Table of Contents
- Poetry Passage: Siegfried Sassoon's "When I'm Alone"
- Question 91: The Condition of Being Alone
- Question 92: The Fate of a Human Being
- Question 93: The Meaning of 'Alone'
- Prose Passage 1: Walter Pater on Poetry
- Question 94: Plato's Divine Madness
- Question 95: Rossetti's Forced Personifications
- Prose Passage 2: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Question 96: Helena and Demetrius
- Question 97: Identifying the Speaker
- Question 98: Identifying the Addressee
- Prose Passage 3: Dickens's Hard Times
- Question 99: Identifying the Literary Device
- Question 100: The Opposites of 'Fancy'
Reading Comprehension: Poetry (Questions 91-93)
Read the given poem and answer the questions that follow:
WHEN I'M ALONE
'When I'm alone' - the words tripped off his tongue
As though to be alone were nothing strange.
'When I was young' he said, when I was young ..?
I thought of age, and loneliness, and change,
I thought how strange we grow when we're alone,
And how unlike the selves that meet, and talk,
And blow the candles out, and say good-night,
Alone ...The word is life endured and known.
It is the stillness where our spirits walk
And all but inmost faith is overthrown.
— Siegfried Sassoon
Question 91
For the poet, 'Being alone' is a condition conducive to:
In the poem, Sassoon explicitly links solitude with profound, unexpected personal transformation.
The line "I thought how strange we grow when we're alone" signifies that isolation changes a person in ways that are entirely different ("unlike the selves that meet, and talk") from their public, social persona. It is a space of unexpected emotional and spiritual growth.
Question 92
For the speaker of the words 'When I'm alone', being alone is:
The opening lines set up the speaker's casual attitude toward solitude.
The poem says, "'When I'm alone' - the words tripped off his tongue / As though to be alone were nothing strange." For the man speaking, being alone is simply a natural, inescapable fact of existence. Later in the poem, the poet confirms this universal truth by defining "Alone" as "life endured and known."
Question 93
Which two of the following statements aptly capture the meaning of 'Alone' for thinking beings?
A. Meeting talking and bidding goodnight
B. Quietude and calmness of self
C. Life lived and understood
D. Becoming free from faith
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
The final tercet of the poem provides the philosophical definition of "Alone":
- (C) Life lived and understood: Matches the line "The word is life endured and known."
- (B) Quietude and calmness of self: Matches the line "It is the stillness where our spirits walk."
Why A and D are wrong: Option A refers to social behavior, which the poet says is "unlike" being alone. Option D contradicts the final line; the poet says everything is overthrown "but inmost faith" (meaning inmost faith remains intact, it is not overthrown).
Reading Comprehension: Criticism (Questions 94-95)
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow:
Poetry, as a mania - one of Plato's two higher forms of "divine" mania - has, in all its species, a mere insanity incidental to it, the "defect of its quality", into which it may lapse in its moment of weakness; and the insanity which follows a vivid poetic anthropomorphism like that of Rossetti may be noted here and there in his work, in a forced and almost grotesque materialising of abstractions, as Dante also became at times a mere subject of the scholastic realism of the Middle Age.
— Walter Pater (from his essay on Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
Question 94
In the above passage poetry is described as one of Plato's two higher forms of divine madness. Which is the other one?
This question requires external literary/philosophical knowledge of Plato's Phaedrus, to which Walter Pater is alluding.
In the Phaedrus, Plato argues that madness (mania) is not always a disease; it can be a divine gift. He identifies four types of divine madness: Prophetic madness (Apollo), Mystic madness (Dionysus), Poetic madness (the Muses), and Love / Erotic madness (Aphrodite and Eros). Pater considers Poetry and Love to be the two highest forms of this divine inspiration.
Question 95
In Rossetti, the forced personifications may be:
A. an incidental defect of poetic quality
B. examples of madness of thought
C. an exaggerated concretisation of things
D. a divinely inspired poetic expression
Choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
Pater's critique of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's style outlines specific flaws:
- (A) True: The passage explicitly calls it "a mere insanity incidental to it, the 'defect of its quality'."
- (C) True: Pater criticizes Rossetti for "a forced and almost grotesque materialising of abstractions" (which is exactly what an exaggerated concretization of conceptual things means).
Reading Comprehension: Drama (Questions 96-98)
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow:
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty.
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case.
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Question 96
Who was in love with Demetrius?
This question requires knowledge of the love rectangle in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
At the beginning of the play: Hermia and Lysander are in love with each other. Demetrius is in love with Hermia. However, Hermia's best friend, Helena, is desperately and tragically in love with Demetrius (who cruelly rejects her until he is enchanted by the love potion later in the play).
Question 97
Who is the speaker of the above lines?
The speaker of these defiant lines is Hermia.
Her father, Egeus, has dragged her before the Duke because she refuses to marry the man he has chosen for her (Demetrius) and instead wants to marry Lysander. Hermia bravely steps forward and asks the Duke what the legal punishment will be if she continues to refuse to wed Demetrius.
Question 98
The above lines are addressed to:
Hermia says, "I do entreat your grace to pardon me." She is addressing the absolute authority in Athens: Duke Theseus.
Theseus chillingly replies to her question that if she refuses to marry Demetrius, the ancient law of Athens gives her only two choices: she must either be executed (put to death) or live the rest of her life as a celibate nun in a convent.
Reading Comprehension: Fiction (Questions 99-100)
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow:
He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by; dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him.
— Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Question 99
In the expression "…. looking into all the vessels ranged before him", which one of the following devices is used?
Dickens uses a dark, extended metaphor to describe the Victorian educational system.
The "vessels" represent the young, innocent students sitting in their desks. Dickens compares the schoolteacher, Mr. M'Choakumchild, to Morgiana from The Arabian Nights (who poured boiling oil into the jars to kill the thieves hidden inside). Dickens implies that the teacher is pouring "boiling" facts into the children to ruthlessly kill their internal "robber" (their childhood imagination/fancy).
Question 100
'Fancy' is opposed to which two of the following?
A. Emotion
B. Reason
C. Fact
D. Imagination
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
In Charles Dickens's Hard Times, the entire novel is built around a stark, central binary opposition.
"Fancy" represents childhood innocence, creativity, art, emotion, and imagination (embodied by Sissy Jupe and the circus). The Utilitarian education system, run by Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. M'Choakumchild, is fiercely opposed to Fancy. They champion cold, calculating Reason (B) and strict, measurable Fact (C) above all else, attempting to crush Fancy out of the children's minds.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Divine Madness" in Plato's philosophy?
In the Phaedrus, Plato argues that not all madness is an illness; some madness is a divine gift from the gods that elevates the human soul. He categorizes four types: Prophetic (from Apollo), Telestic/Mystic (from Dionysus), Poetic (from the Muses), and Erotic/Love (from Aphrodite and Eros).
Who is Morgiana in "The Arabian Nights"?
Morgiana is the clever, brave slave girl in the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." When the thieves hide in oil jars outside Ali Baba's house to ambush him, Morgiana discovers them. She boils a massive pot of oil and pours it into each jar, killing the thieves inside to protect her master. Dickens uses this violent image metaphorically to describe Victorian teachers destroying children's imaginations.
What is Utilitarianism in "Hard Times"?
Utilitarianism was a real 19th-century philosophy (championed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) that believed the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility (usefulness/happiness). In Hard Times, Dickens satirizes extreme Utilitarianism through Mr. Gradgrind, who believes human beings are nothing more than biological machines that should be fed nothing but raw, statistical "Facts," completely devoid of art or emotion.
