What Should I Study for the Comprehensive
Examination?
I. VOCABULARY Basic Word List
Units
1 to 50
II. SPELLING Lists 1 – 25
III. GRAMMAR Chapter 16 The Phrase
Chapter
17 The Clause
(including
sentence classified according
to structure: simple,
compound, complex, compound-
complex)
Fragments, run-ons,
complete sentences
IV. LITERATURE (Know literary
periods, literary techniques, authors,
genres, quotations, details,
details, details . . . )
THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD (449 A.D. – 1066 A.D.)
Background essay/notes,
pp. 32 – 47
Beowulf, pp. 48 - 79
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD (1066 A.D. – 1485 A.D.)
Background essay/notes,
pp. 104 – 107
Chaucer, “General Prologue
to The Canterbury Tales, pp. 120 -
145
Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s
Tale,” pp. 153 – 167
THE ENGLISH
RENAISSANCE (1485 A.D. – 1660 A.D.)
Background essay/notes,
pp. 234 – 243
Shakespeare, Biography, pp. 284 – 286
Sonnet 18 (handout)
Sonnet 29, p. 291
Sonnet 116, p. 287
Shakespeare, Macbeth, pp. 302 – 389
Bacon, “Of Studies,” pp.
273 – 276
Donne, “A Valediction:
Forbidding Mourning,” p. 414 – 415, 418 – 419
Donne, “Death Be Not
Proud,” p. 420
Donne, “Meditation 17,” p.
422 – 425
Marvell, “To His Coy
Mistress,” pp. 455 – 458
Milton, “When I Consider
How My Light Is Spent,” pp. 459 – 462
Milton, from Paradise Lost, pp. 464 – 474
THE RESTORATION AND THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1660 A.D. – 1798 A.D.)
Background essay/notes,
pp. 492 – 503
Swift, “A Modest
Proposal,” pp. 516 – 526
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798
A.D. – 1832 A.D.)
Background Essay/notes,
pp. 650 – 661
Gray, “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard,” pp. 598 – 605
Blake, “The Lamb,” pp. 662
– 663, 665
Blake, “The Tyger,” pp.
666
Wordsworth, “The World Is
Too Much with Us,” pp. 686 – 688
Wordsworth, “Lines
Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” pp. 691 – 697
Coleridge, “Kubla Khan,”
pp. 709 – 713
Byron, “She Walks in
Beauty,” pp. 759 – 760, 763 – 764
Shelley, “Ozymandias,” pp.
765 – 769
Shelley, “Ode to the West
Wind,” pp. 770 – 772
Keats, “When I Have Fears
That I May Cease to Be,” pp. 780 – 781, 784
Keats, “Ode on a Grecian
Urn,” pp. 786 – 787
THE VICTORIAN AGE (1832 A.D. – 1901 A.D.)
·
British Empire reaches its peak under Queen Victoria; vast empire
includes Scotland, Ireland, and India.
·
Middle class comes into its own, feeling a sense of patriotism,
propriety, and responsibility for the world.
·
The novel becomes an extremely popular literary form.
Background essay/notes,
pp. 804 – 815
Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., “Lyric #7”, pp. 816
– 818
Tennyson, “Ulysses,” pp.
825 – 828
Browning, “Porphyria’s
Lover,” pp. 840 – 841, 844 – 847
Browning, “My Last
Duchess,” pp. 842 – 843
Arnold, “Dover Beach,” pp.
848 – 851
Hardy, “The Man He
Killed,” pp. 868 – 869, 871
Hardy, “Ah, Are You
Digging on My Grave?” pp. 872 – 874
Hopkins, “Pied Beauty,”
pp. 877 – 879
Housman, “To An Athlete
Dying Young,” pp. 887 – 888
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (1901 A.D. – 2000 A.D.)
·
World War I and World War II
·
T.S. Eliot is considered the leading literary poet of this period.
·
English literature takes on a very ironic, pessimistic, and sober mood.
Background essay/notes,
pp. 908 – 919
Shaw, Pygmalion, pp. 920 – 990
Brooke, “The Soldier,” pp.
1001 - 1002, 1003
Owen, “Dulce et Decorum
Est,” p. 1004
Sassoon, “Dreamers,” p.
1005 -1007
Huxley, Brave New World
Eliot, “The Hollow Men,”
pp. 1072 – 1073, 1076 – 1081
Auden, “Musée des Beaux
Arts,” pp. 1142 – 144
Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle
into That Good Night,” p. 1154 – 1155, 1158
Golding, The Lord of the Flies
