TOPICS FOR THE FINAL EXAMINATION

Please note that I have reduced the number of exam subjects and rephrased some of them to be more in keeping with topics addressed by the seminars and the lectures.  

The mandatory bibliography has also been reduced accordingly (please consult the post).

1.            Modernism in 20th century English literature.

2.            Post-modernism in 20th century English literature.

3.            Reshaped myths in 20th century English literature.

4.            Non-sense and absurd literature in Britain.

5.            Modern man’s identity problematized and dissolved.

6.            The world as labyrinth in 20th century British literature.

7.            The stream of consciousness technique.

8.            Parody in 20th century British literature.

9.            Describe Joyce’s fictional idiom (language/style/approach).

10.        Rewriting myth in Ulysses.

11.        Joyce’s narrative technique.

12.        Symbolism in Woolf’s fiction.

13.        Woolf’s narrative technique.

14.        The monologic and the dialogic in Woolf’s fiction.

15.        What is “heart of darkness” a metaphor of?.

16.        (Post)colonialist markers in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

17.        The journey into the psyche in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

18.        Types of love in Lawrence’s fiction.

19.        Self and ego in Lawrence’s fiction.

20.        The use of symbol and archetype in Lawrence’s fiction.

21.        The power of language in Orwell’s 1984.

22.        Strategies for dehumanization in Orwell’s 1984.

23.        Memory and false consciousness in Orwell’s 1984.

24.        The mechanics of totalitarianism (radical ideology) in Orwell’s 1984.

25.        Fowles’ narrative technique.

26.        The problem of identity in Fowles’ fiction.

27.        The construction of identity in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

28.        Postmodernist features in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

29.        Describe Yeats’ poetic idiom.

30.        The mythopoeic element in Yeats’ poetry.

31.        Mystical experience in Yeats’ poetry.

32.        Gendered representation in W.B. Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan”.

33.        The end of a cycle in W.B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”.

34.        Discuss the connection between W.B. Yeats’s poems “The Second Coming” and “Leda and theSwan”.

35.        Describe Eliot’s poetic idiom (language/style/approach) in “The Waste Land”.

36.        Irony and tension in T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

37.        Repression and lack of communication in T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

38.        The formation of the self in T.S.Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

39.        Eliot’s metaphysics in “The Four Quartets”.

40.        Loss, impairment, inadequacy in Eliot’s poetry.

41.        The sense behind St. Smith’s non-sense verse.

42.        Describe T. Hughes’ poetic idiom (language/style/approach).

43.        T. Hughes’ approach to myth.

44.        The function and philosophy of the secondary in Stoppard’s R & G Are Dead.

45.        What are Beckett’s characters waiting for?

46.        Beckett’s poetic of absence.

47.        Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as a tragicomedy.

48.        Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as ‘literature of silence’.