West Bengal Civil Service
Examination-2005
(Optional Papers)
English Paper -II
Time Allowed : 3 Hours Full Marks : 100
If the question attempted are in excess of the prescribed number, only the questions attempted first up to the prescribed number shall be valued and the remaining ones ignored.
All questions carry equal marks.
1. Give the substance of the following poem add a critical note :
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high :
Where knowledge is free :
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls :
Where words come out from the depth of truth :
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection :
Where the clear stream of season has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit :
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action-
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
2. Write an essay on any one of the following :
(a) Shelley as a Lyric-Poet.
(b) Nature in William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy.
(c) The Pre-Raphaelite Poetry.
3. Answer any one of the following :
(a) Select any one of Lamb's essays and examine the blend of humour and pathos.
(b) Assess Robert Browning as a writer of Dramatic Monologue with reference to at least two of his poems.
(c) Write a note on the revival of the Comedy of Manners during the twentieth century and evaluate Oscar Wilde as one of the prominent comedy writers of the class:
4. Answer any one of the following :
(a) Give your estimate of Walter Horatio Pater (1839-1894) as a critic of the Voctorian Age.
(b) Write a critical note on any one of the following :
(i) The Mayor of Casterbridge
(ii) Withering Heights
(iii) Justice
(iv) Mrs. Warren's Profession.
(c) Write a note on Thackeray as a novelist, expatiating on the various aspects of his art.
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