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Information about the national university of ireland, galway's semester ii examinations for the academic year 2008/2009, specifically for the en288 specialist studies course. The course is taught by professors a. Minnis, h. Mcdermott, j. Carlson, e. Tilley, a. Frazier, and s. Kavanagh. The exam consists of two sections: section a focuses on gothic literature, with a focus on the works of edgar allan poe, bram stoker's dracula, robert louis stevenson's the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde, sheridan lefanu's 'green tea' and 'carmilla', and henry james' the turn of the screw. Students are asked to discuss the works of two authors and how they examine the crumbling edges of victorian society. Section b focuses on literature of the american south, with a focus on the works of zora neale hurston and william faulkner's light in august and alice walker's meridian. Students are asked to analyze the relationship between the individual, history, and the past in these texts.
Typology: Exams
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Section A: Gothic Literature (Dr Tilley)
1. Identify the speaker and explain the significance of three of the following four quotations:
a) “’This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It won’t let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers of man avail me nothing!’”
b) “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.”
c) “They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion. ‘What does he matter now, my own?— what will he ever matter? I have you,’ I launched at the beast, ‘but he has lost you for ever!’ Then for the demonstration of my work, ‘There, there!’ I said to Miles.”
d) “He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage, so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault.”
2. Answer one of the following questions. The texts to be used for this section are: Poe (“Ligeia,” “William Wilson,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,”), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Dracula , Sheridan LeFanu (“Green Tea,” “Carmilla”), The Turn of the Screw. Please note that you must discuss the work of TWO authors in your answers.
a) The literary critic T.J. Lustig says that many of the works we’ve studied “examine the crumbling edges of the Victorian edifice, the selves which lie behind its assumptions of integrity, the violence and the discontent which both created and terrified its civilization.” Discuss, with specific reference to the work of two authors from the list above.
b) How does the presentation of the monstrous in gothic novels change over the century? Discuss, with reference to the work of two authors from the list above.
Section B: Literature of the American South (Dr Carlson)
1. Identify and give the significance of three of the following four quotations from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
a) “She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
Section A: John Donne and Samuel Johnson (Prof Frazier) There are two parts to this section of the examination: 25 multiple choice questions; and a short essay.
Multiple choice questions (25 minutes)
If they be two, they are two so [they=our souls] As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the center sit, Yet the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.
there is a) personification; b) a pair of quatrains of a sonnet; c) a conceit, d) an epigram.
Short Essay (35 minutes). In his essay on Cowley, Samuel Johnson makes the following criticism of metaphysical poets like Donne: “it will be readily inferred, that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never enquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done.” In a reasoned response to this criticism, make close reference to the poems of John Donne, and, if you like, those of Shakespeare. It is acceptable also to draw upon the samples of Donne’s poetry in the multiple-choice questions above.
Section B: Shakespeare (Mr Kavanagh) Answer any one question.
1. Could the relationship of Shakespeare’s early plays to his later plays be described as a relationship of simplicity to complexity? Discuss in relation to two comedies OR two ‘Roman plays’ on the course.
2. Discuss the construction of identity in The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night.
3. Discuss the representation of violence in at least two plays on the course.
4. Discuss the representation of the parent-child relationship in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus.
5. Explore any of the following themes in relation to at least two plays on the course: (a) the racial outsider (b) separation and reunion (c) childhood
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