A. Identify the following fragments (give the author, title and period)
1. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! […] For this--for this--I would give everything! […] I would give my soul for that”
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wild, 1890
a) What is the result of speaker’s wish?
Dorian stops ageing, and the portrait somehow grows old. Things he has been doing have an influence of what the portrait looks like.
b) Give the author and the title of the romantic poem where the poetic persona’s meditations focus on the similar issue.
Ode on the Grecian urn by John Keats
2. ”For though I am a wholly vicious man
Don’t think I can’t tell moral tales. I can!”
Pardoner’s Tale (in Canterbury Tales) by Geoffrey Chaucer, XIV
a) What is the theme of the tale speakers tells?
The speaker says that greed is the worst sin, while ironically he is greedy himself
3. “For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;”
The Daffodils by William Wordsworth, about 1800 (romanticism)
a) What is meant by “that inward eye”?
Inward eye is the speaker’s imagination – spiritual part of his body. By saying that he has flash of the daffodils upon that inward eye, means that he has them in his mind, in his dream.
4. Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
Macbeth, William Shakespeare, about 1600 (Elizabethan period)
a) Who is the speaker and in what circumstances are these words uttered?
The speaker is Lady Macbeth. It is a part when she lies in her bed and the doctor appears, she says that when she is half-asleep. It means that she knows that she will always have the smell of the blood on her hands even if she didn’t kill Duncan herself.
5. “Joke!” said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. “I am hungry — I am sick — I don’t joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a hypocrite. You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There’s nothing but slave-dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffee to-day, anyhow!”
An Outpost of Progress, Joseph Conrad, 1897
a) Why does Carlier think of himself and his companion as “slave-dealers” ?
Because they had sold their workers for the ivory
b) What is the ultimate outcome of that exchange of words?
Carlier’s companion doesn’t agree with him, that is why they finally shoot and kill him.
6. “….and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is,
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.”
The Flea, John Donne, XVII/XVIII
a) What is meant by the “living walls of jet”?
It means that their blood is mixed in the flea’s body
B. Provide relevant answer by complementing the following sentences.
1. The Dream of the Rood attributed to Cynewulf is the first English poem written in convention of Middle Ages (Anglo-Saxon values).
2. The medieval ideal of chivalry is closely linked with honour , courtesy, and both find their artistic expression in the literary genre known as romance.
3. The man who facilitated a wider circulation of literature by introducing printing in England at the end of XV century was William Caxton.
4. Conceit is a distinctive characteristic of metaphysical Poetry, and can be described as an extended metaphor with a complex logic.
5. John Milton is the author of the great epic poem of the 17th century, known as the English religious epic, and entitled Paradise Lost.
6. Romantics, unlike poets of the Augustan period, stress the significance of
1/ the beauty of nature 2/ strong feelings 3/ love imagination
7. The 18th century is a great period of satire, which ridicules the failings of individuals and institutions, in prose it is represented by such work of fiction as (give author and title) Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
8. The intellectual climate of the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries is dominated by the movement known as Aestheticism, which has as its main slogan Art for Art’s Sake and represents a reaction against the Victorian realism
9. Modern novel, represented by such novelists as eg. 1/ Oscar Wilde 2/ James Joyce 3/ Joseph Conrad
10. Thomas Stern Eliot is the English modern poet who in 1948 was awarded the Nobel prize in literature
C. Decide whether the following sentences are TRUE or FALSE. If you find them FALSE explain briefly why.
1. The call to defend the honour of the (weaker) woman is an important element in the Anglo-Saxon heroic code of conduct.
FALSE, it is about heroic code of Anglo-Saxon knight, but not towards women
2. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales may be regarded as an anthology of medieval literature.
TRUE
3. In English literature drama does not appear until Elizabethan period.
FALSE, it appeared earlier in Middle English literature in mystery plays
4. Elizabethan sonnet is a long love poem which gives the poet much formal freedom
FALSE, it consists of three quatrains and a final couplet, with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
5. Yahoos are civilized race cruelly treated by local savages.
FALSE, they are showed as being filthy and having bad, wild habits like animals
6. The 18th century witnesses the rise and flourishing of journalism in England.
TRUE
7. Romantic poetry does not have any text which may be regarded as its manifesto.
FALSE, it has their Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth
8. The name ‘Pre-Raphaelites’ refers both to painters and poets.
TRUE
9. In Victorian Age, like in medieval times, most literature was written by aristocracy, and reflected aristocratic code of conduct and style of life.
FALSE, literature was created by middle class writers and addressed to middle class readers eg. realistic and social novels
10. ‘Epiphany’ refers to a modern technique of portraying psychological complexity.
FALSE, it’s religious term which refers to revelation
A. Identify the following fragments (give the author, title and period)
1. “The upper part of the hall was now completely dark. Gazing up into the darkness saw myself as a creature driven by vanity; and my eyes with anger and anger.”
Araby (Dubliners), James Joyce, 1914
a) Who and where is the speaker
The speaker is in the bazaar, he is a young man who is in love
b) What did the speaker fail to do.
He failed to buy nothing for his uncle, and for the girl he promised to buy something
2.”O happy lining things! No tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gush’d from my heart,
And I blessed them unware”
The Rime of Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798
a) What happens after the speaker blessed the ‘living creatures’?
at that moment, he found himself able to pray, and the corpse of the Albatross fell from his neck, sinking in the sea.
3. “Here’s the smell of the blood still:
All the perfumes of Arabia
Will not sweeten this little hand.
Oh, oh, oh!”
Macbeth, William Shakespeare, XIV
a) What did the dreamer see and hear in his dream?
The dreamer is Lady Macbeth, she sees cross on which Jesus was crucified.
4. Death closes all, but something ere the end.
Some work of noble note, may not be done,
Got unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
Ulysses, Alfred Tennyson, XIX
a) What does the speaker want to do before death comes?
He wants to take another enigmatic voyage.
5. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully […]Time is jealous of you, and wars against your (…) and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.[…] Ah realize your youth while yoy have it.
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wild, 1890
a) Who is the speaker and what does he want his listener to ‘realize’?
The speaker is Lord Henry, he wants Dorian to realize that his youth will pass with the passage of time
6. “… this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is,
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.”
The Flea, John Donne, XVII/XVIII
a) Why do ‘parents grudge’?
her parents do not approve their union
b) in what sense they are ‘cloistered in these living walls of jet’
the symbolic marriage is already taking place in the flea's jet-black body, which functions as a church, or "cloister.
B. Provide relevant answer by complementing the following sentences.
1. Beowulf is Old English heroic epic, whereas Paradise Lost by John Milton, written several centuries later, is regarded as great religious epic about free will and individual choice.
2. Another name for the Age of Restoration ‘Restoration’ is related to Journalism
3. The 18th century is the greatest period of Romanticism, which ridicules the failings of individuals and institutions; in prose it is represented, by such works of fiction as (give author and title) William Wordsworth We are seven.
4. Lake Poets is the term used to refer to Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge
5. William Blake is considered the precursor of Romanticism
6. The intellectual climate of Victorian Age was influenced by such ideas: philanthropy, charity, liberty
7. Victorian period is sometimes termed as ‘age of the novel’, with such novelist as 1/ Charles Dickens 2/ Alfred Tennyson 3/ Mathew Arnold
8. Modern literature uses the strategy of ‘stream of consciousness’ which can be defined as writing such texts that reader must use their own logic and think about the sense of the poem.
9. In ‘The Flea’ by John Donne the speaker uses the image of a flea with the intention to make his beloved women consume their love.
10. Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a poem which reflects the Victorian attitude of didacticism, realism, utilitarianism
C.
1. In English literature drama does not appear until Elizabethan period
FALSE, it appeared earlier in Middle English literature in mystery plays
2. During his travel Swift discovers all the advantages of English society
FALSE, mostly disadventages
3. The 18th century witness the rise and flourishing of journalism in England
TRUE
4. Romantic poets stress the significance of carefully chosen poetic diction and highly decorative language
TRUE
5. Shakespearean sonnet is a short poem which rigorously follows a fixed pattern
TRUE
6. The name ‘Pre-Raphaelites’ refers both to painters and poets.
TRUE
7. In Victorian Age, like in medieval times, most literature was written by aristocracy, and reflected aristocratic code of conduct and style of life.
FALSE, literature was created by middle class writers and addressed to middle class readers eg. realistic and social novels
8. Aestheticism is a reaction against the overemphasizing of pure beauty in art
FALSE, Victorian times
9. An Outpost of Progress demonstrates the superiority of Western civilization.
FALSE, it demonstrates the weaknesses, greed for ivory an stupidity
10. Conceit is a poetic device commonly used Old English poetry
FALSE, used in XVI and early XVII centuries