EXAMINATION FOR ENTRANCE
SCHOLARSHIPS
AND EXHIBITIONS
FEBRUARY 2014
ENGLISH LITERATURE
Time Allowed – 2 hours
Answer two questions: question 1 from Section A and 1 question from Section B. Candidates are
advised to think carefully and to write clearly. You may not bring texts into the Examination.
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Section A
1. Compare and contrast the two following poems, paying particular attention to the
similarities and differences in the poets’ thoughts about the women they are writing
about, the use of imagery, and the poets’ choices of language and form.
To My Mother
Most near, most dear, most loved and most far,
Under the window where I often found her
Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,
Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand,
Irresistible as Rabelais, but most tender for
The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her She is a procession no one can follow after
But be like a little dog following a brass band.
She will not glance up at the bomber, or condescend
To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar,
But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain
Whom only faith can move, and so I send
O all my faith, and all my love to tell her
That she will move from mourning into morning.
George Barker (1942)
Sonnet 130
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun 1;
If hairs be wires 2, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damask’d 3, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks 4:
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go 5, My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare 6
As any she belied with false compare 7.
William Shakespeare (1609)
Please turn over
1
Dull coloured
2
wires: (gold) wires. Ornamental head-dresses of the period often contained gold wires, so that it was quite
normal to compare lush blonde hair with the gold wires in the head-dress above. Blonde was fashionable then,
as now. The mistress, however, has black and not blonde hair.
3
damasked: mingled (red and white). Damask roses were a sweet-smelling variety popular at the time.
4
reeks: is exhaled. The word was not used then with our heavily negative sense, but more neutrally.
5
go: walk. You were supposed to be able to recognize a goddess by the way she walked.
6
rare: admirable, extraordinary.
7
She: woman. Belied: misrepresented. Compare: comparison.
Section B
Answer one of the following questions illustrating your answers with close reference to two
texts (of any genre) of your choice.
1. Argue the academic case for the inclusion of any ONE or TWO texts of your choice
on an English Literature degree course.
2. Discuss the way in which any TWO texts address tensions arising from gender, racial
OR class differences.
3. Discuss how any TWO texts subvert reader expectations.
4. How much, and why, does originality in literature matter? Discuss in relation to ONE
or TWO texts of your choice.
5. Discuss the treatment of ONE of the following themes with close reference to any
TWO texts:
a. History
b. Deception
c. Trauma
d. Ambition