English Major, Semester 4
University of Kalyani B.A. English NEP 2020 syllabus. Each Major paper below is six credits and lists 60 end-semester marks.
MAJ401 · English Novel
- Unit I, eighteenth century: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe.
- Unit II, nineteenth century: Charles Dickens, Hard Times; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
- Unit III, after 1900: R. K. Narayan, The English Teacher; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. The relevant history of the novel is also listed.
MAJ402 · Literary Criticism up to 1800
- Unit I, classical: Aristotle’s Poetics, chapters on action; the sentiments chapter in the Natyasastra.
- Unit II, neoclassical: selections from Philip Sidney’s The Defence of Poesy and John Dryden’s An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.
- Unit III, Romantic: William Wordsworth’s 1800 preface to Lyrical Ballads and Friedrich Schiller’s On Naive and Sentimental Poetry (Part I).
These are topic and text summaries. Consult your registered combination for any Minor or other paper.
Study suggestions
Original prompts for the listed Major papers; they do not predict an exam.
- Compare: Choose two texts from different units of one paper. How does their genre or period shape their treatment of a shared idea?
Answer guide
Name both prescribed texts and the shared idea; ground each point in a specific passage. Explain a difference instead of making a list of themes.
- Close reading: Select a short passage from a prescribed text and explain how two choices of language or form shape its meaning.
Answer guide
Quote a small passage, identify two concrete features such as imagery, dialogue, metre or narrative voice, then connect each to an interpretation that the passage supports.
- Context: Place one prescribed work in the literary or language history named in its unit.
Answer guide
State the relevant period and a precise historical or literary context. Show how it helps illuminate the work without treating background as a substitute for reading the text.