1. Why are the English people of mixed-blood?

2. How did Chaucer succeed in linking together the 24 stories told by the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales?

3.  In Hamlet’s soliloquy, when he says, “To sleep, perchance to dream: —ay, there’s the rub.” What is he primarily thinking about? Why does he think there is the rub?

4.  How do you understand “To be, or not to be”? Give your evidence to support your ideas.

5.  Why did Hamlet delay in revenging for his father’s death? Give evidence to support your idea.

6.  What is the theme of Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare? (It is the Eternity of this beauty. In admiring the eternal beauty of his friend, Shakespeare is actually singing the eternal beauty of human being. This reflects Shakespeare’s ideal of the humanism.

7. What is the implication of “Nor shall Death brag thou wander’ st in his shade” in Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare? (Death shall not brag that you will go to the underworld. The implication of this sentence lies in the next three sentences, that is, my poem will make your beauty eternal.)

8.  What is the theme of Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare?

9.  What are Chaucer’s contributions to English literature?

10.  What are Shakespeare’s contributions to English literature?

11.  What is the theme of “Paradise Lost”?

12.  Why did Satan choose the Garden of Eden as the battlefield?

13.  What is the image of Satan in Paradise Lost?

14.  What are the characteristics of metaphysical poetry?

15.  What is the theme of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”? 

16.  What is the theme of “Go and Catch a Falling Star”?

17.  Why did Bunyan give such name in his The Pilgrim’s Progress to the characters and places?

18.  What is the character/image of Robinson Crusoe?

(He has marvelous capacity for work; He has boundless energy and persistence in overcoming obstacles; He is the most practical and exact; He is religious and mindful of his own profit; He is the representation of early English bourgeoisie.)

19. What is the theme of The School for Scandal?

20.  How do you understand the meaning of the title of “The School for Scandal”?

21. Why did Sheridan give such names to his characters in The School for Scandal?

22.  What is the significance of Preface to Lyrical Ballads?

(In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth set forth his principles of poetry. He based his own poetical theory on the premise that good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. He appealed directly to individual sensation as the foundation in the creation and appreciation of poetry. Ordinary peasants and children may be used as subjects in the poetic creation. As to the language used in poetry, Wordsworth endeavored to bring language near to the real language of men.)

23. Why did William Wordsworth in his “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” mention “vagrant dwellers” and “some Hermits” and in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” say “as a Cloud”?

24.  How do you understand “aching joys” and “dizzy rapture” in the lines of “–That time is past,/ And all its aching joys are now no more, / And all its dizzy raptures.” in Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”?

25. What does “She” (referring to Lucy) in “She Dwelt Among the Untroden Ways” imply?

26. What is the theme of “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”?

27. Why did Byron use so many allusions about historic figures and places in The Isles of Greece?

28.  What is the theme of The Isles of Greece?

29. In The Isles of Greece, the poet Byron repeated the line “Fill high the bowel with Samian wine” for 4 times. What significance does it have for the theme of the poem?

30. What are the functions of “West Wind” in Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind? What do they mean?

31. What does “West Wind” mean in Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind?

32. “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!/ A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed/ One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.” The above quotation is taken from Shelley’s poem ‘Ode to the West wind”. What does the underlined part mean?

33. Why did Shelley wish to be “a dead leaf”, “a swift cloud” and asked the West wind to “lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud”?

34. What does “skylark” mean / What image does “skylark” have in the European romantic poems?

35. What is the image of “nightingale” in Keats’“Ode to a Nightingale”? 

36.   In To Autumn, why does the poet put human being in the background when he depicts autumn?

37.  What are Austen’s writing features Jane Austen?

(She is one of the realistic novelists. She drew vivid and realistic pictures of everyday life of the country society in her novels. Austen’s work has a very narrow literary field. She confines herself to small country parishes, whose simple country people became the characters of her novels, but within her own field, she is unrivaled. Her novels show a wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire. Her pots are straight-forward; there is little action. Her characters are like real living creatures, with faults and virtues mixed as they are in real life. Her prose flows easily and naturally. Her dialogue is admirably true to life.)

38.  What is the character of Mrs. Bennet?

39. Why does William Makepeace Thackeray give one of his novels the title Vanity Fair and the subtitle “Novel without a Hero”? Why does William Makepeace Thackeray give one of his novels the title Vanity Fair and the subtitle “ Novel without a Hero”?

40. What is the character Rebecca Sharp?

41. What is your opinion on the character Rebecca Sharp?

42. What are the major contributions made by the 19^th century critical realists? (The major contribution is their perfection of the novel. Like the realists of the 18^th century, the 19^th century critical realist made use of the form of novel of full and detailed representations of social and political events, and of the fate of individuals and of whole social classes. However, the realistic novels of the 19^th century went a step further than those of the 18^th century in that they not only pictured the conflicts between individuals who stood for definite social strata, but also showed the broad social conflicts over and above the fate of mere individuals. Their artistic representation of vital social movements such as Chartism, and their vivid description of the dramatic conflicts of the time make the 19^th century realistic novel “the epic of the bourgeois society”.)

43. What does the subtitle “A Pure Woman” of the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles mean?

44. What is Paul’s relation with three women in Sons and Lovers? Paul is tortured between his mother and his girl friends in Sons and Lovers. His mother’s all-possessive affection for her son becomes a hindrance to his independent development as a man. She opposes Paul’s love for Miriam. Miriam’s love is egocentric and intolerable. Clara’ passion is stifling. The three women all want to possess Paul. He loves his mother and Clara and Miriam, his two lovers. His mother’s all-possessive affection for her son becomes a hindrance to his independent development as a man. Miriam’s love is egocentric and intolerable. Clara’s passion is stifling.

45.  What is the symbolic meaning of the title in the story of Araby by Joyce? The word Araby comes from Arabian which reminds the reader of the oriental land----a wonderful and dreaming world. In his story, Araby is the name of a bazaar which symbolizes the dream, the ideal and the embodiment of beauty for the boy.

46. What is the theme of “Araby”? It is the frustrated quest for beauty is drabness at last. It reflects the situation in Ireland in the particular period. The society is of coldness, gloom and harshness.