Table of Contents
- Prose Passage: Harold Bloom's "The Use of Poetry"
- Question 91: The True Subject of Poetry
- Question 92: The 'Traditional Use' of Poetry
- Question 93: Originality and Selfhood
- Poetry Passage: G.M. Hopkins's "No worst, there is none"
- Question 94: Meaning of the Title
- Question 95: Beyond the Intensity of Known Grief
- Question 96: Statements on Suffering
- Fiction Extract: Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D’Urbervilles
- Question 97: How the 'Sport' Ended
- Question 98: Identifying the Gazers
- Drama Extract: Shakespeare's The Tempest
- Question 99: Meaning of 'Insubstantial Pageant'
- Question 100: Meaning of 'Stuff as dreams are made on'
Reading Comprehension: Criticism (Questions 91-93)
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow:
What can be the use of a poetry that has no true subject except the poet's own selfhood? The traditional use of poetry in the Western world has been instruction through delight, where teaching has meant the common truths or common deceptions of societal tradition, and where esthetic pleasure has meant a fulfilment of expectations founded upon past joys of the same design. But an individual psyche has its own accidents, which it needs to call truths, and its own necessity for self-recognition, which requires the pleasures of originality, even if those pleasures depend upon a kind of lying against time and the achievements of the past. The use of such poetry demands to be seen in a deidealized way if it is to be seen more truly.
— Harold Bloom, “The Use of Poetry”
Question 91
In the context of the above, which is closest to being true?
The very first sentence of the passage states: "What can be the use of a poetry that has no true subject except the poet's own selfhood?"
Bloom is discussing a specific type of modern/romantic poetry where external themes (nature, history, society) are discarded. In this type of poetry, the only true subject being explored is the internal psyche, mind, and identity (the "selfhood") of the poet writing it.
Question 92
What is meant by the ‘traditional use of poetry’?
The text explicitly defines the traditional use of poetry in the second sentence.
It states that tradition relies on "instruction through delight" where aesthetic pleasure is a "fulfilment of expectations founded upon past joys." Therefore, the traditional model was designed to meet and promote those joyous aesthetic expectations that audiences were already comfortable with.
Question 93
If the ‘selfhood’ of a poet is the subject of poetry, then ‘originality’ shall spring from:
The passage links the concept of originality directly to the poet's internal journey.
Bloom writes that an individual psyche has its "own necessity for self-recognition, which requires the pleasures of originality." Thus, when a poet looks inward to their own selfhood rather than outward to societal traditions, their originality springs from the deep truth of recognizing their own unique psychological accidents.
Reading Comprehension: Poetry (Questions 94-96)
Read the given poem and answer the questions that follow:
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No lingering!
Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no man fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins, "No worst, there is none"
Question 94
Which of the following best describes the meaning of the title of the poem, ‘No worst, there is none.’?
This poem is one of Hopkins's "Terrible Sonnets," written during a period of deep clinical depression and spiritual crisis. The opening phrase "No worst, there is none" means that there is no absolute bottom to human suffering. You cannot say "this is the worst it can get," because grief is bottomless; once you reach what you thought was the worst, more pangs will "wilder wring."
Question 95
Beyond the intensity of known grief, there can be:
The line "Pitched past pitch of grief" captures this exact sentiment.
To be "pitched past pitch" means the speaker has been thrown (pitched) beyond the normal frequency or limits (pitch) of recognizable human sorrow. They are existing in a terrifying, unfathomable state of absolute agony that exists beyond the normal limits of human endurance.
Question 96
Which two of the following are true?
A. Not all know the intensity or depth of suffering.
B. Death does not put an end to our suffering.
C. Suffering is seen as winds that hinder comfort.
D. Suffering’s intensity or depth is in mind.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Analyzing the second half of the sonnet:
- (D) True: Hopkins locates the landscape of this terror strictly within human psychology: "O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer..."
- (A) True: He states that people who have never experienced clinical depression cannot understand it, and usually underestimate it: "Hold them cheap / May who ne'er hung there."
Why B is wrong: The final line explicitly states that "all / Life death does end," meaning death is the final comfort that ends the suffering.
Reading Comprehension: Fiction Extract (Questions 97-98)
Read the following extract and answer the questions:
‘Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the D’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs, unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth as if in prayer and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless; the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had enough strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Question 97
How did the ‘sport with Tess’ end?
This is the bleak, devastating final paragraph of Thomas Hardy's masterpiece, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891).
After being pushed to the breaking point by a hypocritical society, Tess murders her rapist, Alec d'Urberville. She is caught by the police at Stonehenge. In the final scene, her husband Angel Clare and her sister Liza-Lu watch a black flag get raised over the prison in the city of Wintoncester, signaling that Tess has just been executed by hanging. Hardy's phrase "the President of the Immortals... had ended his sport" is a bitterly ironic condemnation of the cruel, uncaring universe that tortured an innocent woman for its own amusement.
Question 98
Who are the ‘two speechless gazers’?
The two figures standing on the hill watching the black flag rise over the prison are Angel Clare (Tess's husband) and 'Liza-Lu (Tess's younger sister).
Before Tess was arrested at Stonehenge, she made Angel promise that after she was gone, he would marry 'Liza-Lu, because she was pure and good like Tess, but without Tess's tragic history. The novel ends with the two of them joining hands and walking away together, fulfilling Tess's final wish.
Reading Comprehension: Drama Extract (Questions 99-100)
Read the following extract and answer the questions:
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve.
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
— William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Question 99
‘[T]his insubstantial pageant’ refers to:
Prospero speaks these famous lines in Act IV of The Tempest.
He has just conjured a beautiful "masque" (a magical play/performance featuring spirits dressed as gods) for his daughter Miranda and her fiancé Ferdinand. When he abruptly ends the magical vision, the spirits vanish into thin air. Prospero uses this "insubstantial pageant" (a temporary, illusionary theatrical performance) as a metaphor to explain that the entire physical world—including palaces, the earth, and humans themselves—is just as temporary and will eventually vanish into nothingness.
Question 100
‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on’ means:
This profound philosophical statement concludes Prospero's speech.
By comparing humans to the "stuff" of dreams, Prospero is arguing that human life is fleeting, fragile, and lacks permanent physical substance. Just like a dream, our lives are a brief illusion that flashes into existence and then vanishes forever when we "wake up" into the eternal sleep of death.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the "Terrible Sonnets"?
The "Terrible Sonnets" (also known as the "Sonnets of Desolation") are a group of late poems written by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1885 while he was living in Ireland. As a Jesuit priest suffering from intense clinical depression and feeling abandoned by God, Hopkins wrote these raw, agonizing poems to express the absolute terrifying depths of human psychological suffering.
Why does Thomas Hardy call it 'sport' with Tess?
At the end of the novel, Hardy writes that the "President of the Immortals... had ended his sport with Tess." This is a deeply pessimistic, deterministic view of the universe. Hardy implies that the gods (or fate) do not care about human morality; instead, they treat human lives like toys to be tortured for cruel entertainment (sport) before destroying them.
What is the significance of Prospero's speech?
The Tempest is widely considered to be Shakespeare's final solo play. Many critics read Prospero's speech ("the great globe itself... shall dissolve") as Shakespeare's personal farewell to the theatre. The "globe" refers both to the earth and a pun on Shakespeare's actual "Globe Theatre," recognizing that his lifetime of creating magical theatrical illusions was coming to an end.
