UGC NET Paper 2: English 1st Dec 2021 Shift 1 (Previous Year Paper)

The correct answer is "history"

Key Points

• In his book An Apology for Poetry, Philip Sidney discusses the interrelationship between religion and poetry as the main issue.
• Sidney examines the role that religion played in Greek and modern poetry.
• He argues that poetry is superior to philosophy, Sidney also shows that it is a superior didactic tool to history. The problem with history is that has to stick to what actually happened.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information 

• An Apology for Poetry, commonly known as The Defense of Poetry, was composed by Sir Philip Sidney in 1579–1580. It was the first piece of English "literary criticism."

The correct answer is "A and C only."

Key Points

• Longinus asserts that true sublimity in literature often stems from the innate genius and inspiration of the author. He believes that an inspired person, or one with an extraordinary mind, is capable of producing works that transcend ordinary experiences and resonate deeply with readers.
• Longinus also emphasizes the importance of rhetorical devices in achieving sublimity. He argues that the use of figures of speech, vivid imagery, and effective composition can enhance the emotional impact of the work and contribute to its greatness. These rhetorical techniques help to elevate the language and provoke powerful responses in the audience.

Therefore, option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Poets like John Dryden and Alexander Pope were strongly impacted by "On the Sublime," and the Romantic movement's work heavily used the sublime concept.

The correct answer is "the Inner Voice."

Key Points

• T. S. Eliot criticizes J. Middleton Murry and similar critics, claiming that anyone who values criticism cannot do so if they believe in the "inner voice."
• The inner voice, Eliot says, has liberal and Whig characteristics and is called "Whiggery."
• Eliot's purpose of criticism is to look for universal guidelines for elevating artistic creations.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• T. S. Eliot published his essay "The Functions of Criticism" in 1923. It was written in reaction to Murry, who in his essay "Romanticism and Tradition" disputed some of the ideas that Eliot had put forth in her earlier piece "Tradition and Individual Talent" (1919).

The correct answer is "Cleanth Brooks."

Key Points

• Cleanth Brooks considered paraphrasing a "heresy" in his essay "The Heresy of Paraphrase."
• "The Heresy of paraphrase" is the belief that deciphering a fictional storyline or the ideas in lyric poetry can be accomplished by paraphrasing them or that doing so can result in an analysis of the work.
• "The Heresy of Paraphrase" is a chapter from Cleanth Brooks' foundational work of New Criticism, "The Well-Wrought Urn."

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Structure, tension, balance, and irony were more significant to Brooks than content, assertion, and the actual content. He used similarities with expressive art to steer the topic apart from summarising information.

The correct answer is "Shelley."

Key Points

• P. B. Shelley uses the image of " fading coal" in his A Defense of Poetry, published in 1821.
• Shelley asserts that poets don't rely on "will" and "determination," as is the situation with logic or reason, by likening the brain of the artist to the picture of a fading coal.
• The effects of the west wind on the autumn's dead leaves are shown by Shelley. As ghosts running from an artificer, they are propelled by the west wind.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Shelley's essay does not contain any poetic principles or aesthetic assessments of his companions. His theoretical concepts regarding poets and poetry, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a tutorial for the Romantic movement.

The correct answer is "directly observable sense‐data."

Key Points

• The empirical theory is essentially the idea that direct experience and scientific experimentation should be the foundation for understanding instead of theoretical hypotheses.
• Empiricist means "to cause something to occur."
• Language is conceptualized differently by linguists working on various aspects of the subject. Examples include conduct, psychological condition, usable forms of communication, human engagement, and exhibition.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• An appropriate approach for modifying data is necessary for an empirical investigation. If there is disagreement about the proper design of an empirical study, there is also disagreement over the characteristics of the data.

The correct answer is "C and D only."

Key Points

• Chomskyan theories of language include rule systems, which use the terms "generative," "transformational," or "transformational-generative" to describe his views of grammar and language.
• Noam Chomsky developed the idea of universal grammar (UG) in the 1980s.
• He claimed that understanding grammar depended on two elements: principles, or features common to all languages, and variables, or how these properties change.

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer,

Additional Information

• According to Chomsky, every child has the aptitude and structural knowledge necessary to learn any language.

The correct answer is "Spanish."

Key Points

• Before the beginning of the 17th century, potatoes entered Europe at two main points: the first was Spain, about 1570, and the second was the British Isles, around 1588 and 1593.
• The potato is first mentioned in writing on a consignment dated November 28, 1567.
• Most pre-Columbian Mapuches relied heavily on potatoes, particularly in the southern and coastal Mapuche lands where maize failed to reach maturity.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Potatoes have also recently been found on stone tools, which suggests that they may have existed as early as 3400 BC.

The correct answer is "Randolph Quirk."

Key Points

• Randolph Quirk established the Survey of English Usage at Durham University in 1959 as the Survey of Spoken English, and later moved the organization to University College London in 1960.
• The Survey of English Usage (SEU) was the first European research institution to use corpora for corpus-based studies.
• The first survey corpus was created before modern computers and documented on paper.

Therefore, option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Since the computerization of the corpus was the initiative of colleagues in Lund, Sweden, it is now more commonly referred to as the London-Lund Corpus (LLC).

The correct answer is "Braj B. Kachru."

Key Points

• Braj B. Kachru created the Three-Circle Model of World Englishes in 1985.
• The model is one of the most commonly used schemes for classifying English dialects around the globe.
• The Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle are three interconnected rings that Kachru uses to depict how English evolved.

Therefore, option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• These circles represent the sort of distribution, methods of learning and operational contexts in which English is used throughout languages and cultures.

The correct answer is "Nadine Gordimer."

Key Points

• Nadine Gordimer's collection of short stories, Beethoven, was published by Bloomsbury.
• Gordimer provides her readers with a unique blend of tenderness and divinity.
• Beethoven is a collection of labeled stories by Nadine Gordimer that explores the boundaries of power, nostalgia, sexuality, and passion.

Therefore, option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Nadine Gordimer, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, is a novelist who produced fourteen novels, nine volumes of short stories, and three anthologies of nonfiction.

The correct answer is "George Orwell."

Key Points

• George Orwell wrote an essay titled "Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool." It was initially printed in Polemic No. 7 and was influenced by Leo Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare.
• Orwell dissects Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare's writing as a whole and his criticism of King Lear in particular.
• Tolstoy asserted that the only reason Shakespeare remained appreciated was due to an "epidemic suggestion" or form of mass brainwashing.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Shakespeare was criticized by Tolstoy as a poor playwright who was not even a creative genius, and he said that German professors' propaganda was the cause of Shakespeare's popularity.

The correct answer is "Bishop Blougram’s Apology."

Key Points

• The above given lines are from Robert Browning's poem "Bishop Blougram's Apology."
• Two men, Bishop Blougram and journalist Gigadibs, have discussions in the poem. They disagree on the nature of reality and faith.
• Both men ultimately fail to achieve their initial goals. The journalist cannot glean data from the bishop that would be morally damaging. However, the bishop is unable to undermine the journalist.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Robert Browning produced a lengthy poem titled Bishop Blougram's Apology in the two-volume anthology Men and Women (1855).

The correct answer is "D, B, A, C."

Key Points

• The Feminine Mystique, a feminist work by Betty Friedan, was published in 1963.
• Sexual Politics, a feminist work by Kate Millett, was published in 1970.
• This Bridge Called My Back, a feminist anthology edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldua, was published in 1981.
• Gender Trouble, a feminist work by Judith Butler, was published in 1990.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• The texts were published chronologically as, The Feminine Mystique, Sexual Politics, This Bridge Called My Back, and Gender Trouble, respectively.

The correct answer is "William Makepeace Thackeray."

Key Points

• The Cornhill Magazine, a Victorian publication from 1860 to 1975, was named for the London street of its founding editor, Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill.
• The Cornhill Magazine's substantial readership reached its pinnacle at about 110,000 in the 1860s when William Makepeace Thackeray served as editor.
• After the circulation decreased to 20,000 by 1870 due to new rivals, Leslie Stephen was replaced as the new editor the following year.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Turnover had further decreased to 12,000 by the time Stephen left in 1882. John Murray bought The Cornhill in 1912, and it kept printing issues through 1975.

The correct answer is The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

Key Points

• The epigraph of the novel 'The Razor's Edge'  by English playwright , novelist and short-story writer William Somerset Maugham has been taken from the Katha Upanishad.
• The borrowed  line is  - "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."
• It tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• The Island of Doctor Moreau is a mixture of sci-fi and horror elements that worked well together.
• Dr. Moreau is a doctor and scientist living on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The book is told in the first person by Edward Prendick who becomes shipwrecked and then gets picked up by Moreau’s second in command, Dr. Montgomery.
• Room with a View is a 1908 novel, by British writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman, in the restrained culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.
• Point Counter Point, novel by Aldous Huxley was published in 1928. In this ambitious and complex work, Huxley offers a vision of life from a number of different points of view.

The correct answer is E. D. Hirsch Jr.

Key Points

• E. D. Hirsch Jr authored the famous essay, 'What Isn't Literature'
• ED Hirsch (1978) points out that even if "poems, stories, and plays were the only works which we happened to call literature the genres themselves merge into hybrid forms which cause just as many problems as the great big genre which we call literature’ and, moreover, ‘some ancients, who stressed imitation or fictionality as the important defining trait of poetry, did not conceive of lyric poems as belonging among the recognised genres."
• Eric Donald Hirsch Jr. is an acclaimed American literary critic, academician, educational theorist and scholar.
• 'Validity in Interpretation' (1967) and 'Cultural Literacy' (1987) are his most noted works.
• Apart from these two, his other important works include-'Fairness and Core Knowledge' (1991), 'The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them' (1996), 'The Knowledge Deficit' (2006), and 'The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools' (2009).

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Terry Eagleton is a literary scholar, cultural theorist, and prolific author in England who, working from Irish-Catholic roots.
• Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method.
• Paul Ricoeur was among the most impressive philosophers of the 20th century continental philosophers

The correct answer is 

Key Points

• A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis" still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism.
• A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature.
• His aim was to show how, from antiquity to the twentieth century, literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation.
• This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive - and impassioned - response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich.
• Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Ulysses, novel by Irish writer James Joyce, first published in book form in 1922. The novel is constructed as a modern parallel to Homer’s Odyssey.
• George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch (1871–72), subtitled ‘A Study of Provincial Life’, follows the lives of the inhabitants of a small Midlands town in the early 1830s.
• The Apes of God is a 1930 novel by the British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis. It is a satire of London's contemporary literary and artistic scene.

The correct answer is Displacement, slippage and condensation

Key Points

• Displacement, slippage and condensation is associated with Semiotics.
• Kristeva is famous for the distinction between what she calls the "semiotic" and the "symbolic," which she develops in her early works including Revolution in Poetic Language, "From One Identity to the Other" in Desire in Language, and Powers of Horror.
• Kristeva maintains that all signification is composed of these two elements.
• The semiotic element is the bodily drive as it is discharged in signification and  is associated with the rhythms, tones, and movement of signifying practices.
• As the discharge of drives, it is also associated with the maternal body, the first source of rhythms, tones and movements for every human being since we all have resided in that body.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian-born French psychoanalyst, critic, novelist, and educator, best known for her writings in structuralist linguistics, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and philosophical feminism.
• In Paris she worked with the structuralist and Marxist critic Lucien Goldmann, the social and literary critic Roland Barthes, and the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
• She soon became a member of the group of intellectuals associated with the journal Tel Quel.
• She was appointed to the faculty of linguistics at the University of Paris VII–Denis Diderot in 1974.
• In 1979 she became a practicing psychoanalyst.

The correct answer is A and B only. 

Key Points

• Oroonoko & The Rover were written by Aphra Behn, who was the first Englishwoman on record to have been a professional writer.
• Oroonoko is an important early example of the novel genre. Not only does it employ a first person narrative from a female perspective, but it also tackles some of the most controversial of the emerging political, social and economic issues of the late 17th century.
• The Rover is a comedy in two parts, subtitled The Banish'd Cavaliers. Part one of The Rover was published in 1677, and part two was published in 1681.
• It was one of her most commercially successful plays.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Aphra Behn wrote dramas, fiction, and poetry, and very little is known about her personal life.
• Her contemporary reputation was found primarily on her scandalous plays, which she claimed would not have been criticized for impropriety had a man written them.
• Behn's assertion of her unique role in English literary history is confirmed not only by the extraordinary circumstances of her writings, but by those of her life history as well.
• Behn's distinctive poetic voice is characterized by her audacity in writing about contemporary events, frequently with topical references that, despite their allegorical maskings, were immediately recognizable to her sophisticated audience.
• Behn's poems are more classical as they rely more on the heritage of 16th-century ornate lyricism as practiced by Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, along with the epigrammatic tradition of light Juvenalian satire in Jonson and Robert Herrick

The correct answer is A and D only

Key Points

• The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert is a work of stunning literary as opposed to theological erudition.
• Flaubert carefully reviews the pagan religious systems of Greece, Rome and Egypt and touches on seemingly every significant Christian heresy active during the life time of Saint Anthony.
• Sentimental Education is a novel by Gustave Flaubert.
• Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Emile Zola, but criticized by Henry James.
• The novel focuses on the romantic life of a young man at the time of the French Revolution of 1848.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Emile Zola’s short novel Thérèse Raquin traces the complete life’s story of its title character.
• Old Goriot or Father Goriot, is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac.

The correct answer is A-(III), B-(V), C-(II), D (I), E (III).

Key Points

• Sean O'Casey wrote Juno and the Paycock, which is set in the working-class tenements of Dublin in the early 1920s.
• Dylan Thomas wrote the 1954 radio drama, Under Milk Wood.
• Terence Rattigan wrote The Winslow Boy.
• Arnold Wesker wrote I'm Talking About Jerusalem, the third in the Roots trilogy.
• J.M. Synge wrote the one-act play, In the Shadow of the Glen. The plot revolves around a tramp who promises a life of freedom to the woman, Nora.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• ​The play, Under Milk Wood, is set in a fictional small Welsh fishing village, Llareggub, the name derived by reversing the phrase "bugger all".

The correct answer is A (II), B (V), C (I), D (III), E (IV).

Key Points

• "Courage! he said and pointed toward the land..." is the opening line from the poem "The Lotus Eater" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
• "The sea is calm tonight..." is how Mathew Arnold's "Dover Beach" opens.
• "I caught this morning morning's minion" is the opening line from Hopkin's sonnet "Windhover".
• I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! is from "Fra Lippo Lippi" by Robert Browning.
• "Look in my face; my name is Might - have - been" is the first line of the poem by D.G. Rossetti.

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• It is believed that Tennyson's Ulysses has autobiographical elements as the poem was penned after the death of his close friend, Arthur Hallam, with whom he shared a strong bond.

The correct answer is Agamemnon, Choephori, and The Eumenides.

Key Points

• Oresteia, a trilogy of tragic dramas written by the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus, was first performed in 458 BCE. It is his last work and the only complete trilogy of Greek dramas that have survived.
• The first play, Agamemnon, portrays the victorious return of that king from the Trojan War and his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus.
• The second play, Choephoroi (Libation Bearers), takes its title from the chorus of women servants who come to pour propitiatory offerings at the tomb of the murdered Agamemnon.
• The third play, Eumenides, opens at the shrine of Apollo at Delphi, where Orestes has taken sanctuary from the Furies. At the command of the Delphic oracle, Orestes journeys to Athens to stand trial for his matricide.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is 'A ‐ (I), B ‐ (IV), C ‐ (III), D ‐ (II)'.

Key Points

• Pindar is the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece and the master of epinician, and choral odes celebrating victories achieved in the Pythian, Olympic, Isthmian, and Nemean games.
• Menander was an Athenian dramatist, ancient critics considered him the supreme poet of Greek New Comedy—i.e., the last flowering of Athenian stage comedy.
• Sappho was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess".
• Aristophanes was the greatest representative of ancient Greek comedy and the one whose works have been preserved in the greatest quantity. He is the only extant representative of the Old Comedy.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is noble savage.

Key Points

• How to Read Donald Duck is a 1971 book-length essay by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart that critiques Disney comics from a Marxist point of view as capitalist propaganda for American corporate and cultural imperialism.
• The book How to read Donald Duck identifies noble savage as an important element in its analysis of imperialist ideology in the Walt Disney comic book that critiques Disney comics from a Marxist point of view as capitalist propaganda for American corporate and cultural imperialism.
• The noble savage is a representative of primitive humankind as idealized in romantic literature, symbolizing the innate goodness of humanity when free from the corrupting influence of civilization.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is "A ‐ (II), B ‐ (I), C ‐ (IV), D ‐ (III)."

Key Points

• The play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a three-act play by Tennessee Williams, published in 1955.
• The play "Life of Galileo" is written by Bertolt Brecht and was published in 1943.
• The play "Miss Julie" is a drama in one act by August Strindberg, published in 1888.
• The play "Temptation" is a Faustian play by Vaclav Havel, published in 1985.

​Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• The play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was composed between 1953 and 1955, and it is a version of Tennessee Williams' 1952 short story "Three Players in a Summer Game."
• Bertolt Brecht's greatest accomplishments is considered to be play "Life of Galileo."  The play follows renowned physicist and astrophysicist Galileo Galilei in his later years.
• August Strindberg wrote the realistic play Miss Julie is set on a Midsummer's Eve and the early hours of Midsummer, which is also St. John the Baptist's Day.
• Havel's Temptation explores the role of the individual and their own ambition in a political environment when the freedom of speech is constrained.

The correct answer is "Decolonising the Mind."

Key Points

• Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote the nonfiction essay titled "Decolonizing the mind."
• The essay explores the dynamics of language in African literature.
• Its  primary focus is on how Africans responded to other enforced languages that differed greatly from their own traditions and is a compilation of writings addressing language and its beneficial influence on a country's culture, history, and sense of self.

Therefore, option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Ngugi wa Thiong'o is considered the greatest of African writers in the literary world, and he also developed a broken cosmos of interpretation about Africa.

The correct answer is "Hayavadana."

Key Points

• Girish Karnad highlights his inspiration from Thomas Mann's "The Transposed Heads" in "Hayavadana," which is evident through his theme of "imperfection" in the work.
• The plot revolves around two young Dharmapura men, Devadatta and Kapila, whom Bhagavata characterizes as having "one intellect, one heart,"
• The drama has three "layers": a prayer, the story of Hayavadana, and the real "story" being told regarding two men who had their heads inadvertently switched.
• Karnad attempted to depict imperfection using divine, human, and animal characters.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• The Hayavadana's plot is taken from the ancient Sanskrit story collection "Kantha Sarit Sagara." Whereas, Devadatta's and Kapila's story, which serves as the play's main event, is inspired by a passage from the "Betal Panchabinsati."

The correct answer is "A ‐ (IV), B ‐ (III), C ‐ (II), D ‐ (I)."

Key Points

• The novel "Don Quixote" is a Spanish epic novel written by Miguel de Cervantes and was published in 1605.
• The novel "Sorrows of Young Werther" is an epistolary novel written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was published in 1774.
• The novel "Lost Illusions" is a serial novel written by Honore de Balzac and was published in 1837.
• The novel "Epitaph of a Small Winner" is written by Machado de Assis and was published in 1881.

​Therefore, option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Miguel de Cervantes speaks directly to a colourful cast of people with varied ideologies, which makes Don Quixote a precursor of the modern novel.
• The novel The Sorrows of Young Werther played a significant role in the Sturm und Drang movement and had a significant impact on later Romanticism.
• Lost Illusions is a key text within Balzac's broad, interwoven fictional portrayal of French society in the 1820s and 1830s.
• The Posthumous Memoirs of Braz Cubas, also called Epitaph of a Small Winner, is one of the literary wonders with unique, and profound sceptic fiction with the force of personal revelation.

The correct answer is "London Magazine."

Key Points

• Charles Lamb first used the pseudonym Elia for the London Magazine in August 1820.
• Under this name, he produced a collection of writings that established his standing among the great English columnists.
• He died in 1820, about a few weeks after Lamb scholars usurped his title.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Charles Lamb admitted to his editor, John Taylor, in June 1821 that there existed an "ELIA, the real," from whom he had usurped the pseudonym.

The correct answer is "analyses the state of modern fiction by contrasting two generations of writers."

Key Points

• Woolf distinguishes between two generations of writers: the materialist Edwardians (e.g., Arnold Bennett, H.G. Wells, and John Galsworthy) and the forthcoming Georgians (which include herself and her contemporaries).
• Woolf criticizes the Edwardian authors for their primary focus on the material and external aspects of life, such as physical appearance and social behavior, at the expense of a genuine exploration of human consciousness.
• On the other hand, she shows a preference for the new generation of writers—whom she classifies as Georgians.
• In her view, these authors diverge from their predecessors by choosing to explore the intricate complexities of character and the inner human experience.
• She encourages this new generation to break away from traditional conventions of storytelling. Instead of concentrating primarily on plot, she argues that this new wave of authors should delve more profoundly into the subjective experience, capturing the richness of human consciousness and the intricacies of everyday life.
• To illustrate her points, Woolf invents a character, Mrs. Brown, as an example. Mrs. Brown represents an everyday individual who is often overlooked by Edwardian authors but would be the center of exploration for Georgian authors.
• She insists that the Georgians, unlike the Edwardians, should prioritize capturing the authentic essence of character, independent of external events or circumstances.
• By contrasting these two generations of writers, Woolf not only analyses the state of modern fiction, but also provides her vision and prescription for its future direction.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is "B and C only."

Key Points

• George Orwell claims that bad habits of English use include the frequent use of outmoded analogies, pretentious language and meaningless phrases.
• Orwell critiques the status of the modern language in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," saying that it is full of "bad habits."
• George Orwell cautions readers against using the English language carelessly in politics.
• Orwell argues that society has grown accustomed to employing "dead" metaphors, using technical language that is not essential, being verbose, and overusing vague language.

 Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• According to Orwell, contemporary language, particularly political discourse, is often composed of catchphrases rather than words picked for their apparent meanings.

The correct answer is 'a non‐real performance'.

Key Points

• The phrase "this insubstantial pageant" refers to a theatrical spectacle or show that lacks physical substance, much like a dream or illusion.
• In The Tempest, Prospero uses this phrase to describe the masque he has conjured with magic, symbolizing the temporary and illusory nature of life and art.
• The term "insubstantial" emphasizes the ephemeral quality of the pageant—it is not tangible or lasting, but fleeting.
• This metaphor is part of a larger philosophical reflection on mortality and the idea that all human achievements and structures are ultimately impermanent.
• Shakespeare frequently used the metaphor of theatre to reflect on life itself, and here he implies that just as a play ends, so too does human existence.
• The speech underscores the theme of illusion vs. reality, which is central to The Tempest and to Shakespeare’s late plays more broadly.

Therefore, the correct answer is 'Option 2'.

Additional Information

• Option 1 (the shutdown of Globe theatre): Incorrect—there is no reference to the Globe Theatre in this passage.
• Option 3 (the destroyed mother earth): Incorrect—while "the great globe itself" may metaphorically refer to the Earth, the phrase in question specifically relates to the theatrical spectacle.
• Option 4 (enactment with support structure): Incorrect—the phrase refers to the lack of substance or structure, not the presence of one.

The correct answer is 'There is no substance to human life.'

Key Points

• The phrase "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" comes from a reflective speech by Prospero in The Tempest, suggesting the ephemeral and illusory nature of human existence.
• Shakespeare is emphasizing that human life, like dreams, is intangible and fleeting, lacking permanent substance.
• The metaphor equates the "stuff" of human beings with the insubstantial, shifting matter of dreams, reinforcing the idea that our lives are temporary and unreal in a cosmic sense.
• This line supports the larger theme of illusion in the play, where the boundary between reality and fantasy is blurred.
• The following line—"our little life is rounded with a sleep"—further signifies that life ends in sleep (a metaphor for death), reinforcing its transitory nature.
• This view is philosophical and existential, presenting human life as something that comes and goes without leaving a permanent trace, much like a dream does upon waking.

Therefore, the correct answer is 'Option 4'.

Additional Information

• Option 1 (Human life is full of imaginary colours): Incorrect—this emphasizes creativity or imagination, not the lack of substance or permanence.
• Option 2 (Our life is a text of what happened): Incorrect—this implies life as a historical record, which misses the dreamlike, intangible focus of the line.
• Option 3 (We are a bundle of past reality): Incorrect—this suggests life is shaped by past truths, not that it lacks physical or lasting substance.

The correct answer is A and C only

Key Points

• Mythos is the Greek word for “story” or “plot.”
• Frye divides stories into four categories or parts of the Cycle of Mythoi: comedy (the mythos of spring), romance (the mythos of summer), tragedy (the mythos of autumn), and irony/satire (the mythos of winter).
• It’s easy to see that there’s something spring-like about the progress of a comedic protagonist from a bad (cold) state to a better (warmer) one, and the converse is true of autumn and tragedy
• Frye seems to be fighting against a conception of Literature that would bring individual works of literature out of contact with one another.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912–January 23, 1991) was misunderstood for decades as a literary taxonomist or member of the archetypal school of literary criticism.
• Since the late 1970s his work has been subjected to wide reappraisal, revealing not only that his entire output was the result of a highly personal project but also that a spiritual quest and social mission runs throughout.
• Frye can be best described as a left-leaning liberal who, so committed to his belief in the social mission of literary criticism, frequently produced populist and accessible versions of his key ideas to disseminate them to a general audience.

The correct answer is A and B only

Key Points

• Stephen Greenblatt begins his most theoretical statement about New Historicism, Towards a Poetics of Culture, by stating that his methodology is, at best a practice rather than a doctrine.
• One of the peculiar characteristics of  'new historicism'  is how unresolved and in some ways disingenuous it is in its relation to literary studies.
• The postmodern preoccupation with the crisis of meaning is not everyone's crisis  and there are different modes of de-essentialization which are socially and politically grounded and mediated by separate perspectives, goals, and strategies for change in other countries.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most important Shakespeare scholars of his generation.
• In a remarkable series of books from Shakespearean Negotiations to Hamlet in the Purgatory, he has enriched our reading of the plays by showing how the texts both speak of themselves and to their contexts.
• For instance, his reading of Hamlet makes a subtle argument about the shifts after the Reformation in the ways in which people could speak to and negotiate with the dead.
• Shakespeare translated the massive disruptions of his age into art for a popular audience.

The correct answer is A and C only

Key Points

• The Chicago School of critics or the Neo-Aristotelians included professors of the departments of Humanities, University of Chicago, who were engaged in bringing about a radical transformation in an attempt to revive Humanities and make them institutionally more competitive with the sciences.
• These critics, including RS Crane, Elder Olson, Richard McKeon, Norman Maclean and Bernard Weinberg, produced the central manifesto of the Chicago School, Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern (1952), which both attacked some of the important tenets of New Criticism, and elaborated an alternative formalistic method of criticism partly derived from Aristotle’s Poetics.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Allen Tate was a poet, critic, biographer, and novelist. Born and raised in Kentucky, he earned his BA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the only undergraduate to be admitted to the Fugitives, an informal group of Southern intellectuals that included John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Merrill Moore, and Robert Penn Warren.
• E. M. W. Tillyard was a and critic. His works include Milton (1930), Shakespeare's Last Plays (1938), Shakespeare's History Plays (1944), Shakespeare's Problem Plays (1950), and the influential short essay The Elizabethan World Picture (1943).

The correct answer is C, A, B, D.

Key Points

• The Tatler, a periodical launched in London by the essayist Sir Richard Steele in April 1709, appearing three times weekly until January 1711.
• At first its avowed intention was to present accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, of poetry, and of foreign and domestic news.
• The Spectator, a periodical published in London by the essayists Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison from March 1, 1711, to Dec. 6, 1712.
• Its editorial stance is moderately conservative and much more conservative than the larger journals with which it shares its eminence, The Economist and New Statesman & Society
• The Review, a newspaper founded by Daniel Defoe in 1704.
• Defoe's Review, published fifteen years after the Glorious Revolution, was not the first English periodical, but it was the first to engage a particular political topic: the relationship between England and France. England's relationship to France in this period is tenuous.
• The Examiner was a newspaper edited by Jonathan Swift from 2 November 1710 to 1714.
• In 1711, Swift published the political pamphlet The Conduct of the Allies, attacking the Whig government for its inability to end the prolonged war with France.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Sir Richard Steele was an English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician, best known as principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator.
• Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, essayist, and political pamphleteer. Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland.
• English novelist, pamphleteer and journalist Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Moll Flanders.'

The correct answer is 

Key Points

• Both the given statements are absolutely correct.
• In Waiting for Godot, it is Vladimir who questions the Boy who comes from Godot towards the end of the two acts and it is Estragon who says, "Nothing happens, no body comes, nobody goes, it's awful".
• Waiting for Godot is a play about the meaning of life. Human existence is shown as absurd and, through their actions, Vladimir and Estragon fail to escape this absurdity.
• They find meaning in waiting for Godot and, when they learn that he will not be coming, they lose the only purpose they had.
• The two men say that they will leave but they never do - the play ends with them stuck exactly where they started.
• This presents Beckett's view that human existence has no meaning unless people create their own purpose.
• The issue with Vladimir and Estragon is that instead of moving on to find a new purpose, they keep falling into the same absurd pattern.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Waiting for Godot, tragicomedy in two acts by Irish writer Samuel Beckett, published in 1952 in French as "En attendant Godot" and first produced in 1953.
  

The play consists of conversations between Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that he will appear but who never does.

• The French existential philosophy of Sartre and Camus, that seems to have heavily influenced Samuel Beckett, stated that the universe had exactly that meaning which we give it and we are what we choose to believe in, in a universe that does not naturally have a moral order.
• It is this wait for Godot, who may as well be the symbol of either ‘salvation’ or ‘doom’, that gives them a ‘reason’ to live.

The correct answer is Phoneme

Key Points

• Phonemes are the meaningfully different sound units in a language (the smallest units of sound).
• For example, ‘pat’ and ‘bat’ differ in their first phoneme: the “p” and “b”.
• Vowels are also phonemes, so “pat” and “pet” differ by a phoneme, too.
• When two words differ by a single phoneme they are known as a minimal pair.
• The phonemes are the distinctive sound unit in a spoken language.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Phonemes are the smallest meaningful unit of sound by which one can distinguish one word from another.
• A phoneme does not have any inherent meaning by itself, but when you put phonemes together, they can make words.
• The word "dog" has three phonemes ("d", "o", "g"). These phonemes are initially meaningless, but when put together they form a meaningful word "dog".
• It is the sound system that is being represented by slash marks conventionally such as the phonemes of the word "cat" can be represented as /c/, /a/, /t/.
• So, the phonemes are the smallest unit in the sound system of a language that has meaning when combined together.
• ​Hence, it can be concluded that phoneme refers to the smallest unit of sound that is associated with a particular meaning.

The correct answer is Jacob Marley

Key Points

• In the living world, Ebenezer Scrooge's equally greedy partner. Marley died seven years before the narrative opens.
• He appears to Scrooge as a ghost condemned to wander the world bound in heavy chains.
• Marley hopes to save his old partner from suffering a similar fate.
• Jacob Marley preys upon Scrooge's mind in many different ways, notably his face manifesting on the knocker on Ebenezer Scrooge's front door and causing the bells in his house to ring.
• The ghost maintains the same voice, hairstyle and sense of dress that he had in life, but is translucent.
• He wears a handkerchief tied about his jaws, and "captive, bound and double-ironed" with chains which are described as "long, and wound about him like a tail; it was made... of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel."

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• A christmas carol is about the emptiness of greed and selfishness and about how generosity, empathy, love and kindness can transform lives for the better.
• All timeless themes as relevant today as they were in the mid 19th Century.
• Scrooge’s transformation is legendary. At the beginning of the story he’s a greedy, selfish person.
• Scrooge is a miser who shows a decided lack of concern for the rest of mankind.
• However after an encounter with a ghost during the night, Scrooge sees life in a whole new way.
• He became a good friend, master, and man.
• Dickens seems to be reminding us of the importance in taking notice of the lives of those around us.

The correct answer is nihilism.

Key Points

• Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
• It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was an eminent German philosopher, cultural critic, philologist, classical scholar and essayist.
• He had exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872), 'Human, All Too Human' (1878), 'Beyond Good and Evil' (1886) and 'The Antichrist' (1888) are his most influential works.
• Nietzsche used the 19th-century philosophical term of Russian origin 'nihilism' to describe the disintegration of traditional morality in Western society.
• Nihilism is the complete rejection of moral values and religious beliefs.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Important Points

• Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic.
• His writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, consciousness, and the meaning of existence have exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history.

 Additional Information

• Anarchism is a political theory that is skeptical of the justification of authority and power. Anarchism is usually grounded in moral claims about the importance of individual liberty, often conceived as freedom from domination.
• Absolutism is a political system in which a single sovereign ruler or leader holds complete and unrestrained power over a country.
• Typically vested in a monarch or dictator, the power of an absolutist government may not be challenged or limited by any other internal agency, whether legislative, judicial, religious, or electoral.
• Cynicism originates in the philosophical schools of ancient Greece that claim a Socratic lineage.

The correct answer is it is involved in the reproduction of the dominant social order.

Key Points

• Terry Eagleton believed that literature is involved in the reproduction of the dominant social order.
• He would not endorse that the primary purpose of literature is to produce beauty and pleasure because of his Marxist ideals.
• Eagleton does not believe that religion is closely allied to religion in its significance and seriousness.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• George Lukacs conceived of literature as the basis of all literary genres where the writer plays the role of a mediator between literature and society.
• Why Marx Was Right is a 2011 nonfiction book by the British academic Terry Eagleton.

The correct answer is D, A, B, C.

Key Points

• The posterior speech cortex is one of the parts of the human brain responsible for encoding the sensory content of any experience.
• The arcuate fasciculus is believed to have a role in the syntax of a language, which helps human beings to process complex sentences in order.
• The anterior speech cortex has a role in the processing and production of language output. It is the first language area in the left hemisphere of the brain.
• The motor cortex is responsible for the planning, control and execution of voluntary movements and plays a role in translating vocabulary from foreign languages into a person's native language.

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is B, D and E only.

Key Points

• The Theatre of the Absurd presents futile actions devoid of any goal as one of its prominent features.
• Contrary to a conventional play, an absurd play lacks conflicts and dramatic tensions.
• It also presents players in stasis with no action happening around them or drifts without definite roles.

Therefore, Option 2 is correct.

Additional Information

• There is no emphasis or relevance to the idea of God in absurd plays.
• Absurd plays also portray situations that point to the meaninglessness of life.

The correct answer is A- (II), B- (I), C- (IV), D- (III).

Key Points

• Bankimchandra Chatterjee wrote Rajmohan's Wife.
• Mulk Raj Anand wrote Untouchable.
• Kamala Sathianadhan wrote Stories from Indian Christian Life.
• Panchkouree Khan wrote The Revelations of an Orderly.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Matangani is the eponymous wife of Rajmohan in the play Rajmohan's Wife which was first published in 1935.

The correct answer is ' A British readership and The colonial administrator in India '.​

Key Points

• According to Meenakshi Mukherjee, a British readership and colonial administrator in India was the possible target readership of early Indian English Novels.
• Meenakshi Mukherjee was a distinguished litterateur of Indian English fiction.
• She was noted for her significant contribution to the feminist movement and post-colonial and colonial studies.
• The Anxiety of Indianness’  and 'The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English' are two important works by Mukherjee.

​Therefore, the correct answer is option 3.

The correct answer is ' A ‐ (I), B ‐ (II), C ‐ (III), and D ‐ (IV) ' 

Key Points

• Charles Baudelaire, was a French poet, translator, and literary and art critic.
• His most famous work, a book of lyric poetry titled Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in the rapidly industrializing Paris during the mid-19th century.
• Heinrich Heine was a German poet, writer, and literary critic.
• He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry.
• Heine wrote both poetry and prose. His famous collection Die Buch der Lieder (The Book of Songs) (1827), was written in the wake of disappointing love affairs with two of his younger cousins.
• Sylvia Plath was an English (American) poet, novelist, and short story writer.
• She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry. She is best known for, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death.
• Jose Marti was a Spanish poet, he was also an important figure in Latin American literature.
• He published "El presidio politico en Cuba"(1871), which described the horrible conditions in Cuban prisons, and "La Republica Espanola ante la Revolucion Cubana" (1873), which challenged the newly-born Spanish Republic to allow Cubans to establish their own democratic government on the island.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 1.

The correct answer is A, B, and C only.

Key Points

• ​The cultural study is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations.
• Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices relate to wider systems of power associated with, or operating through, social phenomena.
• Cultural studies seek to understand how meaning is generated, disseminated, contested, bound up with systems of power and control, and produced from the social, political, and economic spheres within a particular social formation or conjuncture.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 1.

The correct answer is B and C only.

Key Points 

• The Subaltern Studies Group or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in postcolonial and post-imperial societies.
• Subaltern Studies: Writings on Indian History and Society began in 1982 as a series of interventions in some debates specific to the writing of modern Indian history.
• Ranajit Guha, a historian of India then teaching at the University of Sussex, was the inspiration behind it.
• Guha and eight younger scholars based in India, the United Kingdom, and Australia constituted the editorial collective of Subaltern Studies until 1988 when Guha retired from the team.
• The intellectual reach of Subaltern Studies now also exceeds that of the discipline of history. Postcolonial theorists of diverse disciplinary backgrounds have taken interest in the series.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is A and D only.

Key Points

• The Solitude of Latin America is the title of the speech given by Gabriel García Márquez on 8 December 1982 upon being awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez started his speech as, 'Antonio Pigafetta, the Florentine navigator who accompanied Magellan on the first circumnavigation of the world, kept a meticulous log of his journey through our Southern American continent, which, nevertheless, also seems to be an adventure in the imagination '.
• Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America.
• Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route.
• Antonio Pigafetta was a Venetian scholar and explorer. He joined the expedition to the Spice Islands led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan under the flag of the emperor Charles V.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 4.

The correct answer is "A and C only."

Key Points

• Frederic Jameson uses the concepts of "Pastiche" and "Schizophrenia" in his work "On Postmodernity."
• Jameson contends that postmodernity has reduced historical truth to a succession of empty-handed stylistic influences (what he refers to as pastiche) that may be sold and devoured.
• Jameson also states "schizophrenic" as something left to an awareness of pure materialist signifier and signified or a sequence of unadulterated and unrelated presentations.
• Jameson states that this schizophrenic attitude most strongly matches how we have lost our sense of history.

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• In Jameson's words, Pastiche is similar to "imitating a peculiar disguise, dialogue in a dying language," but it is a fair practice of such mimesis, with none of the parody's hidden agendas.

The correct answer is "B and D only."

Key Points

• The line is taken from sonnet 123 "No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change" by William Shakespeare.
• The poet's promise to remain true in the face of time and its "scythe" is stated in the given line.
• The term "scythe" refers to an instrument used to cut grass into hay.
• "Scythe" is a typical metaphor for time, which ruthlessly consumes all that is living.
• The term "thee" can be taken to allude to time alone, without the scythe acting as its tool.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• The poet is genuine, notwithstanding time's scythe and the youth's dishonesty in the given lines.

The correct answer is, "She was hanged."

Key Points

• Let's refer to the following lines from the passage:

The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless; the flag continued to wave silently

• The lines highlight that Tess ended while making a sacrifice. As per the lines given, i.e., "bent themselves down to the earth" and "remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless..." Tess is highlighted as being sacrificed for her family.
• From the statement above, it is evident that "she was hanged."

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is "‘Liza‐Lu and Angel Clare". 

Key Points

• Let's refer to the following lines from the passage:
• ​The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained there a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
• The lines depict the conclusion of "moving on," just like life ultimately will. The d'Urberville forebears who brought about the disaster were utterly untouched by the death and suffering of one of their very lines.
• From the statement above, it is evident that the two characters "Liza‐Lu and Angel Clare" are the two speechless gazers.

​Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is A and D only

Key Points

• Liberal humanism can be defined as a philosophical and literary movement in which man and his capabilities are the central concern.
• It can also be defined as a system of historically changing views that recognizes the value of the human being as an individual and his right to liberty and happiness.
• There are some aspects to liberal humanism that have been made into what is called the ten tenets.
• They are invisible guidelines literary critics use when reading a text.
• It is said that they can only be brought to the surface by a conscious effort of will.
• Two of these tenets are 'Good literature is timeless, transcendent and speaks to what is constant in human nature' and Purpose of literature to enhance life in a non-programmatic** way.**

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• A critic should not speak about the nature of reading or of literature in general, but simply interpret the text from a theoretical point of view that best represents the text.
• The  key critics in history of criticism: Aristotle, Sidney, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley.

The correct answer is “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

Key Points

• “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” ends with one of Donne’s most famous metaphysical conceits, in which he argues for the lovers’ closeness by comparing their two souls to the feet of a drawing compass—a simile that would not typically occur to a poet writing about his love.
• Poetic conceit is bringing unrelated elements together in an unusual way whether it be a metaphor or simile, in this case John Donne uses an extended metaphor.
• Although at the start it could seem as though it is a normal love poem, John Donne includes movement, this adds intellectual meaning as you read deeper into the poem, you realise that it is not just a simple love poem but in fact includes all the implications that come with, whilst comparing it to a simple object that is unrelated to love but perfectly portrays what love entails.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Lovers' Infiniteness' is no exception, exploring the infinity in love. John Donne's poetry tends to have love, death, and religion as central themes.
• “A Valediction: Of Weeping” is a lyric/dramatic monologue from “Love Poems” of John Donne, in which the poet, after careful analysis, talks about the love between him and his beloved.
• Negative Love, written in the early 17th century, is a comment on the inferiority of physical love when compared to spiritual, metaphysical love.

The correct answer is B, C, D, A.

Key Points

• Henry James disagrees with Besant's assertions that plot is more important than characterization, that fiction must have a conscious moral purpose, and that experience and observation outweigh imagination as creative tools.
• The Art of Fiction was published  in 1885.
• Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition” first appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1846.
• The essay illustrates Poe’s aesthetic principles according to which a poem must have a certain length, unity of effect, and connection among its elements.
• The Function of Criticism’ is an influential 1923 essay by T. S. Eliot, perhaps the most important poet-critic of the modernist movement.
• It  focuses on the role of the critic as opposed to the creation of new works of art, although Eliot also draws some valuable comparisons between creative and critical work.
• "Modern Fiction" is an essay by Virginia Woolf.  The essay was published in The Times Literary Supplement on April 10, 1919 as Modern Novels.
• The essay is a criticism of writers and literature from the previous generation.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) is recognised as one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century. Perhaps best known as the author of Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse.
• Henry James was an American novelist and critic. During his lifetime he wrote 20 novels, 112 tales, and 12 plays in addition to several volumes of travel writing and criticism
• Poe was an editor, poet, and critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction.
• Eliot was an American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor. He is best known as a leader of the Modernist movement in poetry and as the author of such works as The Waste Land

The correct answer is Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A

Key Points

• Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
• Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterised by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.
• Postmodern narratives focus on the indeterminate and unstable nature of textuality and subjectivity.
• Hence, the assertion is correct.
• The reason is also correct and supports the assertion in the sense that the important elements of postmodern narratives include intertextuality, stream of consciousness style, fragmentation and representation.
• Postmodern narrative acts regard narratives and characters as tentative representations of writing and identity.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Postmodernism broadly refers to a socio-cultural and literary theory, and a shift in perspective that has manifested in a variety of disciplines including the social sciences, art, architecture, literature, fashion, communications, and technology.
• It is generally agreed that the postmodern shift in perception began sometime back in the late 1950s, and is probably still continuing.
• Postmodernism can be associated with the power shifts and dehumanization of the post-Second World War era and the onslaught of consumer capitalism.

The correct answer is Statement I is true but Statement II is false

Key Points

• From the given statements in the question, first statement (I) is true but second statement (II) is not true.
• "New Historicism stipulates that teleological connotations of history have to be eschewed" is absolutely correct statement regarding New historicism while "New Historicism neither denies nor accepts totalizing explanations of historical events" is not a correct statement.
• Stephen Greenblatt, who was credited with establishing New Historicism, an approach to literacy criticism which treats texts as historical artifacts that emerges among particular social, intellectual and economic circumstances.
• New historicist looks at literature in a wider historical context, examining both how the writer's times affected the work and how the work reflects the writer's time, in turn recognizing that current cultural contexts color that critic's conclusions.
• New Historicism is a central idea is how every text shows signs of the time and the society it is produced in.
• A logical consequence, since the author is never free of perceptions of his time and never subjective.
• On the other hand a text, read by many people, can easily influence their opinions and believes.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and intrepreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic.
• Stephen Jay Greenblatt is an American Shakespearean, literary historian, and author.
• He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.

The correct answer is “The Oak Tree”.

Key Points

• Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando' opens in 1588 and Orlando, a sixteen-year-old boy, writes a poem called 'The Oak Tree'.
• Orlando: A Biography' is the sixth major novel of Virginia Woolf, published in 1928.
• The novel pays homage to the family of Woolf's friend Vita Sackville-West from the time of her ancestor Thomas Sackville (1536-1608) to the family's country estate at Knole.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Virginia Woolf was one of the most prominent modernist literary figures of the 19th century.
• She was a prolific novelist and essayist. 'Mrs. Dalloway' (1925), 'To the Lighthouse' (1927), 'The Voyage Out' (1915), 'Jacob's Room' (1922), 'Orlando' (1928), and 'The Waves' (1931) are some of her most famous works. '
• Woolf was also well-known for her writings promoting liberal politics, particularly the nascent feminist movement.
• Her non-fiction, including A Room of One's Own (1929) and the anti-fascist tract Three Guineas (1938), is central to the “first wave” feminist canon.

The correct answer is Jean Baudrillard

Key Points

• Jean Baudrillard is said to have believed that the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) never happened.
• He was a renowned French sociologist and cultural theorist. 'Seduction' (1978), 'Simulacra and Simulation' (1981), 'America' (1986), and 'The Gulf War Did Not Take Place' (1991) are some of his best-known works.
• In his seminal work, 'The Gulf War Did Not Take Place', Baudrillard has argued that the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) a carefully scripted media event-a 'virtual' war.
• Drawing upon his concepts of Simulation and the Hyperreal, he argued that the military events that took place over that period in Gulf, was an atrocity which masqueraded as a war.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Jürgen Habermas currently ranks as one of the most influential philosophers in the world. Bridging continental and Anglo-American traditions of thought, he has engaged in debates with thinkers as diverse as Gadamer and Putnam, Foucault
• Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions.
• Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish-born sociologist who explored the fluidity of identity in the modern world, the Holocaust, consumerism and globalization.

The correct answer is Syncope.

Key Points

• Syncope is a term in comparative philology which refers to the contraction of a word through the loss of a vowel sound or letter.
• The example for syncope includes common words like choc(o)late, rest(au)rant, fav(o)rite and veg(e)table.
• The vowel sounds, when deleted, are said to be syncopated.
• Usually, it is the sound that is unstressed which gets syncopated.

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Aphaeresis refers to the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word, usually an unstressed vowel such as round (from around) and specially (from especially).
• Equi-deletion is a syntactic operation in early transformational grammar.
• Paradigm refers to a set of linguistic items that create mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles. For example, the paradigm of "to sing" is "sing, sang, sung".

The correct answer is B and D.

Key Points

• Noam Chomsky, in his theory of transformational grammar, distinguishes between two components of the production of language: competence and performance.
• Performance includes hesitations and unfinished structures arising out of psychological difficulties acting upon the speaker.
• Chomsky used performance to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations".

Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Langue is one of the two components of language described by Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics, published in 1916.
• It is analogous to Chomsky's concept of competence, not performance.
• Langue is an innate grammar that suggests humans' universal ability to use language.

The correct answer is "A and C only".

Key Points

• New Grub Street and The Odd Women are the works of George Gissing.
• New Grub Street, published in 1891 is the story of the literary world Gissing himself experienced in London street. Two of the important characters in the story are Edwin Reardon, a novelist and Jasper Milvain, a young journalist.
• The Odd Women is an 1893 novel, the themes of which is the role of women in society, marriage and morals.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Agnes Grey is the debut novel of the English writer Anne Bronte.
• Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is the first novel by English author, Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848.

The correct answer is A and C.

Key Points

• Atonement and The Child in Time are novels by Ian McEwan.
• Atonement is a 2001 metafictional novel about how an upper-class girl, Briony Tallis, half innocent mistake ruins lives. The novel also presents a reflection on the nature of writing.
• The Child in Time is a semi-autobiographical novel about a man named Stephen Lewis, a children's book writer and his wife, Julie. The story revolves around the aftermath of their daughter, Kate two years before.

Therefore, Option A is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• The Rachel Papers is a novel written by Martin Amis.
• The Man with Two Left Feet is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse.

The correct answer is C, B, A, D.

Key Points

• Negritude is a framework of critique and literary theory developed by francophone intellectuals during the 1930s.
• Scriptible is a neologism defined by Roland Barthes in his work The Pleasure of the Text, published in 1973.
• Gynesis is a term coined by Alice Jardine as she combined post-structuralist ideas and feminist criticism in her book Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity in 1985.
• Paratext refers to the material that surrounds a published main text. Gerard Genette defined paratext in 1997.

Therefore,  the correct answer is Option 1.

The correct answer is Girish Karnad.

Key Points

• Girish Karnad is known to have used elements from the Yakshagana tradition in his theatre.
• Yakshagana tradition is attached to Karnataka in India.
• Karnad's Hayavadana follows the Yakshangana tradition and begins with a prayer to Lord Ganesha.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Badal Sircar, Mohan Rakesh and Mahesh Dattani are all Indian dramatists.
• Badal Sircar's Evam Indrajit, Mohan Rakesh's Adhe Adhure and Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like a Man are important, well-known plays.

The correct answer is the University of Birmingham.

 Key Points

• The University of Birmingham is one of the UK universities that saw the first institutional incorporation of Cultural Studies.
• The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies was a research centre at the University of Birmingham.
• It was founded in 1964 by Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggarth.
• A variety of approaches to studying culture was pioneered, including ideological analysis, studies of working-class cultures and subcultures, the role of media audiences, feminist cultural research, hegemonic struggles in state politics, and the place of race in social and cultural processes.

Therefore, Option 3 is correct.

Additional Information

• Notable Centre books include Off-Centre: Feminism and Cultural Studies, Resistance through Rituals, The Empire Strikes Back, and Border Patrols: Policing the Boundaries of Heterosexuality.

The correct answer is 'Journal of Popular Culture '.

Key Points

• 'Journal of Popular Culture' was the journal published by Bowling Green University(USA) beginning in 1969.
• The journal carried essays on Spiderman comics, rock music, amusement parks, detective movies, and other forms of popular culture.
• It is in popular culture studies that Cultural Studies finds its first movement.
• Cultural Studies’ is a discipline that is interested in the processes by which power relations between and within groups of human beings organize cultural artifacts and their meanings.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is Pierre Bourdieu.

Key Points

• Pierre Bourdieu was a renowned sociologist and public intellectual who made significant contributions to general sociological theory, theorizing the link between education and culture, and research into the intersections of taste, class, and education.
• ‘Cultural intermediaries’ is a term attributed to cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu that has spawned multiple readings and re-interpretations.
• Cultural intermediaries are often considered a cornerstone for recent attempts to characterize the contemporary cultural entrepreneur as a creative, dynamic figure seeking out new “practical utopias” through experimental combinations of economic and cultural practice.
• Cultural intermediaries mediate how goods are perceived by others, by framing those goods as culturally legitimate and thereby adding symbolic value to them.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 3.

Additional Information

• Louis Pierre Althusser was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century.
• Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, and journalist.
• Jurgen Habermas is a German philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism.

The correct answer is "A and D only".

Key Points

• Sir Charles Wood was the President of the Board of Control and played an important role in spreading English learning and female education in India.
• The Wood's Despatch first throws light on the aims and objectives of the educational policy of the Company in India.
• Wood suggested that primary schools must adopt vernacular languages, high schools must adopt Anglo-vernacular language and at the college-level English should be the medium of education. This is known as Wood's despatch.
• His main objective is to impart Western knowledge and information about western culture to the Indians.
• The Despatch recommended the establishment of universities in the three Presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras.
• The universities were to be modeled after London University. The universities were to organize departments not only in English but also in Arabic, Sanskrit, and Persian, as well as law and civil engineering.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 4.

The correct answer is "A ‐ (II), B ‐ (III), C ‐ (IV), D ‐ (I)."

Key Points

• The essay "The Tory Fox‐Hunter” is written by Joseph Addison.
• The essay "What I Believe" was written by E.M.Forster and was published in 1939.
• The essay “The Death of the Moth” is written by Virginia Woolf and was published in 1942.
• The essay “Of Ambition” is written by Francis Bacon.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• E M Forster's "What I Believe" outlines some of his most significant humanist values; that is, tolerance, good temper, and sympathy.
• "The Death of the Moth" is an essay from the book "The Death of the moth and other essays" by Virginia Woolf.
• Francis Bacon makes an argument regarding the advantages and drawbacks of desire in his argumentative essay "Of Ambition."

The correct answer is "D, B, A, C."

Key Points

• Shylock is a character from "The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare, published in 1600.
• Sir Epicure Mammon is a character from "The Alchemist" by Ben Jonson, published in 1610.
• Mirabell is a character from "The Way of the World" by William Congreve, published in 1700.
• Jimmy Porter is a character from "Look Back in Anger" by John Osborne, published in 1956.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• In The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, the fictitious figure Shylock is  a Jewish usurer from Venice, serves as the play's main adversary.
• One of Ben Jonson's most well-known characters from The Alchemist, Sir Epicure Mammon, is known for his extravagance and devotion to worldly delights.
• In the The Way of the World, the main character, Edward Mirabell, is a stylish, learned, and witty man around town who enjoys the company of women.
• Jimmy, the "Angry young man" of the play, is frequently heard ranting about his wife and the smugness of the British upper class.

The correct answer is, "There can be no use of poetry."

Key Points

• Let's refer to the first part of the given passage:
• What can be the use of a poetry that has no true subject except the poet's own selfhood? The traditional use of poetry in the Western world has been instruction through delight, where teaching has meant the common truths or common deceptions of societal tradition, and where esthetic pleasure has meant a fulfillment of expectations founded upon past joys of the same design.
• The lines describe how poetry has evolved from its traditional meaning; How poetry was intended to delight and instruct through social traditions and commonly held beliefs, and how contemporary poetry has nothing but the poet's own life.
• The above statements show that "there can be no use of poetry."

​Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is "promoting serious ideas."

Key Points

• Let's refer to the first paragraph of the given passage:
• The traditional use of poetry in the Western world has been instruction through delight, where teaching has meant the common truths or common deceptions of societal tradition, and where esthetic pleasure has meant a fulfillment of expectations founded upon past joys of the same design.
• From the given lines, it can be understood that traditional poetry has significantly focused on parting teaching common societal truths and traditions to the readers.
• Thus, it is evident that traditional uses of poetry promote serious ideas.

So, option 1 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is "some truth of untruths."

Key Points

• Let's refer to the second paragraph of the given passage:
• But an individual psyche has its own accidents, which it needs to call truths, and its own necessity for self‐recognition, which requires the pleasures of originality, even if those pleasures depend upon a kind of lying against time, and against the achievements of the past.
• The given lines demonstrate that the originality of poetry is highlighted through unfiltered incidents, regardless of time frame.
• Hence, from the statement given above, it is evident that "‘originality’ in the poetry should spring from some truth of untruths."

​Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is A and B only.

Key Points

• The Modern Language Association (MLA) is an organization responsible for developing MLA format.
• It was developed as a means for researchers, students, and scholars in the literature and language fields to uniformly format their papers and assignments.
• This uniform, or consistent method to developing a paper or assignment allows for easy reading.
• Today, MLA is not only used in literature and language subject areas; many others have adopted it as well.
• In April 2016, MLA replaced its seventh edition resources with a new eighth edition. This updated version reflects the ways in which digital publication has changed how writers and researchers document sources
• The logic here is basic: a style guide should offer a method that is widely applicable.
• Rather than insisting that writers follow strict citation formula, this handbook outlines the principles of MLA documentation and explains how writers can use them in many different situations.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• The eighth edition emphasizes the writer’s freedom to create references based on the expectations of the audience, consider what your readers need to know if they want to find your source.
• These updated MLA guidelines are based on a simple theory: once you know the basic principles of style and citation, you can apply that knowledge widely, and generate useful documentation for any type of publication, in any field.

The correct answer is Pierre de Ronsard.

 Key Points

• It is Pierre de Ronsard's poem that inspired W.B. Yeats to write his poem, "When You Are Old" (1891).
• Yeats's poem closely resembles Ronsard's "Quand Vous serez bien vieille" (1552) and is sometimes mistaken to be its translation.
• Both poems convey beauty to the readers through their shared experience of the rejection of their love by a beautiful woman.
• Ronsard's poetry has influenced many writers and artists, including W.B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath and Henri Matisse.

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Ronsard was the greatest poet of the Pleiade, a group of seven poets who "represent the most spectacular triumph of French poetry in the Renaissance".

The correct answer is B, A, C, and D.

Key Points

• The Tatler was a British literary and society journal begun by Richard Steele in 1709 and published for two years. It represented a new approach to journalism, featuring cultivated essays on contemporary manners.
• The Spectator was a daily publication founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England, lasting from 1711 to 1712.
• The Rambler, a two-penny sheet issued twice weekly in London by the publisher John Payne between 1750 and 1752, each issue containing a single anonymous essay; 208 such periodical essays appeared, all but four written by Samuel Johnson.
• The Critical Review was a British publication appearing from 1756 to 1817. It was first edited by Tobias Smollett, from 1756 to 1763. Contributors included Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith.

Therefore, the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is "D, B, C, A."

Key Points

• The play "Man and Superman" was written by George Bernard Shaw and published in 1903.
• The play "The Playboy of the Western World" was written by J. M. Synge and published in 1907.
• The play "Look Back in Anger" was written by John Osborne and published in 1956.
• The play "Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance" was written by John Arden and published in 1959.

​Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Man and Superman portrays women as a hindrance and diversion for males.
• The Playboy of the Western World is a bizarre, hilarious, and subtle social critique of rural life.
• The centre of the play Look Back in Anger is on the marital and personal troubles of upper-middle-class husband Alison and his dissatisfied, bright, and working-class husband Jimmy Porter.
• The play "Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance" centres on three British Army privates and their commander, all of whom had fled an unjust war abroad.

The correct answer is "A ‐ (IV), B ‐ (I), C ‐ (II), D ‐ (III)."

Key Points

• "Modernity at Large" is a book by A. Appadurai published in 1996.
• "The Tourist Gaze" is from travel literature by John Urry and was published in 1990.
• "Culture and Imperialism" is a book by Edward Said published in 1993.
• "The Black Jacobins" is a book by C.L.R. James published in 1938.

​Therefore, Option 4 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• In "Modernity at Large," Appadurai's concept of "scapes," a collection of distinct, interconnected flows that, in his view, traverse the globalized world that explores modernity.
• Urry builds this theory, through a number of historical, economic, social, cultural, visuals. Among the most important ideas in tourism studies is still Urry's "tourist gaze."
• In "Culture and Imperialism," Said acknowledges how culture serves as a dual paradigm.
• "The Black Jacobins" pays credit to one of the most brutal eras in colonial history, that is the "Haitian revolution."

The correct answer is "B, D, A, C."

Key Points

• The line, "The world is too much with us," is taken from the poem "The world is too much with us" by William Wordsworth, published in 1807.
• The line, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes," is taken from the poem "After great pain, a formal feeling comes" by Emily Dickinson, published in 1862.
• The line, "An aged man is but a paltry thing," is taken from the poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by W. B. Yeats, published in 1928.
• The line, "Daddy, I have had to kill you," is taken from the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, published in 1962.

​Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Wordsworth condemns the first Industrial Revolution's world because of being consumed by materialism in "The World Is Too Much with Us."
• The poem "After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes" by Emily Dickinson expresses how one feels after a significant loss.
• William Butler Yeats wrote a poem titled "Sailing to Byzantium," in which he ponders the connections between immortality, creativity, and the human soul.
• In "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, the speaker begins by strikingly portraying her father in several ways, as a Nazi, a fascist, a monster, and the "black shoe" she was imprisoned in.

The correct answer is A and C only

Key Points

• Alec Derwent Hope was a renowned Australian poet, literary critic, academician and essayist. 'The Wandering Islands' (1955), `Dunciad Minor: An Heroik Poem' (1970), 'A Late Picking: Poems 1965-1974' (1975) and 'A Book of Answers' (1981) are some of his finest works.
• 'A Book of Answers' is a lighter collection of poems by Hope responding to poems by other poets, published in 1981. 'Tolstoy' and 'Mallarme' are addressed by AD Hope through his poetic responses in this seminal work.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

• Dostoyevsky is best known for his novella Notes from the Underground and for four long novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and The Brothers Karamazo.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is the most important German literary figure of modern times and is often compared to Shakespeare and Dante.

The correct answer is C, D, B, A.

Key Points

• Doris Lessing's The Golden Book is the earliest, as it came out in 1962.
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison got published in 1970.
• The Colour Purple by Alice Walker was published in 1982.
• Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is the latest, published in 1985.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

The sequel to Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments was published in 2019.

The correct answer is Both Statement I and II are incorrect.

Key Points

• Literary research has specific materials for investigation and tools for reaching a conclusion and formulating a theory.
• Literary research is not exclusive of the biography or the editing of the texts.
• Biographical criticism is a critical research method that "sees literary work as a reflection of its author's life and times".

Therefore, Option 2 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Books, films or archives are all specific materials of literary research and investigation.

The correct answer is "Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect".

 Key Points

• Linguists involved in the scientific study of language are objective and approach it dispassionately.
• It is not necessary for a linguist to know many languages.
• A linguist would not bring biases to language study.

Therefore, Option 3 is the correct answer.

Additional Information

• Ferdinand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, and Leonard Bloomfield are all linguists.