28. Give an account of the verse-tale (a) from Chaucer to Dryden and (b) from Crabbe to William Morris. What style and meter are best adapted to the verse-tale? Illustrate by means of extracts.
29. Estimate the importance of journalism as an aid to literature; give a short account of its rise; and add a note upon the literary attainments of modern journalism.
30. What effect had the attitude of the Church upon the early drama? Has the Church exerted any influence, good or bad, on any other kind of literature?
31. Mention some of the earliest literary critics in English; and continue with a brief history of literary criticism up to modern times.
32. Mention three important biographies in English. In what respects do they conform to the ideal biography?
33. Consider the works of Dickens, Wordsworth (especially his sonnets), Samuel Butler (1835–1902), Milton (both prose and verse), Gibbon, Bunyan, and Shelley as political, religious, or social propaganda. Write a general essay on the use and abuse of propaganda in works of literature.
34. Estimate the value of the work of the female novelist and the poetess. In which of these two departments of literature is woman’s achievement the higher? Does the level of her accomplishment show any signs of rising?
35. Discuss Charles Lamb, Meredith, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, and R. L. Stevenson as prose stylists. Write an account of prose style during the nineteenth century.
36. What are the qualities of good poetical satire? Trace the course of the satire in English from Dryden to Byron.
37. Compare Scott and Byron as poetical tale-tellers, as lyrical writers, and as men. Comment upon the history of their respective reputations.