important to know and read them so that you can easily score highest
marks in MA part 1 exams held by Punjab University. We at TaleemWala.com
have arranged these M.A English Important questions notes for part 1
and literature students.
1. OEDIPUS REX BY SOPHOCLES
1. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be
When there’s no help in truth! I knew this well, But did not act on it! Else I should not have come.
(b) At a feast, a drunken man maundering his cups
Cries out that I am not my father’s son! I contained myself that night, though I felt anger
And a sinking heart. The next day I visited
My father and mother, and questioned them. They stormed, Calling it all the slanderous rant of a fool; And this relieved me.
(c) O holy majesty of heavenly powers!
May I never see that day! Never!
Rather let me vanish from the race of men
Than know the abomination destined me!
2. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Why should anyone in this world be afraid,
Since Fate rules us and nothing can be foreseen?
A man should live only for the present day.
(b) To have been the man they call his mother’s husband!
Oh accurst! O child of evil,
To have entered that wretched bed — The selfsame one! More primal sin itself, this fell to me.
(c) Ah dear friend
Are you faithful even yet, you alone ?
Are you still standing near me, will you stay here,
Patient, to care for the blind? The blind man!
Yet even blind I know who it is attends me,
By the voice’s tone — Though my new darkness hide the comforter.
3. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Do not counsel me any more. This punishment
That I have laid upon myself is just.
If I had eyes,
I do not know how I could bear the sight
Of my father, when I came to the house of Death,
Or my mother: for I have sinned against them both
So vilely that I could not make my peace
By strangling my own life.
(b) Let every man in mankind’s frailty
Consider his last day; and let none
Presume on his good fortune until he finds
Life, at his death, a memory without pain.
(c) Forth from the borders thrust me with all speed,
Set me within some vasty desert where
No mortal voice shall greet me any more.
4. Dramatic Irony in “Oedipus Rex”
5. Role of Fate and Freewill in “Oedipus Rex”
6. Role of Hubris in “Oedipus Rex”
7. Relationship Between Man and gods in “Oedipus Rex”
8. Oedipus Rex As a Tragic Hero
2. DR. FAUSTUS BY MARLOWE
9. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
(b) How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise will?
(c) Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I’d give them all for Mephistopheles.
10. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) The god thou serv’st is thine own appetite,
Wherein is fix’d the love of Beelzebub:
To him I’ll build an altar and a church,
And offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.
(b) Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
(c) Accursed Faustus, wretch, what hast thou done?
I do repent, and yet I do despair.
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast.
What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
11. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Oh, thou art fairer than evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter.
(b) O soul, be changed into little water drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne’er be found!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! Come not Lucifer!
I’ll burn my book! Ah-Mephistophillis.
(c) Ay, Faustus, now thou hast no hope of heaven;
Therefore despair; think only upon hell,
For that must be thy mansion, there to dwell.
12. “Dr. Faustus” As a Morality Play
13. “Dr. Faustus” As a Modern Tragedy
14. Renaissance Elements in “Dr. Faustus”
15. Significance of Last Speech in “Dr. Faustus”
16. Dr. Faustus As a Tragic Hero
3. OTHELLO BY SHAKESPEARE
17. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) To be suspected, framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the’ nose
As asses are.
(b) Now, by heaven,
My blood begins my safer guides to rule,
And passion, have my best judgment collied,
Assays to lead the way.
(c) I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapor of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses.
18. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
Full of crusadoes. And but my noble Moor
Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
As jealous creature are, it were enough
To put him to ill thinking.
(b) Work on, My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. — What, ho! My lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
(c) Oh, devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!
19. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Here, stand behind this bulk, straight will he come.
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.
Quick, quick! Fear nothing. I’ll be at thy elbow.
It makes us, or it mars us. Think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.
(b) And yet I fear you, for you’re fatal then
When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,
Since guiltiness I know not. But yet I feel fear.
(c) Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulfur,
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! —
20. “Othello” As a Domestic Tragedy
21. Theme of Jealously in “Othello”
22. Othello As a Tragic Hero
23. Character Sketch of Iago
24. Character Sketch of Desdemona
4. THE WINTER’S TALE BY SHAKESPEARE
25. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) No, in good earnest.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms!
(b) Should a villain say so,
The most replenish’d villain in the world,
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
Do but mistake.
(c) There’s some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable.
26. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence; in which three great ones suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.
(b) If it prove
She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false, If she be.
(c) Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.
27. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Thou dearest Perdita,
With these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not
The mirth o’ the feast. Or I’ll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father’s. For I cannot be
Mine own, nor anything to any, if
I be not thine.
(b) Thou old traitor,
I am sorry that by hanging thee I can
But shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece
Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know
The royal fool thou copest with, —
(c) Whilst I remember
Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
My blemishes in them, and so still think of
The wrong I did myself; which was so much,
The heirless it hath made my kingdom and
Destroy’d the sweet’st companion that e’er man
Bred his hopes out of.
28. “The Winter’s Tale” As a Tragic Comedy
29. Role of Divine Intervention in “The Winter’s Tale”
30. Pastoral Elements in “The Winter’s Tale”
31. Relationship Between Parents and Children in “The Winter’s Tale”
32. Leontes’ Jealousy in “The Winter’s Tale”
5. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST BY OSCAR WILDE
33. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.
(b) I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.
(c) Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town.
34. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) True. In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing. Mr. Worthing, what explanation can you offer to me for pretending to have a brother? Was it in order that you might have an opportunity of coming up to town to see me as often as possible?
(b) Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.
(c) I beg you pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question. I am Miss Cardew’s guardian, and she cannot marry without any consent until she comes to age. The consent I absolutely decline to give.
35. Explain the following extracts with reference to the context.
(a) It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful.
(b) That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
(c) Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
36. “Importance of Being Earnest” As a Social Satire
37. Major Themes in “The Importance of Being Earnest”
38. “The Importance of Being Earnest” As a Trivial Comedy for Serious People
39. Character Sketch of Algernon
40. Character Sketch of Miss Prism
So, that was all about MA Part 1 Punjab University English Important Question Notes for Drama. Read them and get highest marks.
