MID TERM EXAMINATIONS, APRIL 2023 CLASS—BA HONS.

ENGLISH SEM IV
SUBJECT—BRITISH POETRY

Time: 3 hrs Maximum Marks: 100

NOTE: Students are required to attempt five questions, selecting at least one question from each
section. The fifth question can be attempted from any section. All questions carry equal marks.

SECTION A
1. (a) Explain the theme of John Donne’s poem “The Good Morrow”. (10)
(b) Critically analyse the poem “Shall I Compare the Two a Summers Day” (10)
2. Explain with reference to context: (2X10=20)
(i) “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

(ii) Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

SECTION B

3. Explain with reference to context: (2X10=20)

(i) Oft has our Poet wisht, this happy Seat
Might prove his fading Muses last Retreat:
I wonder’d at his Wish, but now I find
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noisefull Towns and Courts can never know,
And onely in the shades, like Laurels, grow.

(ii) O early ripe! to thy abundant store

What could advancing age have added more?

 It might (what nature never gives the young)

Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray’d.

4. Give a critique of Alexander Pope's poem “An Essay on Man”. (20)

SECTION C
5. Discuss William Wordsworth as a romantic poet. (20)
6. Write a critical appreciation of Byron's poem “She Walks in Beauty”. (20)
SECTION D
7. (a) Discuss the poem “My last Duchess” in detail. (10)
(b) Discuss the theme of the poem “The Unknown Citizen” by WH Auden (10)
8. Write a detailed essay on the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson. (20)