M.E.G-01
BRITISH POETRY
1. Explain with critical comments any two of the following passages with reference to their contexts :
(a) “A lovyere and a lusty bachelor,
With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of evene lengthe,”
(b) “A povre wydwe somdeel stape in age,
Was whilom dwellyng in a narwe cotage,
Biside a grove, stondynge in a dale.
This wydwe, of which I telle yow my tale,”
2. (a) “My love is now awake out of her dreame(s),
And her fayre eyes like stars that
dimmed were
With darksome cloud, now shew theyr
goodly beams
Move bright then Hesperus his head
doth rere.”
(b) “At length they all to mery London came,
To mery London, my most kyndly nurse,
That to me gave, this lifes first
native sourse
Though from another place I take
my name,”
3. (a) “Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds
have showne,
Let us possesse our world, each hath
one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in
mine appeares,”
(b) “When we have run our Passions’ heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The Gods, that mortal Beauty chase,
Still in a Tree did end their race :”
4. (a) “Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Joves great son to her glad
Husband gave,
Rescu’d from death by force through
pale and faint.”
(b) “With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldering
clouds out brake
The aged Earth agast …”
5. (a) “Sinking, he left his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind :
The mantle fell to the young prophet’s part,
With double portion of his father’s art.”
(b) “No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Ev’n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me.
Then from the Mint walks forth the
man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.”
6. (a) “Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive,
But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
The road that pointed toward the
chosen Vale.”
(b) “And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once
and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a
mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred
river ran,”
7. (a) “The chariot rolled, a captive multitude
Was driven; — all those who had
grown old in power
Or misery, — all who had their age subdued
By action or by suffering.”
(b) “Then with a slow incline of his broad
breast,
Like to a diver in the pearly seas,
Forward he stoop’d over the airy shore,
And plung’d all noiseless into the deep night.”
8. (a) “Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!”
(b) “And leave me in my church, the church
for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers —
Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!”
9. (a) “Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly :
A terrible beauty is born.”
(b) “Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.”
10. (a) “Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks, when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break.”
(b) “This was Mr. Bleaney’s room. He stayed
The whole time he was at the Bodies, till
They moved him ! Flowered curtains,
thin and frayed,
Fall to within five inches of the sill,”
10. Explain with critical comments of the following passages with reference to their contexts :
(a) And specially from every shires ende
of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they
were seeke.
(b) But see the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious Song should here
have ending.
(c) Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
(d) We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies.
11. Discuss Chaucer’s handling of the fable in ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’.
12. Consider ‘The Garden’ by Andrew Marvell as a didactic poem.
13. What ‘truth and the sentiment’ does ‘An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot’ by Alexander Pope possess ? Explain with suitable examples from the text.
14. Attempt a critical appreciation of ‘The Triumph of Life’ by P.B. Shelley.
15. Discuss the chief features of the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
16. Discuss ‘The Waste Land’ as a modernist poem.
17. Bring out the theme of ‘Church Going’ by Philip Larkin.