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SECOND PUBLIC EXAMINATION
HONOUR SCHOOL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
COURSE II
Paper 2 Medieval English and Related Literatures 1066-1550
TRINITY TERM 2019
Friday, 24 May, 9.30 am – 12.30pm
Time Allowed – Three hours
Answer two questions. You should pay careful attention in your answers to the
precise terms of the quotations and questions.
Candidates should not repeat material across different parts of the examination.
Do not turn over until told that you may do so.
1. ‘Tell me about a complicated man’ (
The Odyssey, trans. EMILY WILSON).
2. ‘Men of worth do not care whether they live or die, provided that their life be
good enough for them to die with honour’ [
‘Aus bons ne chaut il de leur vie ne
de mourir, mais que leur vie soit bonne a mourir honorablement’]
(GEOFFROI DE CHARNY).
Write on any ONE OR MORE of the following in relation to romance: risk;
mortality; ultimate values.
3. ‘This Arthur is the hero of many wild tales among the Britons even in our own
day, but assuredly deserves to be the subject of reliable history rather than of
false and dreaming fable [
non fallaces . . . fabulae sed veraces . . . historiae]’
(WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY).
4. ‘[T]houghe hyt were so that Sir Launcelot were founde in the quenys chambir,
yet hit myght be so that he cam thydir for none evyll. For ye know, my lorde,’
seyde Sir Gawayne, ‘that my lady the quene hath oftyntymes ben gretely
beholdyn unto Sir Launcelot, more than to ony othir knyght; for oftyntymes he
hath saved her lyff and done batayle for her whan all the courte refused the
quene’ (THOMAS MALORY,
Morte Darthur).
5. ‘The question of marvels must be approached by way of vocabulary’
(JACQUES LE GOFF).
6. ‘[Romance] is often a stand-in for the Middle Ages itself, a Middle Ages that
is by turns magical, barbarous, childish, absurd, but above all archaic, a thing
of the past. Yet romance was once novel, a byword for a confident, ambitious
modernity’ (KATHERINE C. LITTLE).
Discuss EITHER OR BOTH parts of this statement.
7. ‘I am, as you well see, a knight, and I search for that I cannot find. I have
searched a great deal and found nothing.’ ‘And what would you find?’
‘Adventure, to test my prowess and my strength.’ [‘
Aventures, pour esprouver
/ Ma proeche et mon hardement.’] (CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES,
Yvain)
8. ‘Supernatural events and objects are sometimes offered up as meaningful
symbols, cohesive nodes of interpretation: but where they are not, obscurity
itself can be their purpose.’
Discuss any aspect(s) of this statement.
9. ‘He said: “Is that my sweet love, my hope, my heart, my life—my beautiful
lady who loves me? How has she come? Who brought her? But I am much
mistaken—I well know it can’t be her. Women all look the same”’ (MARIE
DE FRANCE,
Guigemar).
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10. ‘[A] monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and
intolerable allegory’ (HERMAN MELVILLE,
Moby-Dick).
11. ‘Style itself makes its claims, expresses its own sense of what matters’
(MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM).
12. Love, who absolves no beloved one from loving
Seized me with such a strong desire for him
That, as you see, it has not left me yet.
(DANTE,
Inferno)
Discuss the role of desire AND/OR obligation in romance.
13. ‘Materiality is essential to romance: from the physical form it takes and
retakes in different manuscripts, to the densely populated world of
things to
which it is so profoundly committed.’
You may focus on any part(s) of this claim.
14. ‘The act of translation involves a tension between dominance and subjugation
[...] This strategic malleability amplifies the general instability of linguistic
reference’ (MICHELLE R. WARREN).
Discuss EITHER OR BOTH parts of this statement.
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