English Literature Notes

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Well, after completing the graduation Master degree in English Literature in a good university is the most popular degree and career option. And Banaras Hindu University is one of the most renowned universities in India. So here are the BHU MA English entrance exam question papers with answer from 2010 to 2017 in pdf form. Question papers of the previous year will help you to crack the entrance exam easily. Almost 50% of the questions come from the previous year papers. Practicing through the BHU sample papers will make the candidate get in tune with the structure and the marking scheme of the question papers. Thus aspirants will get to prioritize certain topics which are very important for the entrance exam.

However, apart from these question papers you need a full coverage of the History of English literature starting from the Old English to the Post Modern period. Read the texts in your syllabus in its historical context . You should have a basic knowledge of the socio-cultural background, major literary works and the literary movements of the particular ages. The Indian and American literature, literary theories and criticisms are also important.

These BHU MA English entrance exam question papers with answers will help you to understand the syllabus. All you have to do is to click on the download button. Several important points have also been discussed on the below of the question papers and some of the names of the authors are written beside the particular work.

BHU PET will be conducted by the Banaras Hindu University in online mode. This year it will be held from August 16 to 31.

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William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English artist, dramatist, and and actor broadly viewed as the best author in the English literature and the world’s most noteworthy dramatist. He is regularly called England’s national artist and the “Bard of Avon” (or basically “the Bard”). Here are some interesting Shakespeare facts.

1. Shakespeare wrote a curse for his grave, challenging anybody to move his body from that last resting place. His inscription was:
   “Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
   To dig the dust enclosed here:
   Blest be the man that spares these stones,
   And curst be he that moves my bones.
2. In 1592 he abruptly turned up in London as an actor and writer. Be that as it may, poor William didn’t have it simple – his envious adversaries, known as the ‘University Wits’, criticized and ridiculed his work. One author, named Robert Greene, alluded to him as ‘an upstart crow’!
3. There are the individuals who question whether William Shakespeare was really the creator of the plays or credited to him. Different contenders incorporate the ‘Oxford school’ – recommending Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a superior contender.
4. Shakespeare used to wear a gold loop stud in his left ear – an imaginative, bohemian look in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. This style is prove in the Chandos representation, one of the most popular delineations of Shakespeare.
5. Shakespeare wedded Anne  Hathaway when he was 18. She was 26 and three months pregnant with Shakespeare’s youngster when they wedded. Their first youngster Susanna was born six months after their marriage.
6. There are more than 80 varieties recorded for the spelling of Shakespeare’s name. In the couple of signatures that have survived, “Willm Shaksp,” “William Shakespe,” “Wm Shakspe,” “William Shakspere,” “Willm Shakspere,” and “William Shakspeare”. There are no records of him consistently having spelt it “William Shakespeare”, as we know him today.
7. By 1592, Shakespeare was accepting his first artistic analysis with dramatist Robert Greene, condemning Shakespeare for being a ‘jack of all trades’– an inferior tinkerer with the work of others.
8. Shakespeare’s parents were John and Mary Shakespeare (nee Arden). John came to Stratford from Snitterfield before 1532 as an untrained glover and a shoemaker of leathers. He flourished and started to bargain in farm items and fleece before being chosen for a civic position.
9. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children together – a child, Hamnet, in 1596, and two girls, Susanna and Judith. His only one granddaughter Elizabeth – little girl of Susanna – passed on childless in 1670. Shakespeare in this manner has no descendants.
10. Bardolatry’ was a term begat by George Bernard Shaw to outline the reverence held by numerous Victorians for anything Shakespeare.

Here is one extra for you.

Not many individuals understand that apart from composing his numerous plays and  sonnets, Shakespeare was likewise an actor who performed his very own considerable lot plays just as those of other playwrights. There is proof that he played the ghost in Hamlet and Adam in As You Like It.

Amazing Shakespeare Factshttps://englishliteraturenotes.co.in/10-shakespeare-facts-you-never-knew/

Top Shakespeare Factshttps://englishliteraturenotes.co.in/10-shakespeare-facts-you-never-knew/

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English is a strange language, isn’t it? It borrows words from many sources. Here are some interesting facts about English

1. The expression “long time no see” is accepted to be a strict interpretation of a Native American or Chinese expression as it isn’t linguistically right.

2. English is originated from what is presently called north west Germany and the Netherlands.

3. “Go!” is the shortest syntactically right sentence in English.

4. There are seven different ways to spell the sound ‘ee’ in English. This sentence contains every one of them: ‘He beleived Caesar could see people seizing the seas’

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Autobiography as a genre is a representation of the self. It is an extremely powerful genre through which one can depict the world of his own. In case of Dalit literature, the emergence of Dalit autobiography gives the Dalit writers a platform to portray the true world of the people who have historically been tortured, exploited, marginalized, and humiliated by the upper caste. It delineates how society remains unjust to them from times immemorial and stands as a strategy for survival of the Dalits to challenge marginality, oppression, and social exclusion. Manohar Mouli Biswas, a Bengali Dalit activist and writer renders his sufferings as a Dalit in his autobiography ‘Surviving in My World’. He originally wrote and published it as ‘ Amar Bhubane Ami Benche Thaki’ in Bengali in 2013. Later it was translated and edited into English by Angana Dutta and Jaydeep Sarangi as ‘Surviving in My World: Growing Up Dalit in Bengal’ in 2015. He portrays how he and his community (namasudra) was subjected to exploitation and marginalization in the society. He also criticizes how caste discrimination is still prevalent in today’s India and stand as a resistance.

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In Shakespeare’s King Lear animal imagery reaches its most complete development. Shakespeare is digging a little deeper here than in any other play as to the philosophy of the theme. In Lear a greater number of important tragic characters sink below the level of beasts than in any other play, and Shakespeare is conscious of the beast idea as they degenerate.

In the very beginning of the play the beastly power and authority of Lear as a king is expressed through his words, “come not between the dragon and his wrath”. Shakespeare uses various tools to build up Goneril and Regan’s character, but animal imagery and extended metaphors are the most effective in portraying Goneril and Regan’s consuming greed for power. The Fool is the first to use animal imagery to describe these two savage sisters. “For you know, nuncle, the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, that it had its head bit off by it young. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling”. This comparison of Goneril to a cuckoo suggests that like the hedge-sparrow who had to rear the young cuckoo chick, Lear has brought up Goneril and she is the ungrateful cuckoo killing the one that raised her. This creates a strong visual image in our minds of a monstrous inhuman woman, who turns on her Own parent to prey on him Shakespeare continues to build on this characterisation of Goneril, likening her to a sea- monster “Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, more hideous, when thou showst thee in a child than the sea-monster.” This brings to mind connotations of a stealthy watery Loch Ness monster, re- enforcing Goneril’s “marble” heart and unfeeling nature. Lear goes on to compare her to other predatory animals, saying “Detested kite, thou liest!” and declaring a final curse on her, that she might have a childless womb, he says “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” This quick succession of vivid animal images creates layer upon layer of a wild savage collage, portraying Goneril as a greedy ruthless woman.

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Human beings are curious by nature. Hence we always look for information that will benefit us or inspire us in some way and a solid fact never goes unappreciated. So here we have 15 amazing facts about English language.

1. Earth is the only planet in our solar system that’s not named after a god. All other planets are named after the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.

2. The word ‘ALPHABET’ has come from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, bēta. Infact there are many loan words taken from the Greek.

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