Click here to download PDF of 2025 UGC-NET Englsh Literature
| Literature Category | Count |
|---|---|
| Literary Theory and Criticism | 37 |
| British Literature | 18 |
| English Studies In India | 11 |
| Reading Comprehension | 10 |
| Language and Linguistics | 10 |
| Research | 6 |
| Indian Literature | 5 |
| World Literature | 2 |
| American Literature | 1 |
UGC NET English Literature — Fully Explained Quiz
Q.1. Who has coined the phrase “Bricolage”?
💡 Explanation: The term “Bricolage” was coined by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss in his 1962 work The Savage Mind (La Pensée Sauvage). He used it to describe a mode of thought in which ideas and cultural practices are assembled from whatever materials are available, much like a handyman (bricoleur) who improvises with what is at hand. The concept was later adopted in poststructuralism and cultural studies to discuss how texts and meanings are constructed from pre-existing cultural fragments. Raymond Williams, Heidegger, and Foucault are associated with other theoretical frameworks entirely.
Q.2. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Surprised by Sin: the Reader in “Paradise Lost”
B. Five Readers Reading
C. The Reader, the Text, the Poem
D. With Respect to Readers
List II
I. Louise Rosenblatt
II. Stanley Fish
III. Walter J Slatoff
IV. Norman Holland
💡 Explanation: Stanley Fish authored Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost (1967), a foundational text of Reader-Response criticism. Norman Holland wrote Five Readers Reading (1975), applying psychoanalytic theory to individual readers’ responses. Louise Rosenblatt is best known for The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978), where she introduced the transactional theory of reading. Walter J. Slatoff wrote With Respect to Readers (1970), emphasising the reader’s emotional engagement with literary texts.
Q.3. Name the theory which assumes that “culture is not separate from nature, and that there is no hierarchy of actants such that the human is more privileged”.
💡 Explanation: Actor Network Theory (ANT), developed primarily by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law, holds that human and non-human entities (actants) are equally important nodes in social and cultural networks. It deliberately dismantles hierarchies that privilege the human over the non-human, including nature, objects, and technologies. This is distinct from Posthumanism, which, while also questioning human exceptionalism, does so from a different philosophical tradition. Cultural Materialism and Adaptation Theory do not specifically deny the human-nature separation in this way.
Q.4. Which of the following statements have been given by J S Mill in his The Subjection of Women?
A. “The husband was called the lord of the wife.”
B. “She is a slave of any boy whose parents forces a ring upon her finger.”
C. “Wives are in general no better treated than slaves.”
D. “The wife is the actual bondservant of her husband.”
E. “If all women are not the victim of actual rape, then all of them are the victims of the threat of rape.”
B. “She is a slave of any boy whose parents forces a ring upon her finger.”
C. “Wives are in general no better treated than slaves.”
D. “The wife is the actual bondservant of her husband.”
E. “If all women are not the victim of actual rape, then all of them are the victims of the threat of rape.”
💡 Explanation: In The Subjection of Women (1869), J.S. Mill systematically argues that the legal and social subordination of women is a relic of barbarism. Statements A, C, and D — about the husband being called “lord,” wives being treated no better than slaves, and the wife being an actual bondservant — are all consistent with Mill’s critique. Statement B and Statement E are not found in Mill’s text; Statement E echoes later feminist discourse, particularly from writers like Susan Brownmiller.
Q.5. Who said that “Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Johnson was the Vergil, the pattern of elaborate writing”?
💡 Explanation: This statement comes from John Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), in which he compares Shakespeare to Homer for his natural genius and Ben Jonson to Virgil for his craftsmanship and learned art. Dryden is considered the father of English literary criticism and frequently used classical parallels to evaluate English writers. Matthew Arnold and Samuel Johnson came much later and are not the source of this remark.
Q.6. Who has described his criticism as a “by-product” of his “private poetry-workshop” and as “a prolongation of the thinking that went into the formation of my own verse”?
💡 Explanation: T.S. Eliot famously described his critical writings as a by-product of his poetic workshop, indicating that his criticism emerged directly from his practical concerns as a poet. This view is articulated in his preface to The Sacred Wood (1920). Eliot’s critical essays, including “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “The Metaphysical Poets,” reflect this intimate connection between creation and analysis. Coleridge’s criticism was more philosophical, Arnold’s more cultural and social, and Pound’s more programmatic.
Q.7. “Territorialization” is a term given by:
💡 Explanation: “Territorialization” (along with “de-territorialization” and “re-territorialization”) is a concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). These terms describe how desire, power, and social forces organise and disrupt spaces, bodies, and meanings. Spivak, Said, and Macleod are key figures in postcolonial theory but are not the originators of this specific term.
Q.8. Choose the correct chronological order of the given works on Postcolonial Criticism:
A. In Other Worlds
B. Postcolonial Literary Studies: First Thirty Years
C. Nation and Narration
D. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
E. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
B. Postcolonial Literary Studies: First Thirty Years
C. Nation and Narration
D. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
E. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
💡 Explanation: Gayatri Spivak’s In Other Worlds (1987) came first, followed by Homi Bhabha’s edited volume Nation and Narration (1990). Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large (1996) came next, and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, though originally published in 1905, appears here in a postcolonial context. Postcolonial Literary Studies: First Thirty Years is the most recent. This chronology traces the development of postcolonial thought from Spivak’s Marxist-feminist-deconstructive approach through to later globalisation-oriented scholarship.
Q.9. Which of the following statements have been given by Barbara Johnson?
A. “Deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction…”
B. “The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion…”
C. “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself.”
D. “If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another.”
E. “Deconstruction as a mode of philosophical interpretation works by a careful and circumspect entering of each textual labyrinth…”
B. “The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion…”
C. “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself.”
D. “If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another.”
E. “Deconstruction as a mode of philosophical interpretation works by a careful and circumspect entering of each textual labyrinth…”
💡 Explanation: Barbara Johnson, in her The Critical Difference (1980) and translations of Derrida, clarifies the nature of deconstruction in statements A, B, and D. She distinguishes deconstruction from arbitrary destruction, emphasising that it works by carefully attending to internal contradictions within texts. Statement C is more characteristically attributed to Derrida himself. Statement E echoes the language of Paul de Man’s approach to deconstruction rather than Johnson’s.
Q.10. For Arnold, Culture is:
A. the ability to know what is best
B. the ability to know what is worst
C. the mental and spiritual application of what is best
D. the pursuit of what is best
E. the pursuit of what is worst
B. the ability to know what is worst
C. the mental and spiritual application of what is best
D. the pursuit of what is best
E. the pursuit of what is worst
💡 Explanation: In Culture and Anarchy (1869), Matthew Arnold famously defines culture as “the pursuit of perfection” and “getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said.” The answer key here marks option (1) — A, C and E — which seems anomalous since Arnold positively valued culture and did not define it in terms of “what is worst.” The most accurate Arnold definition involves A (knowing what is best) and D (pursuing what is best), making option (4) the philosophically correct answer, but the official answer is (1).
Q.11. Who has coined the term “Onto-Theology”?
💡 Explanation: The term “Onto-Theology” was coined by Jacques Derrida in his deconstructive readings of Western philosophy, particularly in his critique of what he called the “metaphysics of presence.” Derrida argued that Western philosophy has always grounded Being in a theological concept, conflating ontology with theology. This concept is central to his deconstruction of logocentric thinking and appears prominently in works like Of Grammatology (1967) and Writing and Difference (1967).
Q.12. Jacques Derrida’s “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression” is related to:
💡 Explanation: Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Mal d’Archive, 1995) explores the concept of the archive — its relationship to memory, history, power, and the drive to preserve and record. Derrida brings together Freudian psychoanalysis and archival theory to argue that the archive is never simply a neutral repository but is shaped by the forces of destruction (death drive) and preservation. The text has been enormously influential in archival studies, historiography, and literary research methodology.
Q.13. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, what is the minimum number necessary to complete the speaking-circuit?
💡 Explanation: In Course in General Linguistics (1916), Ferdinand de Saussure outlines the speaking-circuit (circuit de la parole) as a social act that requires at minimum two interlocutors. Communication begins with a concept in the mind of one person, which is converted into a sound image and transmitted, then decoded by the second person. This dyadic model underpins his structural linguistics, where language is understood as a system of differences existing between speakers in a community.
Q.14. Who has written, “The two pillars upon which a theory of criticism must rest are an account of value and an account of communication”?
💡 Explanation: I.A. Richards made this statement in Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), where he argued that any coherent critical theory must grapple with both how literature communicates meaning and how it is to be valued. Richards was a pioneer of practical criticism and brought psychological and semantic rigour to the study of literary response. His twin concerns — communication and value — shaped the New Critical tradition and influenced generations of critics including William Empson, his student.
Q.15. The term “Remainder” has been first used by:
💡 Explanation: The term “Remainder” (restance in French) is used by Jacques Derrida to refer to that which persists or remains after a process of deconstruction, translation, or signification — the irreducible excess that cannot be fully incorporated or eliminated. Derrida’s use of this concept appears in works such as Glas (1974) and his writings on translation and the trace. It is related to his broader concern with the supplement and the trace in language.
Q.16. Who is of the opinion that the concept of “ideology” is “the most important conceptual category in cultural studies”?
💡 Explanation: Graeme Turner, in British Cultural Studies: An Introduction (1990), argues that ideology is the central conceptual category for cultural studies, linking Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, Althusser’s theory of ideological state apparatuses, and Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model. Raymond Williams is foundational to cultural materialism, but the specific claim about ideology as the “most important conceptual category” is associated with Turner’s overview of the field.
Q.17. Choose the correct key points related to approach to Feminism and Gender Studies:
A. Feminism is concerned with the marginalization of women in a patriarchal culture.
B. Feminist critics explain how the subordination of women is reflected or challenged by literary texts. They examine the experiences of women of all races, classes, sexual preferences, and cultures.
C. Mary Wollstonecraft defines four models of sexual difference: biological, linguistic, psychoanalytic, and cultural.
D. Feminist critics’ goals: to expose patriarchal premises and resulting prejudices, to promote the discovery and reevaluation of literature by women, and to examine social, cultural, and psychosexual contexts of literature and literary criticism.
E. Simone de Beauvoir prefers “womanism” to “feminism.”
B. Feminist critics explain how the subordination of women is reflected or challenged by literary texts. They examine the experiences of women of all races, classes, sexual preferences, and cultures.
C. Mary Wollstonecraft defines four models of sexual difference: biological, linguistic, psychoanalytic, and cultural.
D. Feminist critics’ goals: to expose patriarchal premises and resulting prejudices, to promote the discovery and reevaluation of literature by women, and to examine social, cultural, and psychosexual contexts of literature and literary criticism.
E. Simone de Beauvoir prefers “womanism” to “feminism.”
💡 Explanation: Statements A, B, and D accurately represent the core aims and concerns of feminist literary criticism. Statement C is incorrect because the four models of sexual difference (biological, linguistic, psychoanalytic, cultural) are associated with Elaine Showalter’s gynocriticism, not Mary Wollstonecraft. Statement E is also incorrect: it is Alice Walker who coined the term “womanism” for Black feminist thought; Simone de Beauvoir neither coined nor explicitly preferred it to “feminism.”
Q.18. Which of the following is not a distinct discourse analytical research tradition as suggested by Margaret Wetherell et al.?
💡 Explanation: In Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (2001), edited by Margaret Wetherell et al., the editors identify distinct research traditions including Foucauldian discourse analysis, discursive psychology, conversation analysis, and Bakhtinian dialogism. Saussurian research, while foundational to semiotics and linguistics, is not identified as a distinct discourse analytical tradition in this framework — Saussure’s work is a precursor to structuralism rather than a method of discourse analysis.
Q.19. Read the following statements carefully and choose the correct ones:
A. Mikhail Bakhtin traces the roots of the novel back into the imperial Rome and ancient Hellenistic romances.
B. Henry James considers the novel as the epic of a prosaic modern world.
C. Margaret Anne Doody locates novel’s birthplace in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean.
D. F. R. Leavis defines novel as “one bright book of life”.
E. Georg Lukacs calls the novel “the epic of a world abandoned by God”.
B. Henry James considers the novel as the epic of a prosaic modern world.
C. Margaret Anne Doody locates novel’s birthplace in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean.
D. F. R. Leavis defines novel as “one bright book of life”.
E. Georg Lukacs calls the novel “the epic of a world abandoned by God”.
💡 Explanation: Bakhtin traces the novel’s roots to ancient forms in The Dialogic Imagination (1981). Margaret Anne Doody, in The True Story of the Novel (1996), argues for the novel’s origins in the ancient Mediterranean world. Georg Lukács, in The Theory of the Novel (1916), famously describes the novel as “the epic of a world that has been abandoned by God.” Statement B is attributed to Lukács, not Henry James; and Statement D (“one bright book of life”) is from D.H. Lawrence, not Leavis.
Q.20. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Thick description
B. Transcendental signified
C. Vehicle, Tenor
D. Alienation Effect
List II
I. Jacques Derrida
II. I A Richards
III. Bertolt Brecht
IV. Clifford Geertz
💡 Explanation: “Thick description” is Clifford Geertz’s term from The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), referring to rich contextual accounts of cultural phenomena. “Transcendental signified” is Derrida’s concept from Of Grammatology (1967), critiquing the idea of a final, fixed meaning outside the play of signification. “Vehicle” and “Tenor” are I.A. Richards’s terms from The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) to describe the two components of a metaphor. The “Alienation Effect” (Verfremdungseffekt) is Bertolt Brecht’s theatrical concept intended to prevent emotional identification with characters.
Q.21. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Thinking About Women
B. The Female Eunuch
C. The Dialectic of Sex
D. The Feminine Mystique
List II
I. Betty Friedan
II. Mary Ellman
III. Shulamith Firestone
IV. Germaine Greer
💡 Explanation: Mary Ellman wrote Thinking About Women (1968), a witty analysis of stereotypes applied to women in literary criticism. Germaine Greer wrote The Female Eunuch (1970), arguing that women have been conditioned to suppress their sexuality and power. Shulamith Firestone authored The Dialectic of Sex (1970), arguing for a biological materialist feminism. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) is the foundational text of second-wave American feminism, identifying the “problem that has no name.”
Q.22. Who, amongst the following, attempted to reconcile discrepancies between various classical authors such as Plato and Aristotle, as well as between philosophy and poetry?
💡 Explanation: The Neo-Platonists, particularly figures like Plotinus and Renaissance Neo-Platonists such as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, attempted to synthesise the philosophical traditions of Plato and Aristotle, as well as to reconcile Greek philosophy with poetry and Christian theology. They argued that poetry could serve as a vehicle for ascending to higher spiritual truth. Sir Philip Sidney’s Apology for Poetry drew on Neo-Platonic ideas but did not itself systematically reconcile classical authorities. Longinus was concerned with the concept of sublimity in literature.
Q.23. Who has designed “Panopticon” and used the term as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind”?
💡 Explanation: Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) designed the Panopticon as a circular prison in which a central watchman could observe all inmates without them knowing whether they were being watched, thereby inducing self-discipline. Bentham himself described it as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind.” Michel Foucault later drew on Bentham’s Panopticon in Discipline and Punish (1975) to analyse how modern societies exercise power through surveillance.
Q.24. Choose the statements given by Virginia Woolf about women:
A. “She is born stupid and can do nothing but stupidity.”
B. “She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction.”
C. “She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.”
D. She criticized Shakespeare for being harsh and rude to his female characters in his plays.
E. “In real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.”
B. “She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction.”
C. “She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.”
D. She criticized Shakespeare for being harsh and rude to his female characters in his plays.
E. “In real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.”
💡 Explanation: Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One’s Own (1929), makes these observations about the paradoxical position of women: dominant in fiction yet absent from history, and legally the property of their husbands in real life. Statements B, C, and E are all drawn from Woolf’s famous essay. Statement A is not from Woolf, and Statement D is also incorrect — Woolf praised Shakespeare’s genius and even imagined a “Judith Shakespeare” to illustrate the fate of a woman of equal talent.
Q.25. Arrange the following works of Criticism chronologically:
A. More than Cool Reason
B. Death is the Mother of Beauty
C. Margins of Discourse
D. Meter in English: A Critical Engagement
E. The Rule of Metaphor
B. Death is the Mother of Beauty
C. Margins of Discourse
D. Meter in English: A Critical Engagement
E. The Rule of Metaphor
💡 Explanation: Paul Ricoeur’s The Rule of Metaphor was published in 1975 (French original), followed by George Lakoff and Mark Turner’s More than Cool Reason (1989), then Ralph Cohen’s Margins of Discourse (1978 in official placement). Mark Turner’s Death is the Mother of Beauty (1987) and the edited volume Meter in English: A Critical Engagement (1996) are the later texts. The official answer key lists the chronological order as E, A, C, B, D.
Q.26. Which of the Schools of Criticism has strongly opposed Formalism, in both its European and American varieties, rejecting the view that there is a sharp and definable division between ordinary language and literary language?
A. Marxism
B. Reader Response Criticism
C. Speech–Act Theory
D. New Historicism
E. Postcolonialism
B. Reader Response Criticism
C. Speech–Act Theory
D. New Historicism
E. Postcolonialism
💡 Explanation: Reader Response Criticism challenges Formalism by insisting that meaning is created in the act of reading rather than residing in the autonomous text. Speech-Act Theory (following Austin and Searle) undermines the formalist distinction between literary and ordinary language by treating all language as performative. New Historicism rejects the formalist isolation of the text from its historical and social context. The three approaches in option (3) most directly attack the formalist premise about literary language.
Q.27. “The notion of author constitutes the privileged moment of individualization in the history of ideas, knowledge literature, philosophy and the sciences.” Identify the critical essay in which the line occurs:
💡 Explanation: This line comes from Michel Foucault’s essay “What is an Author?” (1969), in which he analyses the historical construction of the “author function” and how it governs the circulation and reception of texts. Foucault argues that the author is not a real individual but a discursive function that classifies, validates, and controls meaning. This essay is a response to, and development of, Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” (1968). Together, these two essays are foundational to poststructuralist theories of authorship.
Q.28. Since the publication of Samuel Johnson’s “Preface to Shakespeare” in 1765, which of the Unities have been regarded as optional devices, available as needed by playwrights in England to achieve special effects of dramatic concentration?
💡 Explanation: In his “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765), Samuel Johnson defended Shakespeare’s violation of the classical Unities of Place and Time, arguing that they were artificial constraints not required by nature or reason. Johnson maintained the Unity of Action as essential to dramatic coherence but dismissed Place and Time as merely conventional. His arguments were highly influential in liberating English dramatic criticism from strict neo-classical rules and opened the way for Romantic defences of Shakespeare.
Q.29. Arrange the following books in chronological order:
A. G. N. Shuster’s The English Ode from Milton to Keats
B. Paul H. Fry’s The Poet’s Calling in the English Ode
C. John Heath-Stubbs’ The Ode
D. Carol Maddison’s Appollo and the Nine: A History of the Ode
E. G.M. Foley’s Oral Traditional Literature
B. Paul H. Fry’s The Poet’s Calling in the English Ode
C. John Heath-Stubbs’ The Ode
D. Carol Maddison’s Appollo and the Nine: A History of the Ode
E. G.M. Foley’s Oral Traditional Literature
💡 Explanation: G.N. Shuster’s The English Ode from Milton to Keats (1940) is the earliest. Carol Maddison’s Apollo and the Nine (1960) followed, providing a comprehensive history of the ode form. John Heath-Stubbs’s The Ode (1969) offered a more concise overview. Paul H. Fry’s The Poet’s Calling in the English Ode (1980) offered a more theoretically sophisticated analysis. G.M. Foley’s Oral Traditional Literature (1981) is the latest work, focusing on oral dimensions of literary tradition.
Q.30. Which of the following critics are associated with Frankfurt School of German intellectuals?
A. Walter Benjamin
B. Laura Mulvey
C. Travis Henderson
D. Max Horkheimer
E. Leo Lowenthal
B. Laura Mulvey
C. Travis Henderson
D. Max Horkheimer
E. Leo Lowenthal
💡 Explanation: The Frankfurt School, or the Institute for Social Research, was founded in Frankfurt in 1923 and brought together Marxist intellectuals committed to critical theory. Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse are among its most prominent members. Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist associated with psychoanalytic and screen theory rather than the Frankfurt School. Travis Henderson is not a recognised figure in this tradition.
Q.31. The term “Trace”, which refers to the trace of the other, has been borrowed by Jacques Lacan from:
💡 Explanation: Jacques Lacan borrowed the concept of the “trace of the other” from the French phenomenologist and ethical philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, whose notion of the Other (the alterity of the other person that cannot be reduced to the self) was central to his ethical philosophy. Levinas’s idea of the “trace” — the way the absolute Other leaves an impression without being fully present — was incorporated into Lacanian psychoanalysis and its understanding of desire and the unconscious. Derrida also used “trace” extensively but in a different philosophical context.
Q.32. Arrange the following works of Criticism chronologically:
A. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
B. A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition
C. History of Sexuality
D. New Lesbian Criticism: Literary and Cultural Readings
E. Bodies That Matter
B. A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition
C. History of Sexuality
D. New Lesbian Criticism: Literary and Cultural Readings
E. Bodies That Matter
💡 Explanation: Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1976) came first, establishing the discourse-based analysis of sexuality. Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) followed, founding queer theory’s critique of the gender binary. Sally Munt’s edited New Lesbian Criticism (1992) appeared next, followed by Butler’s Bodies That Matter (1993). Gregory Woods’s A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998) is the most recent. This chronology maps the development of queer and LGBTQ+ literary criticism from Foucault through Butler to later cultural-historical work.
Q.33. Arrange the following statements chronologically in order of their appearance in Aristotle’s Poetics:
A. “The plot is the end at which tragedy aims.”
B. Regarding the Plot, “A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.”
C. The plot of the tragedy should have a Unity: “The component incidents must be so arranged that if one of them be transposed or removed, the unity of the whole is dislocated and destroyed.”
D. The character in question must occupy a mean between these extremes; he must be a man “who is not pre-eminently virtuous and just…”
E. The function of the poet is to narrate “events such as might occur … in accordance with the laws of probability or necessity.”
B. Regarding the Plot, “A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.”
C. The plot of the tragedy should have a Unity: “The component incidents must be so arranged that if one of them be transposed or removed, the unity of the whole is dislocated and destroyed.”
D. The character in question must occupy a mean between these extremes; he must be a man “who is not pre-eminently virtuous and just…”
E. The function of the poet is to narrate “events such as might occur … in accordance with the laws of probability or necessity.”
💡 Explanation: In the Poetics, Aristotle first establishes that plot (mythos) is the “soul of tragedy” and its primary end (A). He then defines plot in terms of wholeness — beginning, middle, and end (B). He proceeds to discuss the unity required of the plot’s incidents (C). He then addresses probability and necessity in poetic representation (E), and finally turns to the discussion of the tragic hero — the man of intermediate virtue who falls through a flaw (hamartia) — in the later sections (D).
Q.34. Arrange the following works of Feminism in chronological order:
A. The Female Imagination
B. The Madwoman in the Attic
C. A Literature of their Own
D. Women’s Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis
E. Revolution in Poetic Language
B. The Madwoman in the Attic
C. A Literature of their Own
D. Women’s Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis
E. Revolution in Poetic Language
💡 Explanation: Julia Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language (1974, French original) came first. Patricia Meyer Spacks’s The Female Imagination (1975) appeared next. Elaine Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own (1977) followed, founding gynocriticism. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) is the landmark study of 19th-century women’s writing. Michèle Barrett’s Women’s Oppression Today (1980), a Marxist feminist analysis, is the most recent. This chronology illustrates the rapid development of feminist literary criticism in the 1970s.
Q.35. Who developed the concept of the cultural circuit which is important to the study of the interactions of culture and memory in Oral History research method?
💡 Explanation: Graham Dawson and Alistair Thomson, both prominent in the field of oral history and popular memory studies, developed the concept of the “cultural circuit” to describe how personal memories are shaped by, and in turn shape, broader cultural narratives and collective remembrance. Their work, associated with the Popular Memory Group at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham), examines how individual oral testimonies circulate within and are constructed through cultural frameworks.
Q.36. Arrange the following works chronologically:
A. The Heart of Hindustan
B. Occasional Speeches and Writings
C. Eastern Religions and Western Thought
D. Dhammapada
E. The Principal Upanishads
B. Occasional Speeches and Writings
C. Eastern Religions and Western Thought
D. Dhammapada
E. The Principal Upanishads
💡 Explanation: Sarojini Naidu’s The Heart of Hindustan (a poetry collection, 1915) is placed first. S. Radhakrishnan’s Eastern Religions and Western Thought (1939) follows, with his translation of the Dhammapada (1950) and The Principal Upanishads (1953) thereafter. Occasional Speeches and Writings would be latest as it refers to collected public addresses. The official answer reflects this ordering: A, C, D, E, B.
Q.37. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Work)
A. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India
B. The Slave Girl of Agra
C. Love Songs and Elegies
D. Gora
List II (Author)
I. Romesh Chander Dutt
II. Dadabhai Naoroji
III. Rabindranath Tagore
IV. Manmohan Ghosh
💡 Explanation: Dadabhai Naoroji, known as the “Grand Old Man of India,” wrote Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), a landmark critique of colonial economic exploitation. Romesh Chander Dutt wrote The Slave Girl of Agra, a historical novel. Manmohan Ghosh, one of the first Indian poets to write in English, authored Love Songs and Elegies. Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora (1910) is one of his most significant novels, exploring questions of identity, religion, and nationalism.
Q.38. Choose the correct match of play and playwright:
A. Hali – Rabindranath Tagore
B. Tiger Claw – Lakhan Deb
C. The Flute of Krishna – P A Krishnaswami
D. Nalini – Gurucharan Das
E. Hayavadana – Girish Karnad
B. Tiger Claw – Lakhan Deb
C. The Flute of Krishna – P A Krishnaswami
D. Nalini – Gurucharan Das
E. Hayavadana – Girish Karnad
💡 Explanation: Tiger Claw is a play by Lakhan Deb, a notable Indian English dramatist. The Flute of Krishna was written by P.A. Krishnaswami. Hayavadana (1971) is one of Girish Karnad’s most celebrated plays, based on a story from the Kathasaritsagara and Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads. Hali is not a play by Tagore. Nalini is actually a play by Rabindranath Tagore, not Gurucharan Das, whose famous play is Larins Sahib. Thus, only B, C, and E are correctly matched.
Q.39. Arrange the following novels in a chronological order as per their years of publication:
A. The Serpent and the Rope
B. Two Leaves and a Bud
C. A Bend in the Ganges
D. So Many Hungers
E. Waiting for the Mahatma
B. Two Leaves and a Bud
C. A Bend in the Ganges
D. So Many Hungers
E. Waiting for the Mahatma
💡 Explanation: Mulk Raj Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud was published in 1937, followed by Bhabhani Bhattacharya’s So Many Hungers (1947). R.K. Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma appeared in 1955. Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope came in 1960. Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964) is the most recent. These novels span the pre-Independence period through the first decade and a half after Independence.
Q.40. Arrange the following statements in a chronological order:
A. Nissim Ezekiel founded Quest, a general intellectual review associated with liberal democratic politics.
B. The Illustrated Weekly of India sponsored a short story competition and began publishing contemporary Indian English poetry.
C. The Writers Workshop began to publish volumes of poetry.
D. C. R. Mandy became editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India.
B. The Illustrated Weekly of India sponsored a short story competition and began publishing contemporary Indian English poetry.
C. The Writers Workshop began to publish volumes of poetry.
D. C. R. Mandy became editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India.
💡 Explanation: C.R. Mandy became editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India in the 1940s, helping to create a platform for Indian writing in English. The Illustrated Weekly then began publishing Indian English poetry and sponsoring writing competitions. Nissim Ezekiel founded Quest in 1955, an important intellectual and literary journal. The Writers Workshop, founded by Purushottama Lal in Calcutta, began publishing volumes of poetry from the 1950s onwards.
Q.41. Choose the correct definitions of language:
A. Language uses symbols that are primarily vocal but may also be visual and its subfields are phonetics, phonology, writing systems, orthography, and nonverbal communication.
B. Language is used for communication and its subfields are sentence processing, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis.
C. Language uses symbols that have unconventionalized meanings and its subfields are universal grammar, innateness, emergentism, neurolinguistics and cross-cultural analysis.
D. Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.
E. Language has region specific characteristics and its subfields are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse analysis, and lexical analysis.
B. Language is used for communication and its subfields are sentence processing, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis.
C. Language uses symbols that have unconventionalized meanings and its subfields are universal grammar, innateness, emergentism, neurolinguistics and cross-cultural analysis.
D. Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.
E. Language has region specific characteristics and its subfields are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse analysis, and lexical analysis.
💡 Explanation: Statements A, B, and D provide accurate characterisations of language and its associated subfields. Statement A correctly notes language’s primarily vocal nature. Statement B accurately identifies communication as central to language. Statement D is the classic definition emphasising conventionalised signs and systematic communication. Statement C is incorrect because language symbols are conventionalised (arbitrary but agreed upon), not unconventionalized. Statement E conflates regional variation with a general definition of language.
Q.42. Erziehungsroman is a term which signifies:
💡 Explanation: Erziehungsroman is a German term literally meaning “novel of education” or “upbringing novel,” closely related to the Bildungsroman (novel of formation). While the Bildungsroman focuses on the broader psychological and moral development of the protagonist, the Erziehungsroman specifically emphasises the process of education and moral instruction. Both terms originate in German literary criticism and have been applied to texts like Rousseau’s Émile and Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days.
Q.43. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Collocation
B. Inflected
C. Polarity
D. Generative
List II
I. A term borrowed in the 1960s from mathematics into linguistics by Noam Chomsky
II. A term for the contrast between positive and negative in sentences, clauses, and phrases
III. A habitual association between particular words
IV. A term in which a word takes various forms to show its grammatical role
💡 Explanation: “Collocation” refers to the habitual co-occurrence of words in a language (e.g., “rancid butter,” “blonde hair”), a concept developed by J.R. Firth. “Inflection” describes how a word changes its form to indicate grammatical categories such as tense, number, or case (e.g., “walk” → “walked”). “Polarity” refers to the grammatical contrast between positive and negative constructions. “Generative” was a term Noam Chomsky borrowed from mathematics in the 1950s–60s to describe grammar as a system capable of generating an infinite number of sentences from finite rules.
Q.44. Arrange the following stages of first language acquisition schedule in its chronological order:
A. The Two-Word Stage
B. Telegraphic Speech
C. The One-Word Stage
D. Cooing
E. Babbling
B. Telegraphic Speech
C. The One-Word Stage
D. Cooing
E. Babbling
💡 Explanation: First language acquisition follows a broadly predictable sequence. Cooing (D) begins at around 6–8 weeks, as infants produce soft, vowel-like sounds. Babbling (E) starts at approximately 6 months, with repetitive consonant-vowel combinations like “bababa.” The One-Word Stage or holophrastic stage (C) begins around 12 months. The Two-Word Stage (A) emerges at approximately 18–24 months. Telegraphic Speech (B) follows at around 2–3 years, when children begin producing multi-word utterances that lack function words.
Q.45. If the glide is distinct enough to be heard, the vowel + glide will be treated as:
💡 Explanation: In phonological analysis, when a vowel is followed by a glide (semi-vowels like /j/ or /w/) and the glide is perceptibly distinct, the combination is analysed as a sequence of two separate vowel sounds rather than a single diphthong. A diphthong, by contrast, involves a smooth glide within a single syllable where the transition is seamless enough to be treated as a unit. A monophthong is a pure, unchanging vowel sound, which is clearly inapplicable here.
Q.46. The study of how human beings acquire language and how we use language to speak and understand is called:
💡 Explanation: Psycholinguistics is the interdisciplinary field that studies the psychological and neurological factors underlying language acquisition, comprehension, and production. It examines how children acquire their first language, how adults process spoken and written language in real time, and how language is represented in the mind and brain. Sociolinguistics studies language in relation to social factors. Applied linguistics uses linguistic knowledge to solve practical problems, particularly in language teaching. Theoretical linguistics focuses on the abstract formal properties of language systems.
Q.47. Choose the correct statements regarding scope of linguistics from the following:
A. To describe and trace the history of all observable languages.
B. To determine the forces that are permanently and universally at work in all languages.
C. To study manifestations of civilized human speech only.
D. To consider only correct speech and flowery language.
E. To delimit and define itself.
B. To determine the forces that are permanently and universally at work in all languages.
C. To study manifestations of civilized human speech only.
D. To consider only correct speech and flowery language.
E. To delimit and define itself.
💡 Explanation: According to Ferdinand de Saussure and subsequent linguistic tradition, the scope of linguistics includes the description and historical tracing of all observable languages (A), the identification of universal forces at work in all languages (B), and the task of self-definition and delimitation as a science (E). Statement C is incorrect because linguistics studies all human speech, not just “civilised” speech. Statement D is also incorrect: descriptive linguistics explicitly does not privilege “correct” or “flowery” speech over other varieties.
Q.48. Read the following statements carefully and choose the correct ones:
A. A mixed metaphor conjoins two or more obviously diverse metaphoric vehicles.
B. In metonymy, a part of something is used to signify the whole.
C. To scan a passage of verse is to go through it line by line to analyze its content, theme and diction.
D. The term ‘kenning’ denotes the recurrent use, in the poems written in old Germanic languages, of a descriptive phrase in place of the ordinary name for something.
E. Figurative language is often divided into two categories: Tropes and Schemes.
B. In metonymy, a part of something is used to signify the whole.
C. To scan a passage of verse is to go through it line by line to analyze its content, theme and diction.
D. The term ‘kenning’ denotes the recurrent use, in the poems written in old Germanic languages, of a descriptive phrase in place of the ordinary name for something.
E. Figurative language is often divided into two categories: Tropes and Schemes.
💡 Explanation: Statement A is correct: a mixed metaphor combines incompatible or incongruous metaphors. Statement D is correct: “kenning” is indeed a compound expression used in Old English and Old Norse poetry as a poetic periphrasis (e.g., “whale-road” for the sea). Statement E is correct: classical rhetoric divides figurative language into tropes (figures of thought, like metaphor) and schemes (figures of arrangement, like anaphora). Statement B incorrectly defines synecdoche, not metonymy. Statement C is incorrect: scanning refers to identifying the metrical pattern of verse, not content or theme.
Q.49. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Pidgin
B. Creole
C. Idiolect
D. Register
List II
I. The language special to an individual, sometimes described as a ‘personal dialect’
II. A language defined according to social use, such as scientific, formal, religious, and journalistic
III. A contact language which draws on elements from two or more languages
IV. A term relating to people and languages especially in the erstwhile colonial tropics and subtropics
💡 Explanation: A “Pidgin” is a simplified contact language that arises when speakers of different languages need to communicate and draws on elements from two or more languages. A “Creole” develops when a pidgin becomes the native language of a community; it is particularly associated with colonial contexts in the tropics. An “Idiolect” refers to the unique language use of a single individual — their personal dialect. “Register” denotes the variety of language used in specific social contexts or for particular purposes, such as legal, medical, or journalistic registers.
Q.50. According to the 1991 census, _______ languages are considered scheduled languages.
💡 Explanation: According to the 1991 Indian Census, 18 languages were listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as scheduled languages. These included Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Sanskrit, Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali. The number was later increased to 22 by the 92nd Constitutional Amendment in 2003, which added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali. At the time of the 1991 census, however, the official count was 18.
Q.51. Who prepared the first blueprint on English education in India in 1792?
💡 Explanation: Charles Grant, a senior official of the East India Company and an Evangelical Christian, prepared Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain in 1792, which served as the first systematic blueprint for introducing English education in India. Grant argued that English education and Christian values would reform Indian society and strengthen British rule. His report laid the ideological groundwork for subsequent educational policies, including Macaulay’s Minute of 1835. William Carey was a Baptist missionary associated with the Serampore Mission and did not author this specific policy document.
Q.52. Who wrote to the Committee of Public Instruction on introducing English as official language of the Government and that of education?
💡 Explanation: Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, wrote to the Committee of Public Instruction in 1835, acting on T.B. Macaulay’s famous Minute, to officially endorse English as the medium of instruction and government in India. Bentinck’s declaration marked a decisive turning point in Indian educational policy, directing funds previously used for Sanskrit and Arabic learning towards English education. Robert Clive and Warren Hastings preceded this policy shift, and Zachary Macaulay was T.B. Macaulay’s father.
Q.53. Choose the correct statements.
A. English literature was first offered as a subject of study at King’s College, London in 1831.
B. English was first offered as a subject of study in England only in 1828 in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
C. Though taught as a medium of instruction and a subject of study in India since 1850s, Oxford and Cambridge did not allow the new subject of English literature to be taught till the end of the nineteenth century.
D. In 1931, English replaced the study of classics in Greek and Latin (the language of the Church) in Oxford and Cambridge.
E. Till the end of the nineteenth century literature meant only the study of great books in classical languages like Greek and Latin in Oxford and Cambridge.
B. English was first offered as a subject of study in England only in 1828 in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
C. Though taught as a medium of instruction and a subject of study in India since 1850s, Oxford and Cambridge did not allow the new subject of English literature to be taught till the end of the nineteenth century.
D. In 1931, English replaced the study of classics in Greek and Latin (the language of the Church) in Oxford and Cambridge.
E. Till the end of the nineteenth century literature meant only the study of great books in classical languages like Greek and Latin in Oxford and Cambridge.
💡 Explanation: English literature as a formal academic subject was first offered at King’s College, London in 1831 (A), connected to the founding of the London University system as an alternative to Oxbridge. At Oxford and Cambridge, the study of literature meant classical Greek and Latin texts throughout the 19th century, making Statement E correct. English Literature was taught in India through missionary schools and the colonial education system from the mid-19th century, even as Oxford and Cambridge resisted it until the late 19th century (C). Statement B is incorrect as neither Oxford nor Cambridge formally established English Literature in 1828. Statement D’s date is also inaccurate.
Q.54. Choose the correct events corresponding with their year:
A. The Official Languages Commission submitted its report in 1936.
B. The first ELTI was established in Allahabad in 1954.
C. The Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages was established in Hyderabad in 1958.
D. National Policy on Education came in 1960.
E. The NEP and POA came in 1986.
B. The first ELTI was established in Allahabad in 1954.
C. The Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages was established in Hyderabad in 1958.
D. National Policy on Education came in 1960.
E. The NEP and POA came in 1986.
💡 Explanation: The first English Language Teaching Institute (ELTI) was established in Allahabad in 1954 (B). The Central Institute of English, later the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (now EFL University), was established in Hyderabad in 1958 (C). The National Policy on Education (NPE) and its Programme of Action (POA) came in 1986, under the Rajiv Gandhi government (E). Statement A is incorrect: the Official Languages Commission submitted its report in 1956, not 1936. Statement D is incorrect: the National Policy on Education was formulated in 1968 (first) and 1986, not 1960.
Q.55. Choose the correct statements amongst the following:
A. Macaulay was the practical man of affairs, helping and rejoicing in the progress of his beloved country.
B. Ruskin was like a Hebrew prophet lost in the desert, and the burden of his message was, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!”
C. Arnold was much like the cultivated Greek; his voice was soft, his speech suave, but he left the impression that you must be deficient in culture.
D. Newman was like the best friend every one has expressed his thought with such naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we received exactly the impression which he meant to convey.
B. Ruskin was like a Hebrew prophet lost in the desert, and the burden of his message was, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!”
C. Arnold was much like the cultivated Greek; his voice was soft, his speech suave, but he left the impression that you must be deficient in culture.
D. Newman was like the best friend every one has expressed his thought with such naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we received exactly the impression which he meant to convey.
💡 Explanation: These characterisations of Victorian prose writers come from a well-known passage of Victorian literary criticism. Macaulay is accurately characterised as a practical man of affairs (A). Arnold is aptly described as the cultivated Greek who made others feel culturally deficient — echoing his own rhetoric about philistinism (C). Newman’s prose is famously characterised by its naturalness and conversational ease, making the reader feel persuaded without noticing the artistry (D). Statement B is not among the chosen options in the official answer.
Q.56. Arrange the following commissions, committees, and events, which were important in the context of the history of English in India, in chronology:
A. Gokak Committee Report
B. Acharya Ramamurti Commission
C. All India Language Conference
D. Kothari Commission
E. The Official Language Act
B. Acharya Ramamurti Commission
C. All India Language Conference
D. Kothari Commission
E. The Official Language Act
💡 Explanation: The All India Language Conference (C) was held in the 1940s–1950s, preceding legislative decisions on language policy. The Official Language Act (E) was passed in 1963. The Kothari Commission (D) reported in 1964–66. The Gokak Committee Report (A), which dealt with the status of Kannada, came in 1980. The Acharya Ramamurti Commission (B), which reviewed the National Policy on Education of 1986, reported in 1990. This chronology reflects the post-Independence institutionalisation of language policy in India.
Q.57. Who made the following remark? “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either…”
💡 Explanation: This famous statement was made by Sir William Jones in his Presidential Address to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1786, in which he proposed that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Old Persian all derived from a common source. This observation is widely regarded as the founding moment of comparative philology and historical linguistics in the Western tradition. Jones’s insight led eventually to the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and the development of the comparative method in linguistics.
Q.58. Lord Curzon used the report of Indian Universities Commission of 1902 to:
💡 Explanation: Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India (1899–1905), used the Indian Universities Commission Report of 1902 to pass the Indian Universities Act of 1904, which significantly centralised control over university education. Among its provisions was the creation of a Director-General of Education to oversee educational policy across India, thereby strengthening British administrative grip on the educational system. Curzon’s reforms were widely criticised by Indian nationalists as an attempt to curtail the growth of educated Indian opinion and political consciousness.
Q.59. Who described Raja Rammohun Roy as ‘the inaugurator of the modern age in India’?
💡 Explanation: Rabindranath Tagore paid tribute to Raja Rammohun Roy by calling him “the inaugurator of the modern age in India,” recognising Roy’s pioneering role in social reform, religious rationalism, and the introduction of Western liberal ideas into Indian intellectual life. Roy (1772–1833) founded the Brahmo Samaj, campaigned against sati, advocated for women’s rights, and promoted English education. Tagore’s admiration for Roy was rooted in a shared vision of a reformed, rational, and cosmopolitan Indian society.
Q.60. Who among the following Mughal rulers carried out an experiment for newborn babies to be raised in silence, only to find that the children produced no speech at all?
💡 Explanation: According to historical accounts reported by Abul Fazl in the Akbarnama, Emperor Akbar conducted an experiment in which newborn babies were raised without any exposure to language to discover whether language was innate or learned. The children, raised by mute nurses in a sealed house, produced no meaningful speech, suggesting to Akbar that language was a product of social interaction rather than an innate capacity. This experiment anticipates modern debates about language innateness and the critical period hypothesis in psycholinguistics.
Q.61. Which of the following works is written by Joseph Conrad?
💡 Explanation: Tales of Unrest (1898) is Joseph Conrad’s first collection of short stories, containing works such as “Karain: A Memory,” “The Idiots,” “An Outpost of Progress,” “The Return,” and “The Lagoon.” The Madonna of the Future and other Tales (1879) is by Henry James. The Two Magics (1898) is by Henry James, containing “The Turn of the Screw.” The Spoils of Poynton (1897) is also by Henry James. All three incorrect options are works by James, who was Conrad’s contemporary.
Q.62. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Novel)
A. Silas Marner
B. Sybil
C. Frankenstein
D. Oliver Twist
List II (Subtitle)
I. The Modern Prometheus
II. The Parish Boy’s Progress
III. The Two Nations
IV. The Weaver of Raveloe
💡 Explanation: George Eliot’s Silas Marner (1861) carries the subtitle “The Weaver of Raveloe,” referring to the protagonist’s occupation. Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil (1845) is subtitled “The Two Nations,” referring to the gulf between the rich and the poor in Victorian England. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is subtitled “The Modern Prometheus,” aligning Victor Frankenstein with the mythological figure who gave fire to humanity. Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (1838) is subtitled “The Parish Boy’s Progress,” echoing Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Q.63. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. He turned his back on the ‘two decades of hypocrisy’.
B. The Welsh traditions of the power of spoken word are present in his poetry.
C. He is identified as a representative middle-brow voice of the present, adjusting to the past.
D. His poetry plays with and against Romantic tradition in poetry.
List II
I. Dylan Thomas
II. John Betjeman
III. Philip Larkin
IV. W. H. Auden
💡 Explanation: W.H. Auden is associated with turning his back on what he perceived as the political and artistic failures of the 1930s (A). Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, is renowned for his rich, incantatory style that draws on Welsh oral and bardic traditions (B). John Betjeman is considered a representative middle-brow voice who engaged nostalgically and humorously with English suburban and rural traditions (C). Philip Larkin, associated with The Movement, wrote in reaction to and in complex dialogue with the Romantic tradition (D).
Q.64. Identify the set of poems written by W. B. Yeats.
💡 Explanation: All four poems in option (4) are authentic works by W.B. Yeats. “No Second Troy” (1910) is addressed to Maud Gonne; “Lapis Lazuli” (1936) meditates on art’s response to catastrophe; “Easter 1916” commemorates the Irish Rising; and “When You Are Old” is a lyric drawn from Ronsard. In other options, “Death of Sohrab” is by Matthew Arnold, “The Home-Coming” is not a Yeats poem by that title, and “The House of Life” is a sonnet sequence by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, not Yeats.
Q.65. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Lines)
A. “One day I wrote her name upon the strand / But came the waves and washed it away”
B. “Under the greenwood tree / Who loves to lie with me, / And turn his merry note / Unto the sweet bird’s note”
C. “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, / The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea”
D. “Remember how we picked the daffodils / Nobody else remembers, but I remember”
List II
I. Thomas Gray
II. William Shakespeare
III. Ted Hughes
IV. Edmund Spenser
💡 Explanation: The lines beginning “One day I wrote her name upon the strand” are from Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti, Sonnet 75 (A). “Under the greenwood tree” is from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene V (B). “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day” is the famous opening of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) (C). “Remember how we picked the daffodils” is from Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters (1998), his collection of poems addressed to Sylvia Plath (D).
Q.66. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. John Gross
B. Wendy Martin
C. George Saintsbury
D. Richard A Latham
List II
I. A History of English Prose Rhythm
II. The Oxford Book of Essays
III. Essays by Contemporary American Women
IV. Analyzing Prose
💡 Explanation: John Gross edited The Oxford Book of Essays (1991), an anthology of essays in the English literary tradition. Wendy Martin edited Essays by Contemporary American Women (1992), a collection of personal and critical essays by women writers. George Saintsbury wrote A History of English Prose Rhythm (1912), a landmark study of prose style and rhythm in English literature. Richard A. Lanham wrote Analyzing Prose (1983), a practical guide to understanding stylistic choices in prose writing.
Q.67. Identify the correct chronological order as per the publication years of the following works:
A. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times — Shaftesbury
B. The Advancement of Learning — Francis Bacon
C. Inquiry into the Original of our Idea of Beauty and Virtues — Francis Hutcheson
D. The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language — Samuel Johnson
B. The Advancement of Learning — Francis Bacon
C. Inquiry into the Original of our Idea of Beauty and Virtues — Francis Hutcheson
D. The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language — Samuel Johnson
💡 Explanation: Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning was published in 1605, making it the earliest. Shaftesbury’s Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times appeared in 1711. Francis Hutcheson’s Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue was published in 1725. Samuel Johnson’s The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1747, preceding his complete Dictionary of 1755. This chronology traces key works in British literary criticism and philosophy from the Renaissance through the mid-18th century.
Q.68. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Characters)
A. Ursula – Skrebensky
B. Gudrun – Gerald
C. Connie – Mellors
D. Miriam – Paul
List II (Novel)
I. Women in Love
II. Lady Chatterley’s Lover
III. Sons and Lovers
IV. The Rainbow
💡 Explanation: Ursula Brangwen and Anton Skrebensky are the central couple in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915). Gudrun Brangwen and Gerald Crich are major characters in Women in Love (1920), Lawrence’s sequel to The Rainbow. Connie Chatterley and Oliver Mellors are the protagonists of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). Miriam Leivers and Paul Morel are the central figures in Sons and Lovers (1913), Lawrence’s semi-autobiographical novel exploring family and romantic relationships.
Q.69. Read the following statements carefully and find out the correct ones:
A. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde and Legend of Goode Women.
B. John Milton wrote the Masque of Comus, Samson Agonistes and Stella and Paradise Lost.
C. S. T. Coleridge composed The Rime of Ancient Mariner, Christabel and The Curse of Kehama.
D. Shakespeare wrote Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rape of Lucrece and Troilus and Cressida.
E. Alexander Pope’s works include Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock and Epistle.
B. John Milton wrote the Masque of Comus, Samson Agonistes and Stella and Paradise Lost.
C. S. T. Coleridge composed The Rime of Ancient Mariner, Christabel and The Curse of Kehama.
D. Shakespeare wrote Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rape of Lucrece and Troilus and Cressida.
E. Alexander Pope’s works include Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock and Epistle.
💡 Explanation: Statement A is correct: all three works are by Chaucer. Statement D is correct: Two Gentlemen of Verona and Troilus and Cressida are plays by Shakespeare, and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is his narrative poem. Statement E is correct: Pope wrote The Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock, and various Epistles. Statement B is incorrect because “Stella and Paradise Lost” is a conflation — Astrophil and Stella is by Sir Philip Sidney, not Milton. Statement C is incorrect because The Curse of Kehama is by Robert Southey, not Coleridge.
Q.70. Which group of the poets among the following is known as the Georgian Poets?
💡 Explanation: The Georgian Poets were a group of early 20th-century British poets whose work was anthologised in Georgian Poetry (1912–1922), edited by Edward Marsh. The name refers to the reign of King George V, and the group was characterised by a pastoral, lyrical, and accessible style in reaction to Victorian and Edwardian excess. Rupert Brooke, Walter de la Mare, John Drinkwater, and James Elroy Flecker are all authentic Georgian Poets. W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot are associated with Modernism, while Dylan Thomas and Roy Campbell belong to the 1930s and later traditions.
Q.71. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. Cynthia’s Revels
B. The Maid’s Tragedy
C. Women Beware Women
D. The Shoemakers’ Holiday
List II
I. Thomas Middleton
II. Ben Jonson
III. Thomas Dekker
IV. Beaumont and Fletcher
💡 Explanation: Cynthia’s Revels (1600) is a comical satire by Ben Jonson, originally performed by the Children of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel. The Maid’s Tragedy (c. 1610) is a Jacobean tragedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Women Beware Women (c. 1621) is a tragedy by Thomas Middleton, notable for its cynical portrayal of lust, ambition, and moral corruption. The Shoemakers’ Holiday (1599) is a comedy by Thomas Dekker, celebrating the civic pride of London craftsmen.
Q.72. In how many volumes was George Eliot’s Middlemarch first published?
💡 Explanation: George Eliot’s Middlemarch was originally published in eight instalments (books) by William Blackwood and Sons between 1871 and 1872, rather than appearing all at once as a single volume. Eliot and her publisher chose this serialised format deliberately, following the success of Dickens’s part-publication model, which allowed readers to buy and read the novel in stages. The novel was later collected into a four-volume set and eventually a single-volume edition.
Q.73. Which of the following works is not written by William Cooper?
💡 Explanation: William Cooper (the pen name of Harry Summerfield Hoff) is best known for Scenes from Provincial Life (1950), a pioneering novel of provincial realism that influenced the “Angry Young Men” generation. He also wrote its sequels Scenes from Married Life (1961) and Memoirs of a New Man (1966). The Field Marshal’s Memoirs is not a work by William Cooper; it does not belong to his literary corpus.
Q.74. Kipling’s story “Mrs Bathurst” is set in:
💡 Explanation: Rudyard Kipling’s enigmatic short story “Mrs Bathurst” (1904), collected in Traffics and Discoveries, is primarily set in South Africa, specifically near Simons Town in the Cape Colony, where the narrator and his companions discuss the mysterious figure of Mrs Bathurst while watching an early cinematograph film. The story is notable for its modernist narrative technique — fragmented, multi-perspectival, and deliberately withholding resolution. The setting in South Africa reflects Kipling’s travels and his interest in the British imperial world beyond India.
Q.75. Read the following statements carefully and find out the correct ones:
A. Charles Lamb was a lifelong friend of Coleridge and defender of the poetic creed of Wordsworth.
B. The London crowd, with its pleasures and occupations, never attracted Charles Lamb.
C. Charles Lamb gave us the best pen-portraits of Coleridge, Hazlitt, Landor, Hood, and many more of the interesting men and women of his age.
D. Charles Lamb wrote Essays of Elia, Tales from Shakespeare and The Revolt of the Tartars.
E. Lamb was especially fond of old writers, and was apparently unable to express his new thought without using their old quaint expressions.
B. The London crowd, with its pleasures and occupations, never attracted Charles Lamb.
C. Charles Lamb gave us the best pen-portraits of Coleridge, Hazlitt, Landor, Hood, and many more of the interesting men and women of his age.
D. Charles Lamb wrote Essays of Elia, Tales from Shakespeare and The Revolt of the Tartars.
E. Lamb was especially fond of old writers, and was apparently unable to express his new thought without using their old quaint expressions.
💡 Explanation: Charles Lamb was indeed a lifelong friend of Coleridge, having known him since their school days at Christ’s Hospital (A). Lamb’s pen-portraits of his contemporaries — Coleridge, Hazlitt, Landor, and others — are among his finest achievements in the Essays of Elia (C). Lamb’s style was deeply indebted to 17th-century writers like Sir Thomas Browne and Robert Burton, and his prose is characterised by deliberate archaism (E). Statement B is incorrect because Lamb famously loved London and its crowds. Statement D is incorrect because The Revolt of the Tartars was written by Thomas De Quincey, not Lamb.
Q.76. Identify the poem in which the following lines occur: “My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart / With tender gladness, thus to look at thee”.
💡 Explanation: These lines are from S.T. Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” (1798), one of his celebrated Conversation Poems. In this poem, Coleridge watches over his sleeping infant son Hartley and meditates on his own childhood, the beauty of nature, and his hopes for his child’s future. The lines express the profound tenderness and awe of a parent gazing at a sleeping child. “A Prayer for My Daughter” is by W.B. Yeats; “Lucy Gray” is by Wordsworth; and “Ode on Melancholy” is by John Keats.
Q.77. Identify the subtitle of Oliver Goldsmith’s semi-autobiographical poem, “The Traveller”:
💡 Explanation: Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “The Traveller” (1764) carries the subtitle “A Prospect of Society” and is dedicated to his brother Henry. In the poem, Goldsmith reflects on his own years of wandering through Europe and meditates on the idea that happiness is not dependent on place or country but on the mind of the traveller. It is considered semi-autobiographical because it draws on Goldsmith’s own experiences of poverty and wandering as a young man in Europe. The Citizen of the World is Goldsmith’s prose work, a series of fictional letters from a Chinese visitor to London.
Q.78. Match List-I with List-II:
List I
A. “Liberty of the Press”
B. “The Vision of Mirza: An Oriental Allegory”
C. “Of the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth”
D. “Mental Slavery of Modern Workmen”
List II
I. Thomas de Quincey
II. John Ruskin
III. John Milton
IV. Joseph Addison
💡 Explanation: “Liberty of the Press” is associated with John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644), his celebrated prose argument for freedom of the press (A). “The Vision of Mirza” (1711) is an allegorical essay by Joseph Addison, published in The Spectator (B). “Of the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” (1823) is a famous critical essay by Thomas De Quincey (C). “Mental Slavery of Modern Workmen” is associated with John Ruskin’s social criticism, particularly his arguments in Unto This Last and The Stones of Venice about the dehumanising effects of industrial labour (D).
Q.79. Arrange the following core elements of list of Work Cited according to MLA Handbook 9th edition:
A. Publisher
B. Title of Source
C. Author
D. Title of Container
E. Publication Date
B. Title of Source
C. Author
D. Title of Container
E. Publication Date
💡 Explanation: According to the MLA Handbook, 9th Edition, the core elements of a Works Cited entry follow this sequence: Author (C), Title of Source (B), Title of Container (D) — the larger work or platform in which the source appears — Publisher (A), and Publication Date (E). The full list of nine core elements also includes other contributors, version, number, and location, but among the five listed here, the correct order is C, B, D, A, E. This standardised format ensures consistency in academic citation across disciplines that use MLA style.
Q.80. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Term)
A. et sq.
B. idem
C. loc. cit.
D. passim
List II (Meaning)
I. the same
II. in the place cited
III. everywhere
IV. and the following
💡 Explanation: Et sq. (from et sequens) means “and the following” (IV), used to indicate the page and those that follow. Idem means “the same” (I), used to refer to the same author or source just cited. Loc. cit. (from loco citato) means “in the place cited” (II), referring to the same passage previously referenced. Passim means “everywhere” or “throughout” (III), used when a point is found scattered across a text rather than on a specific page.
Q.81. Which bibliography is concerned with the close analysis of individual copies of books in the light of our knowledge of how books were produced in literary research?
💡 Explanation: Analytical bibliography involves the detailed study of the physical book as an artefact — examining paper, type, ink, binding, watermarks, and printing methods — to determine the history of a text’s production, the existence of variant editions, and the relationship between different copies of the same work. It is the most technically demanding branch of bibliography and is particularly important for establishing authoritative texts in scholarly editing. Descriptive bibliography produces systematic descriptions of books. Enumerative bibliography simply lists works on a subject. Historical bibliography traces the history of books and printing over time.
Q.82. Which of the following is not a kind of literary research?
💡 Explanation: Experimental research, which involves controlled experiments, random assignment, and statistical measurement, belongs to the social and natural sciences rather than to literary studies. Literary research traditionally comprises bibliographic and textual criticism (establishing correct texts), biographical research (studying the life of the author in relation to the work), interpretive research (close reading and critical analysis), historical research, and comparative research. While empirical approaches to literature exist, “Experimental Research” as a formal methodology is not classified as a kind of literary research in traditional literary scholarship.
Q.83. Which of the following rules are correct regarding formatting of date and time in the body of thesis writing according to MLA Handbook 9th Edition?
A. When using the month-day-year style in prose, a comma must be placed after the year unless another punctuation mark follows it.
B. Use a comma between month and year or between season and year.
C. Decades can be written out or expressed in numerals.
D. Spell out centuries in uppercase letters.
E. Numerals are used for most times of the day. Generally, use the twelve hour-clock system in prose.
B. Use a comma between month and year or between season and year.
C. Decades can be written out or expressed in numerals.
D. Spell out centuries in uppercase letters.
E. Numerals are used for most times of the day. Generally, use the twelve hour-clock system in prose.
💡 Explanation: According to MLA Handbook 9th Edition, when using the month-day-year style, a comma follows the year unless another punctuation mark is present (A). Decades can be expressed either as words (“the nineteen-sixties”) or numerals (“the 1960s”) (C). Numerals are generally used for times of day, and the twelve-hour clock system is standard in prose (E). Statement B is incorrect: MLA does not require a comma between month and year or season and year. Statement D is incorrect: centuries are spelled out in lowercase (“the nineteenth century”), not uppercase.
Q.84. Arrange the following steps of material collection according to hierarchy given by Delia da Sousa Correa and W.R. Owens in The Handbook to Literary Research:
A. Identify your nearest major research library
B. Visit your own university library
C. Identify what is available online
D. Visit your nearest major research library
B. Visit your own university library
C. Identify what is available online
D. Visit your nearest major research library
💡 Explanation: In The Handbook to Literary Research (2010) by Delia da Sousa Correa and W.R. Owens, the recommended hierarchy for material collection begins by visiting one’s own university library (B), then identifying the nearest major research library (A), then exploring what is available online (C), and finally visiting the nearest major research library in person (D). However, the official answer key lists the sequence as D, A, C, B, suggesting the editors’ intended ordering begins with physical research libraries. The official answer here is (1).
Q.85. Choose the correct statements.
A. Miller’s play The Crucible was first written in verse.
B. The American Dream is a play by Edward Albee about the absurd situation and immediate realities.
C. The American Dream is a novel by Ionesco about the problems of a middle aged professional.
D. Miller’s play The Price is set in a baroque palace in eastern Europe teasing social and metaphysical sophistication…
E. Miller’s play The Price explores the extent to which we retrospectively invent our own history.
B. The American Dream is a play by Edward Albee about the absurd situation and immediate realities.
C. The American Dream is a novel by Ionesco about the problems of a middle aged professional.
D. Miller’s play The Price is set in a baroque palace in eastern Europe teasing social and metaphysical sophistication…
E. Miller’s play The Price explores the extent to which we retrospectively invent our own history.
💡 Explanation: The Crucible by Arthur Miller was indeed initially drafted in verse, though the final performed and published version is in prose (A). Edward Albee’s The American Dream (1961) is a one-act absurdist play satirising American materialism and family dysfunction (B). Miller’s The Price (1968) explores how two brothers reconstruct and interpret the past of their family, raising questions about how we retrospectively narrate and justify our life choices (E). Statement C is incorrect: The American Dream is Albee’s play, not an Ionesco novel. Statement D is incorrect: The Price is set in a New York attic, not a baroque palace.
Q.86. Read the following statements carefully and choose the correct ones:
A. Patrick White, Christina Stead and Robertson Davies are the famous Australian novelists.
B. The notion of “civilized barbarity” was anticipated in R. Rider Haggard’s 1887 novel Allan Quatermain…
C. Novels like French Lieutenant’s Woman, Midnight’s Children and Waterland deconstruct traditional notions of history and subjectivity.
D. O’Brien’s Country Girls trilogy and McGahern’s The Dark which were banned in Ireland were published during 1950s.
E. The trauma of the mid-century years accounts for the prevalence of dystopian elements in novels like A Clockwork Orange, Lanark and The Handmaid’s Tale.
B. The notion of “civilized barbarity” was anticipated in R. Rider Haggard’s 1887 novel Allan Quatermain…
C. Novels like French Lieutenant’s Woman, Midnight’s Children and Waterland deconstruct traditional notions of history and subjectivity.
D. O’Brien’s Country Girls trilogy and McGahern’s The Dark which were banned in Ireland were published during 1950s.
E. The trauma of the mid-century years accounts for the prevalence of dystopian elements in novels like A Clockwork Orange, Lanark and The Handmaid’s Tale.
💡 Explanation: R. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain (1887) does anticipate the concept of “civilized barbarity” — civilisation as itself a form of savagery (B). The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Fowles), Midnight’s Children (Rushdie), and Waterland (Swift) all self-consciously deconstruct history and subjectivity through metafiction and postmodern narrative strategies (C). A Clockwork Orange (Burgess, 1962), Lanark (Gray, 1981), and The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1985) all draw on mid-century trauma to construct dystopian visions (E). Statement A is incorrect because Robertson Davies is Canadian, not Australian. Statement D needs verification as both works were banned in the 1960s, not the 1950s.
Q.87. Who among the following is considered as “the father of South African English poetry”?
💡 Explanation: Thomas Pringle (1789–1834), a Scottish-born poet who settled in the Cape Colony, is widely regarded as the father of South African English poetry. His poem “Afar in the Desert” was famously praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as one of the finest short poems in the English language. Pringle’s poetry engaged with the South African landscape and its peoples, and he was also a committed abolitionist and editor who championed freedom of the press in the Cape Colony. Rider Haggard, John Buchan, and Percy Fitzpatrick are all associated with South African literature but in the realm of fiction rather than poetry.
Q.88. Match List-I with List-II:
List I (Author)
A. Lois Reynolds Kerr
B. Dorothy Livesay
C. Gwen Pharis Ringwood
D. Carol Bolt
List II (Work)
I. Dark Harvest
II. Guest of Honour
III. Red Emma
IV. Joe Derry
💡 Explanation: These are Canadian women writers, primarily dramatists and poets. Lois Reynolds Kerr wrote Guest of Honour (II), a play from the Canadian theatre tradition. Dorothy Livesay, one of Canada’s foremost poets and social activists, is matched with Joe Derry (IV). Gwen Pharis Ringwood, a major figure in Prairie drama, wrote Dark Harvest (I), one of her celebrated plays. Carol Bolt is known for Red Emma (III), a play about the anarchist Emma Goldman that became a significant work in Canadian political theatre.
📖 Reading Comprehension (Q.91–Q.95) — Angelo’s Soliloquy from Measure for Measure
From Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene ii — Angelo’s soliloquy in which he confronts his sudden lust for the virtuous Isabella, who has come to plead for her brother Claudio’s life. Angelo, appointed deputy by the Duke, discovers that his own strict virtue and moral authority are undone by desire. He questions his own nature, reflects on the cunning way temptation disguises itself as virtue, and ends in confusion and shame — having previously smiled at the weakness of others while secretly harbouring the same capacity for moral failure.
Q.91. What internal conflict does the speaker express?
💡 Explanation: The passage is Angelo’s soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (Act II, Scene ii), in which Angelo, the strict moralist appointed deputy by the Duke, confronts his sudden lust for the virtuous Isabella. Angelo is appalled to discover that his own virtue and authority are undone by desire, asking “What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?” The soliloquy is a classic dramatic examination of hypocrisy and the gap between public rectitude and private weakness. There is no desire for monasticism, political regret, or fear of losing power expressed in the passage.
Q.92. “Thieves for their robbery have authority / When judges steal themselves” implies what?
💡 Explanation: Note: The official answer key marks (2), but the most accurate literary interpretation of these lines is (3). Angelo is arguing that when a judge is himself guilty of the crime he punishes, he loses the moral authority to condemn others — making his own corruption a form of hypocrisy. The lines mean that thieves gain a kind of ironic “authority” to rob when the very judges who should punish them are themselves stealing. This is a pointed critique of hypocritical justice. The correct answer per the official key is (2), but (3) more accurately reflects the text’s meaning.
Q.93. What emotion is the speaker feeling at the end of the passage?
💡 Explanation: At the end of Angelo’s soliloquy, he expresses confusion about his own nature — “What is’t I dream on?” — and shame at having previously smiled at the weakness of others while secretly harbouring the same capacity for moral failure. The lines “Even till now, / When men were fond, I smiled and wonder’d how” reveal his dawning awareness of his own hypocrisy. He is not experiencing pride, joy, or indifference, but rather the destabilising combination of confusion and self-directed shame that makes this one of Shakespeare’s most searching character studies.
Q.94. According to the speaker, how does temptation disguise itself?
💡 Explanation: Angelo explicitly states that “most dangerous / Is that temptation that doth goad us on / To sin in loving virtue.” The specific nature of his temptation is that Isabella’s very chastity and moral rectitude are what attract him — virtue itself becomes the medium through which desire operates. He also refers to a “cunning enemy” who baits the hook with saints to catch saints. The danger he identifies is not wealth, poverty, or dreams, but the way virtue paradoxically becomes the vehicle of temptation.
Q.95. What kind of temptation does the speaker say is most dangerous?
💡 Explanation: Angelo directly identifies the most dangerous temptation: “Most dangerous / Is that temptation that doth goad us on / To sin in loving virtue.” This is the specific paradox of his situation — he is tempted not by obvious vice but by his admiration for Isabella’s virtue. This form of temptation is most insidious because it disguises itself as something morally worthy. Shakespeare’s exploration of this theme anticipates later psychological and moral philosophy about the corrupting potential of idealisation.
📖 Reading Comprehension (Q.96–Q.100) — John Ruskin on the Measure of Greatness in Art
From John Ruskin’s writings on art and painting: Ruskin argues that “It is not by the mode of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally determined.” He acknowledges that the painter’s technical means — learning to represent natural objects faithfully — is “nothing more than language” and compares it to grammar and melody in poetry. He further notes that painting’s technical elements “possess more power of delighting the sense, while it speaks to the intellect,” but this superior sensory power is still merely language and must serve deeper content. The greatness of any artist, Ruskin insists, depends ultimately on what they communicate through their mastered medium, not on technical virtuosity alone.
Q.96. What is the broader philosophical implication of the statement “It is not by the mode of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally determined”?
💡 Explanation: The passage (from John Ruskin’s writings on art and painting) argues that technical mastery — the “mode of representing” — is merely the language or vehicle, while the content — “what is represented and said” — is the ultimate criterion of greatness. This implies that ethical seriousness, moral vision, and thematic depth are what separate a truly great artist from a merely technically proficient one. This is consistent with Ruskin’s broader aesthetic philosophy, in which art is inseparable from moral truth and social purpose.
Q.97. What does the phrase “possesses more power of delighting the sense, while it speaks to the intellect” imply about visual art?
💡 Explanation: The passage acknowledges that visual art’s language — its technical means of representation — has a greater capacity to delight the senses compared to verbal language, while simultaneously engaging the intellect. This is a recognition of painting’s distinctive power: it operates on both the sensory and cognitive levels simultaneously, making it a uniquely rich medium of expression. The author does not claim that visual art lacks depth, fails to communicate abstract ideas, or is merely technical spectacle.
Q.98. What implicit assumption about language and expression underpins the passage’s argument?
💡 Explanation: The central assumption of the passage is that any medium of expression — whether painting or poetry — is ultimately a vehicle for communicating content, and that the greatness of an artist depends on what they communicate rather than how technically accomplished their medium is. This is a classic formulation of the content-over-form priority in aesthetic theory. The passage explicitly compares painting’s technical elements to grammar and melody in poetry — necessary but not definitive of greatness.
Q.99. What does the passage emphasise as the true measure of greatness in painting and writing?
💡 Explanation: The passage explicitly states: “It is not by the mode of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally determined.” This directly identifies content — what is represented and said — as the true measure of artistic greatness. Technical skill, style, vocabulary, and technique are compared to grammar and melody: necessary conditions but not sufficient measures of greatness.
Q.100. The author’s primary argument suggests that technical mastery in painting is:
💡 Explanation: The author argues that learning to represent natural objects faithfully is analogous to learning grammar and melody in poetry — it is a necessary foundation without which communication is impossible, but it does not by itself constitute artistic greatness. The passage acknowledges the difficulty and value of technical mastery while insisting that it is “nothing more than language” — a means rather than an end. True artistic greatness depends on what the painter or writer communicates through this mastered medium.
Q.106. The term “Chronotope” has been coined by:
💡 Explanation: “Chronotope” (from the Greek for time-space) is a concept developed by Mikhail Bakhtin in his essay “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel” (1937–38, published in The Dialogic Imagination, 1981). Bakhtin used the term to describe the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships in literature — the way time and space are fused in narrative to create meaning. He analysed different chronotopes in the history of the novel, such as the “road chronotope” and the “carnival chronotope.” Stephen Greenblatt is associated with New Historicism, Brecht with Epic Theatre, and J. Hillis Miller with deconstruction.
Q.110. Arrange the following works of John Storey in their chronological order of publication:
A. Inventing Popular Culture: From Folklore to Globalisation
B. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction
C. What is Cultural Studies: A Reader
D. Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life
E. Culture and Power in Cultural Studies: The Politics of Signification
B. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction
C. What is Cultural Studies: A Reader
D. Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life
E. Culture and Power in Cultural Studies: The Politics of Signification
💡 Explanation: John Storey’s works in cultural studies were published in the following order: Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (B) first appeared in 1993. What is Cultural Studies: A Reader (C) was published in 1996. Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life (D) appeared in 1999. Inventing Popular Culture: From Folklore to Globalisation (A) was published in 2003. Culture and Power in Cultural Studies: The Politics of Signification (E) is the most recent, published in 2010. This sequence traces Storey’s sustained engagement with cultural studies, popular culture, and the politics of meaning-making.
Thank you sir.