PREVIOUS QUESTIONS
16TH AND 17TH CENTURY POETRY
2012
English
Subject Code: 1173
16th and 17th century poetry
Time: 4 Hours Full Marks : 80
Part-A
1. Answer any ten of the following questions 1 × 10 = 10
(a) Why is the Knight in “The Faerie Queene” called the Red Cross Knight?
Ans: The Knight is called "The Red Cross Knight" because a blood-red cross was inscribed both on the breastplate of his armour and on his shield.
(b) What is ‘Carpe Diem Theme?
Ans: ‘Carpe Diem Theme’ is the theory based on the Epicurean philosophy of enjoying the present without bothering about the future.
(c) What do you mean by the term ‘canonization’?
Ans: ‘Canonization’ means the act of declaring a dead person to be a saint by a Christian church. Upon this declaration the person is included in the "canon", or list, of recognized saints.
(d) What do you understand by the phrase Three-Personed God’?
Ans: 'Three-Person’d God' refers to the Christian concept of Trinity which consists of God, Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Ghost.
(e) How does the poet refute the pride of death?
Ans: The poet refutes the pride of Death by saying that death in nothing but a short sleep. After death man wakes up in eternity.
(f)What does the ‘collar’ symbolise?
Ans: ‘The Collar' symbolizes discipline in divinity. It also symbolizes anything that keeps a man under self-control and that curtails his freedom.
(g) What is meant by ‘Man’s first disobedience"?
Ans: 'Man's first disobedience’ is the act of eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
(h) What is an allegory?
Ans: An allegory is a story with several layers of meaning: behind the literal or surface meaning lie one or more secondary meanings of varying degrees.
(i) Who is Beelzebub?
Ans: In Paradise Lost, Beelzebub is the second in command to Satan in the hierarchy of fallen angels.
(j) What does Una stand for?
Ans: Lady Una stands for truth, goodness and wisdom.
(k) Who is Archimago?
Ans: Archimago is a sorcerer in “The Faerie Queene” by Spenser.
(l) What does the phrase “Time’s winged chariot” signify?
Ans: “Time’s winged chariot” signifies the rapid passing of time or the rapid increase of age along with the decrease in sexual ability.
Part-B
Answer any five of the following questions: 4 × 5 = 20
2. Write a short note on Donne’s use of conceits in his love poems.
3. What spiritual conflict does Herbert reveal in the poem W Collar?
4. Write a short note on Milton’s use of epic similes in Paradise Lost.
5. Explain the following:-
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
6. How does Andrew Marvell propose to his beloved to enjoy life in To His Coy Mistress?
7. How does Lady Una inspire the Red Cross Knight?
8. Write a short note on Gloriana.
9. Locate and explain:-
She’s all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.
Part-C
Answer any five questions: 10 × 5 = 50
10. “Red Cross Knight’s encounter with Monster Error epitomizes the whole of Book-I of The Faerie Queene”. Discuss.
11. Write how Donne’s treatment of love in his poems is metaphysical.
12. Comment on Herbert’s attitude towards God and religion as expressed in his poems.
13. Comment on Marvell’s preoccupations with love, life, .time and fate in the poems that you have read.
14. In what sense is Milton the child of the Renaissance and the Reformation?
15. Give, after Milton’s Paradise Lost Book-I a description of Hell.
16. Describe the moral and spiritual allegory in Book-1, Canto-I of The Faerie Queene.
17. Critically analyse the poem “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”.
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