KRISHNA KANTA HANDIQUI STATE OPEN UNIVERSITY Padmanath Gohainbaruah School of Humanities HOME ASSIGNMENT FOR MASTER IN ENGLISH FIRST SEMESTER, 2016 N.B. The learners will have to collect receipt after submitting the assignment with the signature and seal of the collector of study centre and will have to keep with him/her till the declaration of result. Receipt Received the assignment from Mr/Ms. Enrolment number of 1 st Semester, 2016 MA in English on..2016. Date: Signature of collector with seal
Course: History of English Literature and Its Contexts (MEG-01) a. Briefly mention the hierarchical order of Feudalism? b. What do you mean by Renaissance Humanism? c. How does Rationalism differ from Empiricism? a. Why did the Restoration authors turn towards the classical writers for inspiration? c. If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all (Keats). Discuss. c. What is Post Colonialism? Explain with reference to some Postcolonial critics. 3. Answer the following Questions (Within 150-300 words) 6 x 2 = 12 a. How did Romanticism react to the ideas of Neo-classicism? Explain. b. What do you understand by the term Industrialism? Discuss the impact of the Industrial Revolution in the literatures of the Victorian age. a. What do you understand by the term Enlightenment? How did it apply scientific methods to study human society? b. Comment on the term modern in the literature of the Modern Age. What, according to you, is the nature of the modern in English Modernist novels?
Course 2: Literary Forms (MEG-02) a. What is a dramatic monologue? Give two examples. b. What do you understand by Theatre of Cruelty? c. What is non-fictional prose so called? a. What, according to you, is the historical context of a literary work important? b. Do you agree that essays are addressed to select readers? c. What is Stream of Consciousness? Give examples. 3. Answer the following Questions (Within 150-300 words) 6 x 2 = 12 a. The real power of travel writing lies in its independence of perspectives. Do you agree? b. Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Wordsworth). Elaborate. a. What do you mean by the term Theatre of the Absurd? How did it change the course of dramatic writing/performance in the 20 th century? b. How can the setting of a novel influence the perceptions of the readers? Discuss.
Course 3: English Poetry from Chaucer to the Neo Classical (MEG-03) a. What do you understand by the term Pilgrimage in the mediaeval context? b. In what ways did Shakespeare deviate from the Petrarchan tradition of sonnet writing? c. What is the significance of satire in Augustan poetry? a. Discuss John Donne s contribution to Metaphysical poetry. b. Comment on London in Alexander Pope s time. c. What significance does the Invocation to the Muse in Paradise Lost (Book I) carry for Milton s epic? 3. Answer the following Questions (Within 150-300 words) 5 x 2 = 10 a. Do you agree that Chaucer portrayed a miniature world of the medieval period in his Canterbury Tales? Provide a detail analysis of the women characters in the poem? b. Discuss the term Unified Sensibility with reference to John Donne s sonnets. a. T. S. Eliot in the 20 th century rescued the Metaphysical poets from oblivion. Justify this point. b. Discuss Milton s Paradise Lost as an epic with reference to the various epic conventions available in the poem.
Course: English Drama from Elizabethan to Restoration (MEG-04) a. Briefly state the most distinguishing aspect of Mirabells s character in the play The Way of the World? b. Who is Sycorax? Tell her history. c. What did the third witch reveal in Shakespeare s Macbeth? a. What is the significance of the Jews in the business world of Malta as reflected in the play The Jew of Malta? b. What are the salient characteristics of the English aristocratic ladies in the play The Way of the World? c. Comment on the subtitle The Fox in Jonson s play Volpone or The Fox. 3. Answer the following Questions (Within 150-300 words) 5 x 2 = 10 a. Is Twelfth Night only a romantic comedy? Illustrate with exact references from the text. b. Examine the play The Tempest as a commentary on slavery. a. Discuss the significance of Machiavelli in the play The Jew of Malta. How does the reference made to Machiavelli reflect the affairs of the society? b. Comment on the role of Prospero as the manipulator of the events in The Tempest. What does his throwing of the magic wand signify?