IGNOU BEGC-110 - British Literature: 19th Century

Section A Q.I Explain with reference to context the following lines: (i) There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot (ii) She had a heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. (iii) The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. (iv) Backwards up the mossy glen Turn'd and troop'd the goblin men, With their shrill repeated cry, "Come buy, come buy." Section B Q. II Answer the following questions in about 300 words each: 1. What role does Madame Defarge play in the novel A Tale of Two Cities? 2. Attempt a character sketch of Susan Henchard from the novel A Mayor of Casterbridge. 3. Critically analyse the passage from ‘The Lotos - Eaters’. 4. Attempt a critical analysis of the poem ‘Pied Beauty’. Section C Q. III Answer the following questions in about 600 words each: 1. Write a detailed note on Henchard’s decline and downfall in the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. 2. Write a detailed note on the revolutionaries in A Tale of Two Cities. 3. Attempt a critical summary of the poem ‘Prospice.’ 4. Discuss the surface as well as the deeper meaning of the poem ‘Goblin Market’.

Section A Q.I Explain with reference to context the following lines: (i) Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. (ii) No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears of pain, darkness and cold. (iii) One summer morn forsook His friends, and went to learn the gypsy lore, And roam'ed the world with that wild brotherhood, And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, But came to Oxford and his friends no more. (iv) Then joining hands to little hands Would bid them cling together, “For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; Section B Q. II Answer the following questions in about 300 words each: 1. What role did the women play in the French Revolution as seen in A Tale of Two Cities? 2. Trace the theme of fatalism in the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. 3. What poetic devices has Browning employed in his poem ‘Meeting at Night’? 4. Write a critical appreciation of the poem ‘The Splendour Falls’. Section C Q. III Answer the following questions in about 600 words each: 1. Write a detailed note on Dickens’ representation of the French revolution. 2. “Character is destiny and destiny is character.” Discuss this statement keeping in mind Henchards role in the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. 3. Critically analyse Browing’s ‘My Last Duchess’. 4. Write a critical appreciation of Arnold’s poem ‘The Scholar Gypsy’.