✨ Teacher Examination paper
131
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
FIRST CLASS.
(Only seven questions need be answered, including either No. 6 or No. 7.)
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Give the names and any particulars of the works of any English authors who lived before the invention of printing.
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What is known of the personal history of Chaucer? What are the Canterbury Tales? State by whom they are represented as being told, and give the subjects of any of them. What did Chaucer write beside the Tales?
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The plays of Shakspeare have been divided by some commentators into Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories; mention any which you find a difficulty in classifying under these heads. Which of the dramas are founded respectively on the legendary history of Britain, on its authentic history, and on classical history. State what you know of the sources whence Shakspeare drew materials for his plays, and give the plot of any one.
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Explain the general design of the Faerie Queene. Give the names of any of the characters, and, if you can, something of the story of any one legend—preferably that of the Red Cross Knight. Mention any other poems you remember that are written in the same metre.
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Give the names of all the non-dramatic poets you can remember from Spenser to Milton, especially those styled by Dr. Johnson "the metaphysical poets." Explain the epithet metaphysical.
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Of the following quotations from Shakspeare, state of each from what play it is taken, with the name of the speaker, and so much of the context or circumstances as will be sufficient to identify the passage :—
(1) Use doth breed a habit in a man.
(2) They have been at a great feast of languages, and have stolen the scraps.
(3) And the imperial votaress passed on
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
(4) And gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
(5) There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
(6) Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
(7) Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust
upon them.
(8) Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other side.
(9) Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck the flower, safety.
(10) If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion.
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Canterbury Provincial Gazette 1874, No 20
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Examination for Certificates, January 1874: English Literature
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