English Syllabus UPSC Mains Exam
The syllabus consists of two papers, designed to test a first-hand and critical reading of texts prescribed from the following periods in English Leterature → Paper I → 1600-1900 and Paper II → 1900-1990.
There will be two compulsory questions in each paper → a) A short-notes question related to the topics for general study, and b) A critical analysis of UNSEEN passages both in prose and verse.
English Syllabus Paper-I
Answers must be written in English.
Texts for detailed study are listed below. Candidates will also be required to show adequate knowledge of the following topics and movements →
The Renaissance → Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama; Metaphysical Poetry; The Epic and the Mock-epic; Neo-classicism; Satire; The Romantic Movement; The Rise of the Novel; The Victorian Age.
Section-A
- William Shakespeare →King Lear and The Tempest.
- John Donne. The following poems →
– Canonization;
– Death be not proud;
– The Good Morrow;
– On his Mistress going to bed;
– The Relic;
- John Milton →Paradise Lost,I, II, IV, IX
- Alexander Pope. The Rape of the Lock.
- William Wordsworth. The following poems→
– Ode on Intimations of Immortality.
– Tintern Abbey.
– Three years she grew.
– She dwelt among untrodden ways.
– Michael.
– Resolution and Independence.
– The World is too much with us.
– Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour.
– Upon Westminster Bridge.
- Alfred Tennyson →In Memoriam.
- Henrik Ibsen →A Doll’s House.
Section-B
- Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels.
- Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- Henry Fielding. Tom Jones.
- Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- George Eliot. The Mill on the Floss.
- Thomas Hardy. Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
- Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
English Syllabus Paper-II
Answers must be written in English.
Texts for detailed study are listed below. Candidates will also be required to show adequate knowledge of the following topics and movements →
Modernism; Poets of the Thirties; The stream-of-consciousness Novel; Absurd Drama; Colonialism and Post-Colonialism; Indian Writing in English; Marxist, Psychoanalytical and Feminist approaches to literature; Post-Modernism.
Section-A
- William Butler Yeats. The following poems→
– Easter 1916
– The Second Coming
– A Prayer for my daughter.
– Sailing to Byzantium.
– The Tower.
– Among School Children.
– Leda and the Swan.
– Meru
– Lapis Lazuli
- T.S. Eliot. The following poems →
– The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
– Journey of the Magi.
– Burnt Norton.
- W.H. Auden. The following poems →
– Partition
– Musee des Beaux Arts
– in Memory of W.B. Yeats
– Lay your sleeping head, my love
– The Unknown Citizen
– Consider
– Mundus Et Infans
– The Shield of Achilles
– September 1, 1939
– Petition.
- John Osborne →Look Back in Anger.
- Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot.
- Philip Larkin. The following poems →
– Next
– Please
– Deceptions
– Afternoons
– Days
– Mr. Bleaney
- A.K. Ramanujan. The following poems →
– Looking for a Causim on a Swing
– A River
– Of Mothers, among other Things
– Love Poem for a Wife 1
– Samll-Scale Reflections on a Great House
– Obituary
(All these poems are available in the anthology Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets, edited by R. Parthasarthy, published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi).
Section-B
- Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim
- James Joyce. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
- D.H. Lawrence. Sons and Lovers.
- E.M. Forster. A Passage to India.
- Virginia Woolf. Mrs Dalloway.
- Raja Rao. Kanthapura.
- V.S. Naipal. A House for Mr. Biswas.
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