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Contents

• Previous Year’s Solved Paper

1. Chaucer To Shakespeare 3–71

• The Age of Chaucer 3

• Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) 5

• Main Poetical Works of Chaucer 6

• Chaucer’s Realism 9

• Chaucer–The Realist 10

• Chaucer’s Art of Characterisation 12

• Chaucer as a Narrative Poet 15

• Chaucer’s Humour 16

• Chaucer’s Language 19

• Chaucer’s Versification 19

• Chaucer as a Satirist and an Ironist 20

• Chaucer as the Poet of the People 21

• Chaucer as the Father of English Poetry 22

• Chaucer’s Humanity 23

• Chaucer’s Contribution to English Language and Versification 24

• Examination of Matthew Arnold’s Criticism of Chaucer 25

• Chaucer’s Place in English Literature 26

• Development of Poetry in the Age of Chaucer 27

• Langland as a Satirist and Social Reformer 31

• Scottish Chaucerians 33

• Other Poets from 1579 to 1625 34

• The Age of Shakespeare (1516-1600) 35

• Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of Survey (1516-47) 38

• Spenser’s Faerie Queen as an Epic 38

• Sonnets and Sonneteers 40

• The University Wits 42

• Marlowe and Shakespeare 43

• Shakespeare’s Life (1564-1616) 44

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• The Eternal Shakespeare 45

• Fiction 52

• Non-Fiction 53

• Multiple Choice Questions 55

2. Jacobean To Restoration Periods 72–110

• Loss of National Appeal 74

• Other Channels of Expression 75

• Dominant Tendencies in the Jacobean and Caroline Drama 76

• The Contribution of the Post-Shakespearean Dramatists of the Jacobean Period 78

• The Puritan Age : Social Background 85

• The Influence of Machiavelli 86

• Literary Background 87

• John Milton and Epic Poetry 90

• John Dryden (1631-1700) 94

• Eminent Writers of The Comedy of Manners 97

• Multiple Choice Questions 99

3. Augustan Age : 18th Century Literature 111–148

• Alexander Pope (1688-1744) 113

• Verse Satire in the 18th Century 118

• The Pre-Romantics 121

• Minor Poets of the Revival 124

• Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) 132

• Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) 133

• Henry Fielding (1707-1754) 134

• Smollett and Sterne 135

• Multiple Choice Questions 137

4. Romantic Period 149–187

• Romanticism 149

• Characteristics of the Romantic Poetry 150

• Literary Characteristics of the Age 151

• The Poets of Romanticism 154

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) 156

• Robert Southey (1774-1843) 160

• Walter Scott (1771-1832) 160

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• George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 162

• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 163

• John Keats (1795-1821) 164

• Prose Writers of the Romantic Period 166

• Charles Lamb (1775-1834) 166

• Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) 167

• Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) 169

• The Essay in the Eighteenth Century 174

• Wordsworth and Coleridge 176

• Multiple Choice Questions 178

5. Victorian Period 188–235

• Literary Tendencies of the Victorian Age 190

• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) 195

• Robert Browning (1812-1889) 197

• Minor Poets of the Victorian Age 201

• The Novelists of the Victorian Age 203

• Mary Ann Evans, George Eliot (1819-1880) 207

• Minor Novelists of the Victorian Age 209

• Essayists of the Victorian Age 211

• Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) 213

• John Ruskin (1819-1900) 215

• Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) 216

• John Henry Newman (1801-1890) 218

• George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) 222

• Multiple Choice Questions 227

6. Modern Period 236–287

• Tradition and Experiment in Modern Poetry 236

• Modern Poetry 239

• Georgian Poets and Poetry 240

• Modern Novel 249

• The Experimentalists and Innovators 256

• Twentieth Century Drama 257

• Main Characteristics and Features of Twentieth Century Drama 258

• Multiple Choice Questions 273

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7. Contemporary Period 288–321

• Poetry 289

• The Neo-Romanticism 300

• Prose 302

• Contemporary Age in an Era of Prose and Journalism 304

• Drama 307

• Multiple Choice Questions 312

8. American and Other Non-British Literatures 322–396

• American Literature 322

• Nineteenth Century American Literature 322

• American Literature in the Twentieth Century 331

• Commonwealth Literature 340

• Canadian Literature 340

• Australian Literature 343

• African Literature 344

• New Zealand Literature 346

• Indian English Literature 347

• The Era of Political Awakening (1901-1947) 350

• The Development of Poetry 351

• Eminent Poets of the Seventies and Eighties 360

• Indian English Poetry from 1990-2005 362

• The Pioneers of Prose (1820-1900) 365

• Towards the Dawn (1901-1947) 365

• The Era of Independence 368

• Some Contemporary Writers 370

• The Era of Awakening or Freedom Struggle 370

• The Dawn of Independence 372

• Women Novelists 377

• Indian English Drama after Independence 380

• Some Eminent Playwrights 380

• Multiple Choice Questions 383

9. Literary Theory and Criticism 397–435

• Plato (427 B.C. - 347 B.C.) 397

• Aristotle (384 B.C.-322 B.C.) 398

• Longinus, “The First Romantic Critic” 400

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• Dante (1265-1321) 402

• The Renaissance Criticism in England 403

• Neo-Classicism in English Literary Criticism 404

• The Romantic Criticism 408

• Victorian Criticism 410

• Matthew Arnold 411

• Modern Criticism 412

• Contemporary Criticism 417

• Basic Principles of the New Criticism 417

• Structuralism and Post-Structuralism 418

• Feminist Criticism 420

• History or Ideology? 422

• Multiple Choice Questions 424

10. Rhetoric and Prosody 436–464

• Rhetoric 436

• Prosody 438

• The Stanza 440

• Rhyme and Kindred Devices 441

• Assonance and Alliteration 441

• Types of Poetry 443

• Features of 20th Century English Poetry 451

• The Decline : Tradition and Innovation 451

• Multiple Choice Questions 456

Practice Sets (Multiple Choice Questions) 1–12

• Appendix (Based on Latest Syllabus) 1–32