IGNOU BEGC-112
- British Literature: The Early 20th Century,
Latest Solved Assignment
(July 2024 - January 2025)

SECTION A

I Explain the following passages with reference to the context.

1. “For, now that it was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he had,
especially in the evening, these sudden thunder-claps of fear. He could
not feel. As he opened the door of the room where the Italian girls sat
making hats, he could see them; could hear them; they were rubbing
wires among coloured beads in saucers; they were turning buckram
shapes this way and that; the table was all strewn with feathers, spangles,
silks, ribbons; scissors were rapping on the table; but something failed
him; he could not feel. Still, scissors rapping, girls laughing, hats being
made protected him; he was assured of safety; he had a refuge.”

2. “But no, he would not give in. Turning sharply, he walked towards the
city’s gold phosphorescence. His fists were shut, his mouth set fast. He
would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her. He walked
towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.”

3. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

4. “A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
the ways deep and the weather
sharp,
The very dead of winter.”

SECTION B

II. Write short notes on the following:

1. Characteristics of modernism and post-modernism.
2. The “Stream of Consciousness Technique” and early twentieth century British fiction.
3. The Biblical and historical contexts of the poem ‘The Second Coming’.
4. The major themes and concerns of the novel Mrs. Dalloway.

III. Write short essays on the following:

1. “Class and social mobility are central concerns in D.H. Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers.” Discuss this statement.
2. Explain the title of the poem “The Unknown Citizen”.

SECTION C

IV. Discuss the central theme of the poem “Journey of the Magi” and comment on the symbolism in the poem.

SECTION A

I. Explain the following passages with reference to the context. 

1. ““What are you saying Septimus,” Rezia asked, wild with terror, for he
was talking to himself. She sent Agnes running for Dr. Holmes. Her
husband, she said, was mad. He scarcely knew her. “You brute! You
brute!” cried Septimus, seeing human nature, that is Dr. Holmes enter the
room.”

2. “….. but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

3. “We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”

4. “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint.”

Section B

II. Write short notes on the following:

A. The major characteristics of modernism
B. British War Poetry of the early twentieth century.
C. The central theme of the poem “The Second Coming”.
D. Symbolism in “The Journey of the Magi”.

III. Write short essays on the following:

a. Explain the title of the poem “I think continually of those who are truly great.”
b. Discuss how Virginia Woolf employs the “Stream of Consciousness Technique” in her novels. How did her novels differ from those novels written in the realist tradition?

Section C

IV. Discuss the psychoanalytic readings of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers.