1919

ENGLISH 2-LITERATURE

Tuesday, June 17

9 a.m. Two hours

Each of the four answers required will count one-fourth of the whole. Divide your time, therefore, about evenly among the four answers, reserving ten minutes for careful revision.

PART 1-BOOKS FOR STUDY

The books for study are arranged in four groups: drama, poetry, oratory, essays. Select three topics, no two from the same group, and answer all the questions relating to each of these three topics.

GROUP 1-DRAMA

(Topic 1) Shakespeare's Macbeth
a) What motives led Macbeth to adopt his evil course, and what motives

restrained him ?
6) What outward influences worked with or against these inner motives?

(Topic 2) Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
a) By what arguments did Cassius bring Brutus into the conspiracy against

Caesar?
b) Do you praise Brutus as a patriot and condemn him as a friend, or honor

him as both patriot and friend Give reasons for your answer.

(Topic 3) Shakespeare's Hamlet
a) Enumerate the successive appearances of the ghost, telling what happened

on each occasion.
b) After hearing the ghost's story of the murder, why does not Hamlet at

once avenge his father ? c) What finally convinces Hamlet of the guilt of the king ?

GROUP II-POETRY

(Topic 1) Milton's Poems

Hence, loathèd Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!

L'Allegro.

Hence, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred!

How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Il Penseroso.

a) Show how Milton achieves the contrast in these two passages by choice of

images and words. b) Refer to at least three other passages in the two poems which are as

definitely parallel as these.

(Topic 2) Tennyson's Idylls of the King

a) Give a brief account of the sword Excalibur: how Arthur came into pos

session of it, and what final disposition was made of it. b) Point out the effect in the following passage of the choice of words and figures.

And there, that day when the great light of heaven
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year,
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.

The Passing of Arthur. (Topic 3) Palgrave's Golden Treasury

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond

Mount, daring warbler!—that love-prompted strain-
'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond-

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood:

A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood

Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam,
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.

-WORDSWORTH, To a Skylark.

(THIS EXAMINATION IS CONTINUED ON PAGE 3)

a) Why is To a Skylark correctly classed as a lyric? How does it differ in

form from a sonnet ? b) If the poem contains a prominent idea, express it as definitely as you can

in a sentence or two. c) In what respects is the poem characteristic of Wordsworth rather than of Shelley ?

GROUP III-ORATORY (Topic 1) Burke's Speech on Conciliation a) State briefly Burke's argument to prove that Parliament ought to concede

to the American colonies. b) What in brief is the concession which Burke proposes? c) How does the British Empire today illustrate the wisdom of Burke's

policy? (Topic 2) Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker Hill

Oration a) Discuss whether in your opinion we are following, in our present foreign

policy, the advice of Washington given in his Farewell Address. 6) What three important benefits to the society of nations does Webster note

in the fifty years following the Battle of Bunker Hill ? c) To which of these benefits had America contributed most, and to what

future responsibility did that contribution bind her ? (Topic 3) Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at Cooper

Union
7) In concluding his second speech on copyright Macaulay says: “I have

shown that the protection which he (Viscount Mahon] proposes to give
to letters is unequal, and unequal in the worst way. I have shown that
his plan is to give protection to books in inverse proportion to their

merit.” Tell briefly how Macaulay had shown these things.
6) What is the issue which Lincoln discusses in his speech at Cooper Union?

State at least two of the proofs by which Lincoln upholds his position
in that issue.

GROUP IV-ESSAYS
(Topic 1) Macaulay's Life of Johnson
Write on one of the following topics: (a) Handicaps which make Johnson's

success remarkable. (b) Macaulay's skill as a writer. (Topic 2) Carlyle's Essay on Burns Write on one of the following topics: (a) Burns in Edinburgh. (6) Carlyle

as a biographer. (Topic 3) Emerson's Essay on Manners a) Express as clearly as you can three or four of the outstanding ideas in

Emerson's essay. b) What have you found to like and what to dislike in Emerson's style ?

(THIS EXAMINATION IS CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)

PART II-BOOKS FOR READING

Answer any one of the following questions:

1. What interest do you find in the Old Testament or the ancient Greek narratives as compared with the modern fiction that you have read? Answer in one or two well-constructed paragraphs, referring to specific narratives.

2. What interest and value do you find in essays or biographies? Defend or attack one of these kinds of writing in one or more well-constructed paragraphs, referring to essays or biographies not already mentioned in this paper.

3. What poets and what poems have you found most pleasure and profit in reading? Answer in one or more well-developed paragraphs, giving full reasons for your answer and including quotations if possible.

4. Discuss one or more novels in which character rather than incident is the chief interest.

5. Write an appreciation of some modern author whose work you have read in school.

1920

ENGLISH 2-LITERATURE

Tuesday, June 22

9 a.m. Two hours

This is the ordinary or restricted examination for candidates who have already passed English 1.

Each of the four answers required will count one-fourth of the whole. Divide your time, therefore, about evenly among the four answers, reserving ten minutes for careful revision.

PART 1-BOOKS FOR STUDY

The books for study are arranged in four groups: drama, poetry, oratory, essays. Select three topics, no two from the same group, and answer all the questions relating to each of these three topics.

(Topic 1) Shakespeare's Macbeth

Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?
a) Give the occasion of the above speech, and explain the italicized words

and phrases.
6) Which seems to you to play the greatest part in the downfall of Macbeth,

his ambition, his fear, or his imagination? Give full reasons for your
answer.

(Topic 2) Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
When we consider Caesar's spirit and character, and Antony's force of

personality and final success, what reason can we find for the popular
acceptance of Brutus, rather than of Caesar or Antony, as the hero of
Julius Caesar ?

(Topic 3) Shakespeare's Hamlet

How all occasions do inform against me
And spur my dull revenge! . .

Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake.

(THIS EXAMINATION IS CONTINUED ON PAGE 2)