ANDERSON JUNIOR COLLEGE

PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2008

11 September 2008

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Higher 1 8810/1
Higher 2 9725/1

Paper 1 Reading Literature

3 hours
Additional Materials: Paper
Set texts may be taken into the examination room. They may bear underlining or highlighting.
Any kind of folding or flagging of pages in texts (e.g. use of post-its, tape flags or paper clips) is not
permitted.

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your name and PDG clearly on the cover sheet and all the work you hand in.
Attach the cover sheet to your answer.
Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper.
Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid.
The question paper will be collected at the end of the paper.

Answer three questions, one from each of Sections A, B and C.

You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.

At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.
All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

Name : ______________________________________________

PDG : __________________

*Please delete accordingly

Question No. Mark
Section A: Question *1a / 1b

Section B: Question *2a / 2b

Section C: Question *3a / 3b

This document consists of 6 printed pages and 2 blank pages.

[turn over
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BLANK PAGE
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Section B

Either (a) Compare and contrast the following poems. Poem A is by George William
Russell and Poem B is by Kimiko Hahn. Consider carefully the way each
poet’s language and style presents childhood.

A Childhood

HOW I could see through and through you!

So unconscious, tender, kind,
More than ever was known to you
Of the pure ways of your mind.

We who long to rest from strife 5

Labour sternly as a duty;
But a magic in your life
Charms, unknowing of its beauty.

We are pools whose depths are told;

You are like a mystic fountain, 10
Issuing ever pure and cold
From the hollows of the mountain.

We are men by anguish taught

To distinguish false from true;
Higher wisdom we have not; 15
But a joy within guides you.

B In Childhood

things don't die or remain damaged

but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True: 5
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning 10
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg. 15
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups? 20
 4

Or (b) Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail ways in
which your responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form.
Poem A is by William Blake and Poem B is by Philip Larkin.

A To Summer

O thou who passest thro' our valleys in

Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,
Oft pitched'st here thy goldent tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld 5
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard

Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o'er the deep of heaven; beside our springs
Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on 10

Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy

Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.

Our bards are fam'd who strike the silver wire*: 15

Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:
Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:
We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,
Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.

*harp or lyre
B
Mother, Summer, I

My mother, who hates thunder storms,

Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks 5
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,

And I her son, though summer-born

And summer-loving, none the less 10
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can't confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear: 15
An autumn more appropriate.
 5

Section B

JANE AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice

Either (a) Charlotte Bronte claimed that there is no passion in Pride and Prejudice. To
what extent do you agree with her view?

Or (b) Write a critical commentary on the following passage, commenting in

particular on Austen’s narrative methods here and in the novel as a whole.

The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there
was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss de Bourgh -- the former
of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her
all dinner time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss de
Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she were indisposed. Maria 5
thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire.
When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to be done but to hear
Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering
her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to
have her judgement controverted. She inquired into Charlotte's domestic concerns 10
familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as to the management of them all;
told her how everything ought to be regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed
her as to the care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath
this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others.
In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to 15
Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least,
and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked
her, at different times, how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than
herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome,
where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her
mother's maiden name? -- Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions but 20
answered them very composedly. -- Lady Catherine then observed,
"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake," turning to
Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the
female line. -- It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play
and sing, Miss Bennet?" 25
"A little."
"Oh! then--some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital
one, probably superior to----You shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?"
"One of them does."
"Why did not you all learn? -- You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, 30
and their father has not so good an income as yours. -- Do you draw?"
"No, not at all."
"What, none of you?"
"Not one." 35
"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have
taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters."
"My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London."
(Chapter 29)
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Section C

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Othello

Either (a) Othello is said to explore “man as devil, woman as angel”. How far do you
agree with this comment?

Or (b) With close attention to language and characterization, consider how the play’s
main concerns are developed here.

Othello Now, by heaven,

My blood begins my safer guides to rule
And passion, having my best judgment collied,
Assays to lead the way. Zounds, if I once stir,
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you 5
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
How this foul rout began, who set it on,
And he that is approved in this offence,
Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,
Shall lose me. What, in a town of war 10
Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
To manage private and domestic quarrel?
In night, and on the court and guard of safety?
'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
Montano If partially affined, or leagued in office 15
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth
Thou art no soldier.
Iago Touch me not so near.
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio, 20
Yet I persuade myself to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general:
Montano and myself being in speech,
There comes a fellow crying out for help
And Cassio following him with determined sword 25
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause,
Myself the crying fellow did pursue
Lest by his clamour, as it so fell out,
The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot, 30
Outran my purpose, and I returned the rather
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords
And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight
I ne'er might say before. When I came back,
For this was brief, I found them close together 35
At blow and thrust, even as again they were
When you yourself did part them.
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More of this matter cannot I report.

But men are men, the best sometimes forget;
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him, 40
As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
From him that fled some strange indignity
Which patience could not pass.
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BLANK PAGE
 Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad

He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

The Summer I Was Sixteen by Geraldine Connolly

The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.

Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted

up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,

danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".

Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled

cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,

shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,

mouthing the old words, then loosened

thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world.

Indian Summer by Henry Van Dyke

A soft veil dims the tender skies,
And half conceals from pensive eyes
The bronzing tokens of the fall;
A calmness broods upon the hills,
And summer's parting dream distills
A charm of silence over all.
The stacks of corn, in brown array,
Stand waiting through the placid day,
Like tattered wigwams on the plain;
The tribes that find a shelter there
Are phantom peoples, forms of air,
And ghosts of vanished joy and pain.

At evening when the crimson crest

Of sunset passes down the West,
I hear the whispering host returning;
On far-off fields, by elm and oak,
I see the lights, I smell the smoke,--
The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.

Summer Dawn by William Morris

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn,
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn.

August
Why should this Negro insolently stride
Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet?
Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,
Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed,
Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,
Hot with a superfluity of heat,
Like a great brazier borne along the street
By captive leopards, black and burning pied.

Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,

With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none
Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,
Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream
By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun
Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?
Elinor Morton Wylie

The Fury Of Rainstorms by Anne Sexton

The rain drums down like red ants,
each bouncing off my window.
The ants are in great pain
and they cry out as they hit
as if their little legs were only
stitche don and their heads pasted.
And oh they bring to mind the grave,
so humble, so willing to be beat upon
with its awful lettering and
the body lying underneath
without an umbrella.
Depression is boring, I think
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave.

Discord in Childhood by David Herbert Lawrence

Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash

Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound
Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned
The other voice in a silence of blood, ’neath the noise of the ash.

Childhood by George William Russell

HOW I could see through and through you!
So unconscious, tender, kind,
More than ever was known to you
Of the pure ways of your mind.

We who long to rest from strife

Labour sternly as a duty;
But a magic in your life
Charms, unknowing of its beauty.

We are pools whose depths are told;

You are like a mystic fountain,
Issuing ever pure and cold
From the hollows of the mountain.

We are men by anguish taught

To distinguish false from true;
Higher wisdom we have not;
But a joy within guides you.

In Childhood by Kimiko Hahn

things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?