ecco una serie di domande possibili per la terza prova, divise per autore:
Dickens
• Hard Times: what type of man is Gradgrind.? Do you think his name has any special connotations?
• Hard Times: Sissy comes from the circus. Why is this information important?
• Hard Times: what are the main differences between Sissy and Bitzer?
• Hard Times: what is Coketown like?
Bronte
• Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights: the narrative technique is highly complex. How many different narrators are used in the novel? What do you think the effect of such a choice is?
• How do you think Jane Eyre was received by Victorian society when it was published in 1847?
Hardy
• Tess of the D’Urberville: explain the irony of the novel’s subtitle
• How was the novel received by critics and the public of the time?
• What kind of narrator does Hardy use? With what effect?
James
• Comment on James’ “international theme”.
Tennyson
• What sources did Tennyson use to write Ulysses?
• What is Tennyson’s view of heroism in Ulysses?
• “Yet all the experience is an arch where-through/gleams the untravelled world” (Ulysses, ll. 19-20) Explain the meaning of the metaphor.
Wilde
• In the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde says that “all art is quite useless”. Explain the meaning of this statement with reference to Wilde’s aesthetic ideas.
• Which aspects of Victorian society does Wilde implicitly criticize in The Importance of Being Earnest?
• To which extent were Wilde’s views about art different from Shaw’s?
Shaw
• What was the purpose of drama according to Shaw?
• Pygmalion: where does the title of Shaw’s play come from?
More to come!
