MA Prose Suggestions 2019-20

Final Suggestion of Prose NU Masters 2019-20

Broad Questions

The American Scholar

1. How can the scholar arm himself for the betterment of America? Or,  What are the three main influences on the American Scholar and how do they work?
2. Discuss how Nature influences the American Scholar.
3. Give a brief account of the content and style of the essay.  

Civil Disobedience

1. Evaluate Thoreau’s essay ‘Civil Disobedience’ in respect of its theme and style.

2. Why does Thoreau think conscience rather than the majority should govern the state?

3. How does Thoreau deal with the relationship between the government and the individual

Shakespeare’s Sister

1. What, according to Virginia Woolf, are women’s barriers to becoming writers?

2. What are the conditions that Virginia Woolf set for the promotion of creative genius?

3. Justify The significance of the title “Shakespeare’s Sister’.

4. Consider “Shakespeare’s Sister” as a feminist essay.

Tradition and Individual Talent

1. Discuss Eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry.

2. Evaluate the importance of historical sense as a theory of poetry.

3. How important is the relationship between tradition and individual talent? – Elucidate.  

Literature and Society

1. What does Leavis say about Romantic Movement and the Romantic age in his essay “Literature and Society”?

Or, What are Leavis’ objections Wordsworthian theory of poetry?

2. Critically comment on the title of the essay ‘Literature and Society.

3. Evaluate F.R. Leavis as a literary critic.

4. Discuss the distinctive features of F.R. Leavis’ prose style.

Short Questions

The American Scholar

1. What is the central theme of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essay “The American Scholar”?
2. What are the chief characteristics of the scholar’?
3. What does Emerson say about creative reading?
4. Can you provide the basis for ‘self-trust’ and individualism?

Civil Disobedience

• According to Thoreau, what is the flaw in majority rule?
• Consider Thoreau as an Emersonian non-conformist.
• How does the author criticize the selection of a candidate for Presidency through the Baltimore convention?
• What is Webster’s opinion about slavery as described by Thoreau?
• What does Thoreau mean by the statement, “The government is best which governs not at all”

Shakespeare’s Sister

1. What picture of women from the 15^th to 17^th century England does Virginia Woolf give in this essay?
2. Why did Shakespeare’s sister give up her life? / commit suicide?
3. Describe the life of Shakespeare’s sister as imagined by Virginia Woolf.
4. What was the position of women in the time of the Stuarts?

Tradition and Individual Talent

1. What is practical criticism?
2. Why does Eliot object against Wordsworth’s theory of emotion recollected in tranquility?
3. What is negative capability?
4. What does T.S. Eliot mean by the historical sense?

Literature and Society

1. How does F. R. evaluate S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent?”
2. What is Marxist criticism?
3. Write a short note on Marxism.
4. Write a short note on neo-classicism.