Suggestion of Prose

Suggestion of Prose: MA-2022

By Cloud School Pro

Part – C

The American Scholar

1. How does Emerson characterize his age and its relation to the past?
2. Give a brief account of the content and style of the essay “The American Scholar”.
3. Discuss how the American scholar is influenced by nature.
4. What do you understand by Emerson’s philosophy of one man divided into many?
5. What are the three main influences on the American Scholar and how do they work?

Civil Disobedience

1. Why does Thoreau think that conscience rather than majority should govern the state?
2. What is Thoreau’s idea about a peaceful revolution against an unfair government?
3. Write a note on Thoreau’s prose style as is evident in his essay Civil Disobedience.
4. Examine Thoreau’s comment on the legislators.
5. Evaluate the theme and style of Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience.

Shakespeare’s Sister

1. Comment on Judith’s committing suicide.
2. What according to Virginia Woolf are the barriers that women faced to become a writer?
3. What are the conditions that Virginia Woolf set for the promotion of creative genius.
4. Justify the significance of the title Shakespeare’s sister.
5. Consider Shakespeare’s Sister as a feminist essay.

Tradition and Individual Talent

1. Write an essay on Eliot’s criticism of Wordsworth’s poetic theory.

2. How important is the relationship between tradition and individual talent? Discuss
3. Evaluate the importance of historical sense as a theory of poetry.
4. Discuss Eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry.
5. Write an essay on Eliot’s classicism.

Literature and Society

1. What are Leavis’ objections/criticism on Romantic age/Wordsworth’s poetic theory?
2. Critical comment on the title of the essay literature and Society.
3. Discuss the features of Leavis’ prose style.

Part – B

The American Scholar

1. What is Emerson’s philosophy of One Man divided into many?
2. What are the duties of the American Scholar?
3. What is the central theme of Emerson’s essay The American Sholar?
4. Distinguish between a scholar and bookworm according to Emerson.
5. Can you provide the basis of the concept of self-trust and individualism which is a key for transcendentalist concepts?
6. How does the scholar benefit himself from nature?
7. What are the chief characteristics of the scholar?
8. What are the influences that the books should have on The American Scholar?
9. What does Emerson say about creative reading?

Civil Disobedience

1. How does the author criticize the selection of a candidate for Presidency through the Baltimore convention?
2. What description does Thoreau give of his roommate in his prison-cell?
3. What is Thoreau’s assessment of Webster as a thinker?
4. What is Webster’s opinion about slavery as described by Thoreau?
5. According to Thoreau when should the people of a country rebel against its government?
6. What are the tree ways Thoreau says a man can serve the state in Civil Disobedience?
7. According to Thoreau, what is the flaw in majority rule?
8. Why does Thoreau think that conscience, rather than the majority should govern the State?
9. Consider Thoreau as an Emersonian non-conformist.
10. What does Thoreau comment about Legislators?
11. What does Thoreau mean by the statement “That government is best which governs not at all”?
12. What does Thoreau say about paying taxes?
13. How does Thoreau weigh his imprisonment?
14. What is a peaceful revolution as defined by Thoreau?

Shakespeare’s Sister

1. How does the author compare the work of imagination to a spider’s web?
2. What picture of women of the 15^th to 17^th century England does Virginia Woolf give in this essay?
3. What method of getting a real picture of a woman instead of an ‘odd monster’ does Woolf suggest?
4. What part did a sense of chastity play in the life of a gifted woman in the 16^th century?
5. What does the author conjecture about the state of mind of Shakespeare?
6. What was the position of women in the time of the Stuarts?
7. What is generally the fate of a woman with beauty and creative urge?
8. What conditions does the author think the 19^th century England imposed on women?
9. Why did Shakespeare’s sister give up her life? / Commit suicide.
10. What is feminist movement? / Feminism.
11. Describe the life of Shakespeare’s sister as imagined by Virginia Woolf?

Tradition and Individual Talent

1. In how many senses is the word tradition used by the English people?
2. How can the individual poet or artist achieve his significance?
3. How does the poet meet his maturity?
4. What is Eliot’s conception of Structural Emotion? Define it.
5. How should the individual poet or artist be judged?
6. Why is a sense of tradition essential?
7. How can the sense of tradition be acquired?
8. What is criticism?
9. Why does Eliot object against Wordsworth’s theory of emotion recollected in tranquillity?
10. What is negative capability?
11. Briefly describe the depersonalisation theory.
12. What does TS Eliot mean by the historical sense?

Literature and Society

1. How does F R Leavis evaluate T S Eliot’s essay Tradition and the Individual Talent?
2. How does Leavis’s theory expounded in the essay Tradition and Society differ from the Marxist theory?
3. What were the shortcomings in the literary works of William Blake though he was a great genius?
4. What are Leavis’ comments on the works of William Blake?
5. How should the students of Politics and Sociology study literature and why?
6. What is Marxist criticism?
7. Why does Leavis avoid Marxist approach to literature in discussing literature and society?
8. What according to Leavis are the obvious differences between Marxist attitude and traditional sense?
9. What is positive tradition, according to Leavis?
10. How do the illiterate people reach a high level of culture, according to Leavis?
11. Write a short note on Marxism?
12. Write a short note on neo-classicism.
13. How does F R Leavis consider the Augustan Age?
14. What does Leavis say about neo-classicism in Literature and Society?