West Bengal State University

Model Questions for Part I (Honours & General) Examinations

on the new syllabi to be effective from the academic session 2013-14.
[This model question paper is meant to provide the examinees some idea of the type of questions
they are expected to answer. The paper does not indicate the questions that are likely to come in the
examination.]

English Honours
Paper I
Full Marks: 100

Examination Time : 4 hours.

Candidates are advised to write answers in their own language as far as practicable.
Precise answers will be given special credit. Spelling and grammatical errors will be
penalised.

Group A
1. Answer any one of the following questions in about 500 words:

1x15

a. Write an essay on Old English lyrics and elegies with particular reference to any three
of the poems.
b. Who are the chief exponents of Old English religious poetry? Enumerate their
characteristic features.
c. What do you mean by the Alliterative Revival in Middle English literature? Explain
with reference to a poem you have read.

2. Answer any three of the following questions, each in about 200 words:

3x5

a. Assess the contribution of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle in the History of English
Literature.
b. What epic characteristics do you find in the extract of Beowulf prescribed in your
course?
c. How does Chaucer characterize the Wife of Bath? Answer with reference to the
extract prescribed for you.
1

d. Write a short note on the impact of the Black Death on Middle English Literature.
e. Assess The Dream of the Rood as a Christian Dream Allegory.

Group B
3. Answer any one of the following questions in about 500 words:

1x15

a. Assess Sidneys Loving in Truth as a typical Petrarchan Sonnet.

b. Write a short essay on Shakespeares use of imagery with reference to the sonnets
prescribed in your course.
c. How does Donne maintain the balance between spiritual and erotic love in
Cannonization?
4. Answer any one of the following questions in about 500 words:

1x15

a. Comment on Bacons style with reference to the essays prescribed in your course.
b. Critically assess Bacons idea on death as it comes out in his essay On Death.
c. How does Burton negotiate his religiosity with the necessity of deductive reasoning in
The Anatomy of Melancholy? Answer with reference to the extract prescribed for you.
5. Answer any two of the following questions, each in about 200 words:
a.
b.
c.
d.

2x5

Comment on the use of the carpe diem in To His Coy Mistress.

Assess Wycliffes contribution in medieval English prose.
Write a short note on Roger Aschams The Schoolmaster.
Briefly discuss Richard Hakluyts contribution in the history of travel literature.
Group C

6. Answer any two of the following questions in about 450 words:

2x10

a. Write an essay on the Scandinavian influence on English Language.

b. What are the characteristic features of the French loan words in English?
c. Assess the role of hybrids in the development of the English Language.
d. Write a note on loanwords and loan translations of words of Indian origin into
Modern English.
e. Write short notes on (i) back-formation; (ii) compounds

7. Write philological notes on any five of the following:

5x2

assassination,
egg,
matchbox,
kindergarten,
communal,
cheer,
military hotel,
lathicharge,
Gospel,
daisy.

[Continued on the next page]

English Honours
Paper II
Full Marks: 100

Examination Time: 4 Hours

3

Candidates are advised to write answers in their own language as far as practicable.
Precise answers will be given special credit. Spelling and grammatical errors will be
penalised.

Group A
1. Answer any one of the following questions in about 500 words:

1x15

a. How far has Milton modified classical epic convention in the first 26 lines of
Paradise Lost Book I to suit his own purpose?
b. Attempt a critical analysis of any two of Satans speeches in Paradise Lost Book I to
show how far they reveal his state of mind.
c. The greatness of Paradise Lost lies in its elevated style. Do you agree with this view?
Argue with close reference to Paradise Lost Book I.
2. Answer any two of the following in about 200 words:

2x5

a. Who is Satans second in command in Paradise Lost Book I? Discuss his role.

b.

Mammon led them on,

Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven...- Explain with reference to the context.
c. Write a note on the Leviathan simile.
d. Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell- Locate and annotate.
e. Who are Satans chief followers? How does Satan raise them from the Lake of
Fire?
Group B
3. Answer any one of the following in about 500 words:

1x15

a. Examine The Rape of the Lock as a heroicomical poem.

b. Is Popes treatment of Belinda in The Rape of the Lock merely a commentary on
feminine follies? Give reasons for your answer.
c. What is the function of the supernatural machinery in The Rape of the Lock?
4. Answer any two of the following, each in about 200 words:

2x5

a. What is billet doux? Mention at least three instances in the poem where billet doux
has been mentioned and to what effect.
b. Or, as Ixion fixed... Elucidate the allusion involved in the line.
c. Fear the just Gods, and think of Scyllas fate... Who was Scylla? What happened to
Scylla and why?
4

d. The Powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer. Whose prayer was half granted?
How did the person pray? How was the prayer half granted?
e. Give two examples of Popes use of anti-climax (do not quote from the text).
Group C
5. Answer any one of the following in about 500 words:

1x15

a. Is Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard a compromise between objective

and personal poetry? Substantiate your answer with reference to the text.
b. Discuss The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk as a pre- romantic poem.
c. Discuss Blake as a lyric poet with reference to Introduction to Songs of Innocence and
The Lamb.
6. Answer any three of the following, each in about 200 words:

3x5

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Annotate In the forests of the night.

Where do you find the expression fearful symmetry? Explain the phrase.
Why does Blake use the word charterd twice in the poem London ?
Write a short note on the main images used in London.
How is the harmony between man and Nature suggested at the end of The
Solitude of Alexander Selkirk?
f. Some village Hampden... Where do you find the line? Write a short note on
Hampden.
g. What is an epitaph? What is the speciality of the epitaph at the end of Grays
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard?

Group D
7. Identify, define and explain the figures of speech from any one of the passages given
below:
15
a. What Passing bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns
Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
b. Come, thick Night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!
5

8. Scan any one of the following passages and name the metre.

a. And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

And the music clashed in the hall
And long by the garden lake I stood
For I heard you rivulet fall.
b. But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

[Continued on next page]

English General
Paper I
Full Marks: 100

Examination Time: 3 Hours

Candidates are advised to write answers in their own language as far as practicable.
Precise answers will be given special credit. Spelling and grammatical errors will be
penalised.
[ Group A]
1. Answer any four questions from the following, each in about 500 words:

4x15=60

a). How did Nature educate Lucy? Elucidate by critically analyzing the poem.

b). How does Wordsworth express his romantic cynicism in the poem The World is
too much with us; late and soon?
c) What is the central theme of Hardys In Time of the Breaking of Nations?
d) Discuss how Shelleys Ode to the West Wind becomes a medium for inspiring
people?
e) Show how Keats transforms a mere nightingale bird into a metaphor for discussing
deeper truths?
f) to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield. How far does this line reflect the
Victorian spirit? Discuss with close reference to the poem.
g) Would you regard Porphyrias Lover to be an expression of male chauvinism?
h) Yeats is a modern poet with the touch and feel of a romantic. How far does the
poem Lake Isle of Innisfree reflect this?
i) Where dogs go on with their doggy lives sums up the entire poem Musee des
Beaux Arts by Auden. Do you agree?
2. Answer any three of the following, each in about 200 words:

3x5=15

a. Explain the lines - Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse..
b. Why is the West Wind termed destroyer and preserver?
c. Explain with reference to the context: Adieu the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
d. Locate and annotate: That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and gold: I found.
e. Explain with reference to the context- And live alone in the bee loud glee,
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes
dropping slow,
f. Explain the term Sea of Faith as mentioned in the poem Dover Beach by M.
Arnold.

Group B
3. Identify the figures of Speech in any five of the following:

5x2=10

i. My, love is a red, red rose

7

ii. He is now in the sunset of his days.

iii. He succeeded to the crown.
1v.The news you bring is a dagger to my heart.
v. He manages to earn his bread.
vi. Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea. Pope.
vii. And trembling Tiber dived beneath his bed.
viii. He can bribe, but he cannot seduce; he can buy, but he cannot gain; he can lie,
but he cannot deceive.
ix. The child is father of the man.
x. A strong man struggling with the storms of fate.
4. Write an application to the manager of a corporate office applying for the post of a
Receptionist.

15
Or,

Write an application to the Municipal Corporation requesting the authority in charge to

make a permanent solution for your locality which is suffering from the problem of water
scarcity.