UGC NET/JRF English Paper II - December 2004 Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards generated from the December 2004 UGC NET/JRF English Paper II solved paper transcript.

Piers Plowman (Piers' Final Appearance)

In William Langland's Middle English allegorical poem 'Piers Plowman' (written 1370-90), Piers appears finally as Jesus.

The Canterbury Tales (Pilgrim Story Count)

A collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, where each pilgrim was intended to tell four stories in all (on the way to and from Canterbury).

Venus and Adonis

A long narrative poem by William Shakespeare written in 1592-1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'.

Shakespeare's Sonnets (Total Count)

A collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare; the first 126 are addressed to a young man and the last 28 to a dark lady.

The Jew of Malta

A play by Christopher Marlowe (c. 1589-1590) featuring the character Barabas, who is described in the prologue as 'a sound Machiavil' (a Machiavellian hero).

Hudibras

An 17th-century English mock-heroic poem written by Samuel Butler.

IL Penseroso

A poem on poetic melancholy by John Milton written in Octosyllabic Couplets, published in his 1645-1646 quarto of verses.

The Relapse

A 1696 Restoration comedy written by John Vanbrugh as a sequel to Colley Cibber's 'Love's Last Shift'.

All for Love

A 1677 heroic drama by John Dryden written as an adaptation and acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra'.

Leviathan

A 1651 book by Thomas Hobbes proposing a political theory concerning the structure of society and legitimate government.

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

An 1792 work of feminist philosophy written by 18th-century British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft.

A Tale of a Tub

A prose parody and religious allegory written by Jonathan Swift that delves into the morals and ethics of English.

Songs of Experience

A 1794 poetry collection of 26 poems by William Blake forming the second part of 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'.

An Essay on Man

A philosophical poem in heroic couplets written by Alexander Pope (1732-1734), addressed to Lord Bolingbroke and derived from his ideas.

The Vanity of Human Wishes

A 1749 poem by Samuel Johnson written as an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal.

The Prelude (Final Version)

An autobiographical poem in blank verse by William Wordsworth whose final version appeared in 1850.

Prometheus Unbound ('To Suffer Woes…')

A work by Percy Bysshe Shelley containing the inspirational line 'To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite'.

Endymion

An 1818 poem in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets by John Keats that opens with the line 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever'.

Northanger Abbey

The first of Jane Austen's novels completed for publication, written as a 'Gothic Parody' satirizing Gothic novels.

Literature of Knowledge vs. Literature of Power

A literary distinction introduced by Thomas De Quincey in an 1848 essay on Alexander Pope in the North British Review.

Alfred Tennyson (Victorian Poet)

A Victorian Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland known as being exceptionally sensitive to the conflict between the old and the new.

Under the Greenwood Tree

An 1872 novel published anonymously by Thomas Hardy, subtitled 'A Rural Painting of the Dutch School', and the first of his Wessex Novels.

Office of Circumlocution

An institution featured in Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House (as referenced in the examination key), which illustrates the evils of long legal cases.

Mary Barton

An 1848 debut novel by Elizabeth Gaskell set in Manchester dealing with lower-class Victorian struggles.

The Study of Poetry

An 1880 critical essay by Matthew Arnold containing the famous definition 'Poetry is a criticism of life'.

Martha Quest

A 1952 novel by Doris Lessing, the second in her semi-autobiographical 'The Children of Violence' series.

Stream of Consciousness (Origin)

A term for interior monologue coined by William James in his 1890 book 'The Principles of Psychology'.

The Golden Bough (Focus)

An 1890 comparative mythology study by Sir James George Frazer focusing on symbols, fertility rites, and shared religious elements.

Willy Loman

The tragic main character struggling for dignity in Arthur Miller's play 'Death of a Salesman'.

Leopold Bloom

A key character who appears in James Joyce's 1922 modernist novel 'Ulysses'.

Michael Ondaatje

A Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet who won the Booker Prize for 'The English Patient' (1992).

Judith Wright

An Australian poet and environmentalist who treated Australian aborigines sympathetically and campaigned for land rights.

Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature

A 1972 survey of Canadian Literature by Margaret Atwood making a case for Canadian literary studies.

Half a Life

A 2001 novel by Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul set in India, Africa, and Europe.

The Moor's Last Sigh

A 1995 novel by Salman Rushdie taking 15th-century Spain and King Boabdil as its starting point.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A 1962 play written by Edward Albee examining the marriage breakdown of George and Martha.

Amiri Baraka

An American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, and music criticism, formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka.

The Miscellany

A bimonthly publication of creative writing (1968-1980) published by The Writers Workshop, Calcutta.

Wole Soyinka

A Nigerian playwright and poet (1986 Nobel Prize recipient) who recreates the life of the Yoruba/Ibo community.

Nadine Gordimer

A South African white female writer and political activist (1991 Nobel Prize winner) sympathetic to the cause of Blacks.

New Criticism

A mid-20th-century formalist movement in American literary theory that considers a text as autotelic (a self-contained aesthetic object).

Mythologies

A 1957 collection of essay-letters by Roland Barthes examining how social value systems create modern myths.

Catharsis

The purification and purgation of emotions, especially pity and fear, through art or extreme emotional change.

Deconstruction

A critical outlook on text and meaning characterized by the rejection of 'Universalism' (associated with Jacques Derrida).

Objective Correlative

A critical theory introduced by T.S. Eliot in his 1919 essay 'Hamlet and His Problems' (published in 'The Sacred Wood').

Sprung Rhythm

An example of poetic verse rhythm designed to imitate natural speech, featuring feet starting with a stressed syllable followed by variable unstressed syllables.

Inversion (Anastrophe)

A literary technique in which normal word order is reversed for meter or emphasis (e.g., 'More is thy due than more than all can pay').

Blank Verse

Unrhymed metrical poetic composition consisting of five iambic measures in each line (iambic pentameter).

Metrical Romance

Romantic verse narrative depicting adventures of chivalry, knight errantry, enchantments, and love.

Litotes

An ironical understatement expressing an affirmative through the negative of its contrary (e.g., 'He is a citizen of no mean city').