IGNOU MEG-02
- British Drama,
Latest Solved Assignment
(July 2024 - January 2025)

Section A

1. Critically comment on the following passages with reference to the context, in not more than words each:

“To die, - To sleep, - To sleep!
Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;”

“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”

“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors.”

"I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft;
Down is too hard: and then, mine oval room
Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took
From Elephantis, and dull Aretine
But coldly imitated."

Section B

1. Analyze the influence of the Renaissance on the development of Elizabethan drama.
2. Explore Shakespeare's depiction of women in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
3. Critically analyze Doctor Faustus as a tragedy of human heroism.
4. How does Hamlet explore the theme of revenge? How do Hamlet's views on revenge differ from other characters like Laertes and Fortinbras?
5. How does the structure in The Alchemist, with its three main con artists and a series of victims, contribute to its comedic effect?
6. Examine how class and social status play a role in the characters’ interactions in Look Back in Anger. How does Jimmy’s working-class background influence his resentment toward the upper classes?
7. The Playboy of the Western World blends elements of comedy and tragedy. How does Synge use humor to address serious themes? What is the effect of this combination on the audience?
8. How are gender roles and power dynamics portrayed in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Consider the relationships between Theseus and Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania, and the Athenian lovers.
9. Write short notes on any two of the following in about 200 words each:

a. Lucky
b. Eliot’s ‘‘The Three Voices of Poetry’’
c. Soliloquy and its dramatic significance
d. Gender issue in Look back in Anger

Section A

1. Critically comment on the following passages with reference to the context, in not more than 150 words each:

(a) O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven, It had the primal eldest curse upon't A
brother's murder! Pray can I not. Though inclination be as sharp as will.

(b) Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.

(c) What boots it then to think of God or heaven ? Away with such fancies and despair;
Despairin God, and trust in Beelzebub ... Abjure this magic, turn to God again.

(d) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth
Down in the hole, lingeringly,
the gravedigger puts on the forceps.
We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.

Section B

1. "Beckett rejects the received logic of form and conventional structure." Critically comment.

2. Discuss the typical Shakespearean comic elements in the play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

3. What do you think is the dominant quality of Hamlet’s character? Discuss with suitable examples.

4. Can The Alchemist be understood as a satire? Give suitable examples.

5. Discuss the play Pygmalion as a romance? Elaborate.

6. Discuss the art of characterisation in The Playboy of the Western World?

7. Discuss Murder in the Cathedral as a poetic drama.

8. Comment on the historical significance of Look Back in Anger.

9. Discuss the Romantic and Modernist conceptions of character in the presentation of Jimmy as the play's protagonist.