civil services mains 2009
ENGLISH
Paper-II
Literature I
D-DTN-J-FOB
l Time Allowed · Three Hours I I Maximum Marks · 300 I
INSTRUCTIONS
Candidates should atteinpt Question Nos. 1 and 5
which are co:tnpulsory, and any THREE oC the
re:tnaining questions, selecting at least
ONE question Crom each Section.
The number oC :tnarks carried by each question is
indicated at the end oC the question.
Answ-ers must be written in English ..
Section-A
1. Write short notes on any
following
three of the
20x3=60
Leda's violation as a transformation into
a wider human tragedy in Leda and the
Si»an
Journey of the Magi as a literal epiphany
that disturbs or disorients aged
eyewitnesses
September 1939 as a poem that fails
due to its 'incurable dishonesty'_
The England of false cheer and drab
recreation as portrayed in Larkin's
Afternoons
/55 P.T.O.
2. What tense elements in Indian .writing in
English contributed to the renowned critical
dictum that 'the Empire Writes 60
3. How does Beckett achieve his artistic goals
1n his Waiting for Godot by the use of
minimalism and reductionism? 60
4. How does A. K. Ramanujan show that Indian
cultural traditions are indissolubly plural,
and often conflicting? Examine at least two of
5.
his poems at some length. 60
Section-B
Read the following passage and
questions that follow
answer the
12x5=60
For one kind of theorist, poems are just
meaningless black marks .on a page, and it is
the reader who constructs them into sense.
This is true in one sense and false in
another. We may note first of all that to
speak of 'meaningless black marks' already
involves us in meanings. It is notoriously
hard to get back behind meaning altogether,
for much the same reason as it is impossible
to imagine ourselves dead. We may also note
that to regard words as black marks is an
abstraction from what we actually see on a
page. And this is an operation which requires
a good deal of interpretative labour. Every
now and then, we see a row of black marks
and then realise that what we are seeing
D-DTN-J-FOB/ 55 2
is words, just as every now and then we see a
large grey patch and then we realise that we
are looking at an elephant. Most of the time,
however, we see words and elephants, not
black marks and grey patches. Someone who
keeps seeing grey patches where he ought to
be seeing elephants should pay a visit either
to his optician or his psychiatrist.
It is true, even so, that all we literally have
are words on a page. Reading these words as
a poem means restoring to them something
of their lost material body. It involves
grasping them as tonal, rhythmical, metrical,
emotional, intentional, expressive of
meaning, and so o.n. In a face-to-face
dialogue, the material body of language is as
solidly present as its meanings are, and this
acts as control on interpretation. We know
that the tone is despairing because the other
person is clutching a sodden handkerchief
and tottering on a very high window ledge. Or
we can ask a speaker whether he is being
sarcastic, and adjust our understanding of
his words accordingly. Or we know that she
does not intend "Let us put continents
between us!" metaphorically because she is
handing us our air ticket to Sydney as she
speaks. Poetry is language which comes
without these contextual clues, and which
therefore has to be reconstructed by the
reader in the light of a context which will
make sense of it. And such contexts are in
embarrassingly plentiful supply. Yet they are
not just arbitrary either: on the contrary,
D-DTN-J-FOB/ 55 3 I P.T.O.
they are shaped in turn by the cultural
contexts by which the reader makes sense of
the world in general.
How do 'meaningless black marks'
already involve us in meanings?
What do the two metaphors of row of
black marks' and large grey patch'
achieve in juxtaposition?
What does reading a poem involve?
What advantage does a face-to-face
dialogue have over a printed poem?
"And such contexts
em.barrassingly plentiful
Explain the italicised phrase.
are in
supply."
6. Consider the view that Conrad proves
through his Lord Jim. that imperialism is
expounded as a variety of brutish idealism
and that colonialism alienates the native and
the settler alike. 60
7. Consider Clarissa as a foil to Septimus. Does
the narrator of Mrs. Dalloway take sides? 60
8. Would it be appropriate to comment that the
real protagonist of Kanthapura i s India, the
idea, the metaphysic India that Moorthy
finally awakens to? 60

D-DTN-J-FOB/55 4 JS--600