems, The Third, The Unfinished Man:  Kamala Das

 11. Sea Hawk is Bhabani Bhattacharya’s col­lection of short stories.

 12. Anita Desai’s Baumgartner's Bombay is a novel about a German Jew who remains an outsider all his life, in his country because he is a Jew and in India, where he is a firangi.  

 13. “Hamartia” means: error of judgment

14. “gynocriticism” coined by : Elaine Showalter

15.  Though not a literary artist, ÆLFRED (849-901) had the best qualities of the scholar, including an insatiable love alike for the acquisition and the communication of knowledge. He translated several of the best books then existing. Among the books he translated or edited were (1) The Handbook, a collection of extracts on religious subjects; (2) The Cura Pastoralis, or Herdsman's book of Gregory the Great, with a preface by himself which is the first English prose; (3) Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English; (4) The English Chronicle, which, already brought up to 855, he continued up to the date of writing; it is probably by his own hand; (5) Orosius's History of the World, which he adapted for English readers with many historical and geographical additions; (6) the De Consolatione Philosophiæ of Boethius; and (7) a translation of some of the Psalms. A to Z (Objective Questions)  

16. Dominique Lapierre wrote an appealing ac­count of the sordid squalor of an Indian city,  Calcutta in his book The City of Joy.

 17. Sarojini Naidu’s famous poems: The Gift of India, Bangle-seller, The Anthem of Love, Palanquin Bearers.

 18.   Bina Agarwal wrote the hard-hitting poem  Sita Speak indicating the society for the injustice meted out to women down the ages.

19. Feminist critiques of To the Lighthouse have drawn very different conclusions about its gender politics. Elaine Showalter suggests that the novel is a retreat from feminism into mysticism, while Toril Moi argues that it is a radical feminist attack on the logic of patriarchal male society.

20.   Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities opens with the words “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ....” A Tale of Two Cities works out a   theme of self-sacrifice. Important characters: Sydney Carton, Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay. A to Z (Objective Questions)   

21. The term “The Fleshly School of Poetry” is associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of 19th-century English painters, poets, and critics who reacted against Victorian materialism and the neoclassical conventions of academic art by producing earnest, quasi-religious works. The group was inspired by medieval and early Renaissance painters up to the time of the Italian painter Raphael. They were also influenced by the Nazarenes, young German artists who formed a brotherhood in Rome in 1810 to restore Christian art to its medieval purity.A to Z (Objective Questions)  

22. The line “The sea is calm tonight” occurs in:  Arnold’s Dover Beach. Arnold’s  Dover Beach  (1867) and  Shakespeare  (1849) are contemplative poems. Rather than tell a story or relate a single incident to the reader, this type of poem conveys the author’s meditations on an idea or a person.

23. The term “gothic”, a category of fiction, also applies to : architecture

24. William Sydney Porter, popularly known as O.Henry chooses his characters from a variety of social classes, ranging from rich ladies to poor maids, from policemen to vagabonds.

25. Parody is the imitation of the style of another work, writer or genre, which relies on deliberate exaggeration to achieve comic or satirical effect. It is usually necessary to be familiar with the original in order to appreciate the parody, though some parodies have become better known than the poems they imitate. The very act of writing leaves every poet vulnerable to parody, but some seem irresistible.   Wendy Cope’s Waste Land Limericks (T S Eliot) A to Z (Objective Questions)  

26. A pastiche is a work whose style imitates that of another writer or period. Pastiche differs from parody in that it is usually intended as a kind of tribute rather than a satire. Examples:
 Ancient Music by Ezra Pound (where an English rota song is being imitated)
 Ozymandias Revisited by Morris Bishop
“Ozymandias Revisited” reproduces the first two stanzas of Shelley’s poem verbatim, then closes:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Also the names of Emory P. Gray,
Mr. and Mrs. Dukes, and Oscar Baer
Of 17 West 4th St., Oyster Bay

 Ardhendu De

Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert     

2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature

3. UGC NET OLD QUESTION PAPERS