Victorian Literature — DU B. A. (Hons) English Previous Year Question Papers

3. Candidates have to answer ALL the questions in Part A and ANY THREE questions in Part B. 4. Questions in Part A carry 10 marks each and questions in Part B carry 20 marks each. 1. (a) Write a short note on the Red Room. (b) With a steady stony glance— Like some bold seer in a trance, Beholding all his own mischance, Mute, with a glassy countenance— She look'd down to Camelot. • It was the closing of the day: She loos'd the chain, and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away... (i) Identify the lines given above. (2) (ii) Where is the broad stream taking the lady and why? (3) (iii) Critically comment on the portrait of the lady as a seer and what she sees. (5) 2. (a) Attempt a short note on Mr. Jaggers. (b) The Count your Master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; (i) Who is the speaker of these lines? Who is being addressed? (2) (ii) What does the interest in the "munificence" tell us about the speaker's character. (iii) How does the rest of the poem substantiate our understanding of the speaker? (5) 3. (a) How does George Eliot use water imagery (e.g., the river Floss) to symbolize the themes of the novel? (b) Discuss the religious allusion in the following lines: I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, it God choose, 1, shall but love thee better after death. 4. (a) Analyze Blanche Ingram and Bertha Mason as foil characters to Jane Eyre. Do these alternative models highlight Bronte's engagement with Victorian ideologies of womanhood and colonial otherness? (b) Is the romantic tradition under critique in the figure of Sir Lancelot? Discuss with reference to the poem "The Lady of Shallot". 5. (a) Critically examine how the structure of Great Expectations reflects its serialised publication. (b) "The poem "My Last Duchess" reflects the gender dynamics in marriage." Explain. 6. (a) Why does Eliot title the novel The Mill on the Floss? Explore the importance of the mill in terms of setting, plot, and symbolism. (b) Critically evaluate "How do I Love Thee" as a love poem. 7. (a) Examine the critical intersection of class and gender in Victorian England as depicted in any two prescribed texts. (b) Elucidate on the centrality of the first person narrative in any one poem and one novel from your syllabus.