OLLSCOIL NA hÉIREANN, GAILLIMH
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, GALWAY
AUTUMN EXAMINATIONS, 2008/2009
THIRD ARTS EXAMINATION
EN383: LITERATURE & CULTURE: ROMANTICISM
Professor A. Minnis
Professor H. McDermott
Dr. M. O Cinneide
Dr S. Kavanagh
TIME ALLOWED: THREE HOURS
ANSWER TWO QUESTIONS
AVOID DUPLICATION OF MATERIAL
1. “[The] cornerstone [of Romanticism] was the imagination” (Margaret Drabble).
Do you agree? Discuss with reference to at least two authors.
2. “Mary Wollstonecraft knew the virtues of overstatement as well as Jane Austen
knew those of understatement” (Muriel Spark). Discuss the importance of
overstatement to the ‘war of ideas’, with reference to at least two authors.
3. Were the differences between the two generations of Romantics essentially
political differences? Discuss with reference to at least two poets.
4. Discuss the significance of the subtitle of Caleb Williams, ‘Things As They Are’,
with reference to the novel as a whole.
5. Discuss how at least two Romantic writers deal with the dialectic between (a) the
child and the adult OR (b) purity and corruption.
6. How does any writing of the period make use of fantasy and fantastical elements?
Discuss in relation to any two writers.
Contd./…
