UPSC English Literature Syllabus
The syllabus consists of two papers, designed to test a first-hand and critical reading of texts prescribed from the following periods in English Literature: Paper 1: 1600-1900 and Paper 2: 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.
In this post, we provide the UPSC English Literature syllabus for both paper 1 and paper 2. you can also download a pdf of the English Literature syllabus here.
UPSC English Literature 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 VictorianAge.
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.
UPSC English Literature 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: 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.
– The Second Coming.
– Byzantium. - 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 Cousin on a Swing
– A River
– Of Mothers, among other Things
– Love Poem for a Wife 1
– Small-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. Naipaul. A House for Mr. Biswas.
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