English Literature

In his essay “The Transcendentalist", Emerson derides the supposedly "sturdy capitalist" whose apparently solid enterprise actually rests on "quaking foundations". Interestingly, Emerson's very definitions of transcendentalism are forged in the heat of his opposition to the bourgeois obsession with materialism, both as a philosophy and as a way of life, according prominence to economic interests above all else. Discuss.

"Maugham's writing reflects the ethos of the interwar period, a time when the rigid societal structures of Victorian England were giving way to a more existential questioning of purpose" (de Onzoño, 2016). Elucidate with reference to “The Lotus Eater".

T. S. Eliot's poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has often been read as a thoroughly cynical assessment of the modern individual and community. This totalizing portrayal misses the poem's ability to serve as a foil to a more ideal community. How far do you agree with this? Substantiate your answer by referring to textual specifics.

“Knowledge acquires a quite different character when in the possession of a newly emancipated representative of the proletariat." Elaborate with reference to Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while Stephen at first accepts the roles that others want him to perform – all related to the demands of hegemonic masculinity, homosociality, and patriarchy – he moves away from these performances only to perform a different narrative: the narrative of the artist-genius. Discuss.

The category or trope of "nation" in postcolonial studies has conflicted status. Discuss the central debates around theorizing national identity or the nation. How does the status of the nation as a subject of analysis change alongside the development of the field of postcolonial studies?

Informed by Lawrence's dualistic philosophy, it can be said that in Sons and Lovers, characters' quest for 'Two-in-One' finally causes the failure of the romance. Discuss.