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(Topic 1) Burke on Conciliation

a) How does Burke meet the argument that England has a legal right to tax the Colonies ?

b) What may we learn from Burke's Speech as to the best method of governing remote territories? Give an example which he cites.

c) Explain what Burke means when he characterizes Lord North's project as "ransom by auction."

(Topic 2) Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration.

(Both a and b must be answered.)

a) What does Washington say regarding the danger to national unity in the geographical organization of parties?

b) What does Webster say with reference to the results of revolution in South America?

(Topic 3) Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at Cooper Union.

(a, b, and c must be answered.)

a) What, according to Macaulay, are the only two ways in which an author can be remunerated for his literary labor?

b) What is the plan which Macaulay proposes in his Second Speech on Copyright, and how does he support it by citing the cases of Madame d'Arblay and Miss Austen?

c) How did Lincoln meet the Southern argument that the Republican party was sectional ?

Group IV-Essays

(Topic 1) Macaulay's Life of Johnson.

a) What, according to Macaulay, was Johnson's chief weakness as a lexicographer?

b) In what respects did Macaulay think Johnson ill-qualified to bring out an edition of Shakespeare?

c) After your reading of this essay, what should you say of Macaulay as a critic of men and of literature?

(Topic 2) Carlyle's Essay on Burns.

a) "The blame for Burns's failure lay chiefly not with the world." Briefly discuss this assertion of Carlyle's.

b) What was Burns's relation to the literature of his time?

(SEE NEXT PAGE)

(Topic 3) Emerson's Essay on Manners.

(Answer a, and either b or c).

a) In what sense does Emerson use the word "aristocracy”?

b) What relation does Emerson discern between the "class of power" and the "exclusive and polished circles"?

c) Interpret carefully the following quotation:

"I could better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws than with a sloven and unpresentable person."

PART II-BOOKS FOR READING

(The essay called for under this section must be based on one of the ten books presented by you to meet the requirement under English Literature A.)

Write a carefully planned theme of four or five hundred words on one (and only one) of the following topics

1. A vivid picture of a scene or a character.

2. The meeting of the hero and the villain. 3. English village life.

4. My favorite essay.

5. The opening scene of the play.

6. An episode from the Bible or from the classics.

Tuesday, June 18

ENGLISH 2-LITERATURE

9 a.m. Two hours

Allow about an hour and thirty minutes for Part I—Books for Study, and twenty minutes for Part II-Books for Reading. Each answer will count one-fifth of the total. Reserve ten minutes for careful revision.

PART I-BOOKS FOR STUDY

From each of the following groups choose one topic only, and answer all the questions relating to that topic, except as specified in the question on Burke.

Group I-Drama

(Topic 1) Shakespeare's Macbeth

Answer briefly but clearly the following questions:

a) Why did Macbeth kill the grooms of Duncan's bedchamber?

b) Why did he particularly desire the death of Banquo?

c) Why did he wish the death of Fleance?

d) Why did he order the death of all of Macduff's household?

(Topic 2) Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Prove by brief reference to the play the following assertions:

a) Brutus was an honorable man.

b) Brutus was an unreasonable man, too strongly set in his convictions to be moved.

c) Brutus was a tender man.

d) Brutus was an idealist.

(Topic 3) Shakespeare's Hamlet

a) What do the chief characters in the play think of Hamlet's madness, and to what causes do they attribute it?

b) What is your view of his madness? Give reasons.

c) What does it enable him to do in the play?

d) How long does he continue to appear mad?

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The following passages are from Milton's Paradise Lost (published in 1667). What points of comparison and contrast do you detect between this selection and L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, with regard to both the writer's mastery of verse and his outlook upon life?

[Opening lines of Book IX]

No more of talk where God or Angel Guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar used
To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change
Those notes to tragic-foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal, on the part of man, revolt

And disobedience; on the part of Heaven,

Now alienated, distance and distaste,

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Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,

That brought into this World a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,
Death's harbinger.1

Book I. Satan reviews in Hell the ranks of his fallen angels,
overcome in their revolt against God.]

Darkened so, yet shone

Above them all the Archangel: but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride
Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion, to behold
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
(Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned
For ever now to have their lot in pain-
Millions of spirits for his fault amerced❜
Of Heaven, and from eternal splendors flung
For his revolt-yet faithful how they stood,
Their glory withered; as when Heaven's fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,
With singèd top their stately growth, though bare,
Stands on the blasted heath.

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(Topic 2) Tennyson's Idylls of the King

What knights engage in the quest of the Grail, and what is the degree of success of each?

(Topic 3) Palgrave's Golden Treasury

a) What resemblances do you find between "The Reaper" and "To the Highland Girl of Inversneyde"? Who wrote these two poems ?

b) Name four odes you have studied in Book IV of The Golden Treasury. Give the author of each.

Group III-Oratory

(Topic 1) Burke on Conciliation

Answer either a) or b).

a) Name at least five definite objections which Burke raised to the project of Lord North. Discuss any one of these.

b) "Sir, these considerations have great weight with me, when I find things so circumstanced that I see the same party at once a civil litigant against me in point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as a criminal judge on acts of his, whose moral quality is to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation."

1. To what considerations does Burke refer?

2. Whom does he mean by the "civil litigant" and "the culprit"?
3. In what sense does he "sit as a criminal judge”?

(SEE NEXT PAGE)

(Topic 2) Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration.

a) Why was Washington opposed to indulging antipathies against and strong attachments for other nations?

b) What does Webster say with regard to the attitude of Salem when the port of Boston was closed?

(Topic 3) Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at Cooper Union.

a) What, according to Macaulay, would be the result if Parliament refused to pass the bill against which he was contending in his First Speech on Copyright (1841)?

b) In what connection does Lincoln in the Cooper Union Speech refer to the Louisiana Purchase?

Group IV-Essays

(Topic 1) Macaulay's Life of Johnson

Mention three literary qualities of Johnson and three of Macaulay, as shown by Macaulay's Life of Johnson, and comment in detail, and by reference to the work, on any one of these six qualities.

(Topic 2) Carlyle's Essay on Burns

a) Carlyle says that Burns's wide popularity seems to imply some rare excellence in his work. What is the excellence referred to?

b) "Of the verses which Indignation makes, Burns also has given us some specimens." What are some of the specimens mentioned by Carlyle? c) "Properly speaking there is but one era in the life of Burns." What, according to Carlyle, was this era ?

(Topic 3) Emerson's Essays on Manners

a) What good thing does Emerson find to say about fashion, and how does he expound his idea?

b) What besides "personal force" and "unerring taste" does society demand in its patrician class? Illustrate the point by telling the story of Fox and the tradesman.

PART II-BOOKS FOR READING

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."-BACON, Of Studies.

Select six books from the ten that you have read from the A list ("books for reading"), and state with regard to each whether you think it should be "tasted," "swallowed," or "chewed and digested." Give briefly your reason in each case.

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