ASSIGNMENT TOPICS M.A English Language and Literature Second year MAEGD2.01 AMERICAN LITERATURE

Transcription

1 MAEGD2.01 AMERICAN LITERATURE 1. What is transcendentalism? How does it figure in American literature? 2. Explain the themes of Walt Whitman s poems. 3. Consider O Neill s The Emperor Jones as an expressionistic play. 4. Discuss the dramatic technique of The Glass Menagerie. 5. Evaluate Emerson s The American Scholar as a milestone in American Literature. 6. Discuss the theme of sin and redemption in The Scarlet Letter. 7. Explain the use of symbolism in Hemingway s The Old Man and the Sea. 8. Discuss the characters in Mark Twain s Huckloberry Finn.

2 MAEGD2.02 INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION 1. Examine the influence of Indian Renaissance on the rise of Indian English Literature. 2. Discuss Raja Rao s Kanthapura as a Sthala Purana. 3. Write an essay on the theme of alienation in Clear Light of Day. 4. Attempt a critical appreciation of the craft of Mahaswetha Devi as a short story writer with a special reference to her stories prescribed. 5. Ezekiel said, Scores of my poems are written for personal therapeutic purposes. Discuss with a reference to his poems prescribed. 6. Critically comment on the themes of the poems of Sarojini Naidu. 7. Examine the dramatic technique of Tendulkar in Silence! The Court is in Session. 8. Justify the title of the play Hayavadana.

3 MAEGD2.03 COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE 1. Achebe s Things Fall apart fictionalizes struggles between change and tradition. Do you agree? Substantiate your answer. 2. Elaborate on how Brown brothers Arthur and Waldo in Patrick White s The Solid Mandala symbolize the two opposing halves of the self. 3. Write a note on the narrative technique and imagery employed by Margaret Laurence in the Stone Angel. 4. Elucidate how inequality and injustice become background to Kamalo s search for his son in Paton s Cry, the Beloved Country. 5. Soyinka s The Lion and the Jewel presents a society in flux comment. 6. Discuss the symbolic meaning and the political function of Walcott s Dream on Monkey Mountain. 7. Show how Allen Currow is able to capture the sense of alienation and estrangement felt by settlers of New Zealand in his poetry. 8. Define colonial encounter and analyze how various commonwealth writers react to this experience in their works.

4 MAEGD2.04 CONTEMPORARY WOMEN S WRITING 1. Examine the differences between Liberal and Radical Feminist Theories. 2. Examine the Women s Movement in the West and in the East particularly with reference to India. 3. Comment on Judity Wright s central themes in Woman and Man. 4. Attempt a critical appreciation of Kamala Das. The Old Play House. 5. Justify the title of the novel The Joys of Motherhood. 6. Examine the Dramatic Devices employed in the play Brides are not for Burning by Dina Mehta. 7. Examine A Room of One s Own as a critique on the patriarchal society. 8. Bring out the importance of views of Simon de Beauvoir in her preface to The Second Sex.

5 MAEGD2.05 LITERARY CRITICIAM HISTORY AND TWENTIETH CENTURY CRITICISM 1. Comment on the excellences and defects of Shakespeare as Johnson lists out in his preface to Shakespeare. 2. What aspects of Neoclassical poetry does Wordsworth oppose in preface to Lyrical Ballads? 3. Elucidate Arnold views on Poetry. 4. How does T.S.Eliot relate individual talent to tradition? 5. What comprises the total meaning of a poem according to I.A.Richards? 6. Discuss how Cleanth Brooks makes paradox central to understading and interpreting poetry. 7. Elaborate on the concept of Literary Competence. 8. Explain the concept of Mimesis.