৫১তম বিসিএস ফাইনাল মডেল টেস্ট ও রিভিশন

• 'The Necklace' is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant, which tells the story of a woman named Mathilde Loisel who lives in poverty but has a strong desire for wealth and luxury.
• The important characters of this short story:
- 'Mathilde Loisel' (The protagonist of the story)
- 'Monsieur Loisel' (Mathilde’s husband)
- 'Madame Forestier' (Mathilde’s wealthy friend)
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• The Renaissance Period (1500-1660) is divided into 4 main Period. Such as:
- Elizabethan Period (1558-1603),
- Jacobean Period (1603-1625),
- Caroline Period (1625-1649) and
- Commonwealth Period (1649-1660).
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman and Live MCQ lecture.

• Doris Lessing (1919–2013) is a British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century.
• She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
• Notable Works:
- Children of Violence,
- The Cleft,
- The Golden Notebook,
- The Grass Is Singing,
- The Memoirs of a Survivor,
- The Sweetest Dream,
- Time Bites.
• Her first published book, 'The Grass Is Singing' (1950), is about a white farmer and his wife and their African servant in Rhodesia.
• Important characters of this novel:
- Mary Turner (এই উপন্যাসের কেন্দ্রীয় চরিত্র ম্যারি টার্নার।  তিনি একজন শেতাঙ্গ মহিলা এবং তিনি কৃষ্ণাঙ্গদের ঘৃণা করতেন)
- Dick  Turner
- Moses
- Charlie  Slatter
- Tony Marston
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• John Donne is the father of Metaphysical Poet.
• He is called Poet of Love and Religious Poet.
• His famous poems:
- The Good Morrow,
- The Sun Rising,
- The Canonization,
- Twicknam Garden,
- For Whom The Bell Tolls,
- The Anatomy of the World (book),
- The Frea,
- The Ecstasy,
- The Funeral etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman and Live MCQ lecture.

• Henry Fielding regarded as 'Father of English Novel'.
• His famous Novels:
- Tom Jones,
- Amelia,
- Joseph Andrews,
- Jonathan Wilde,
- Top Secret.
• His famous plays:
- Rape Upon Rape,
- The Temple Beau,
- The Tragedy of Tragedies,
- The Modern Husband.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman and Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet, novelist and dramatist.
• His famous books:
- The Importance of Being Earnest,
- A woman of No Importance,
- An Ideal Husband,
- The Picture of Dorian Gray,
- Lady Windermere's Fan etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

Modern writers of English literature:
- Franz Kafka,
- D. H. Lawrence,
- Virginia Woolf,
- T.S. Eliot,
- Gertrude Stein,
- Joseph Conrad,
- Samuel Beckett,
- William Carlos Williams, and
- W.B. Yeats etc.
• Romantic writers of English literature:
- William Blake,
- William Wordsworth,
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
- George Gordon Byron/Lord Byron,
- Percy bysshe Shelley,
- John Keats,
- Jane Austen,
- Charles Lamb etc.
• Victorian writes of English literature:
- Thomas Hardy,
- Samuel Butler,
- Alfred Tennyson,
- Robert Browning,
- Matthew Arnold etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman.

• George Bernard Shaw was an Irish born dramatist or playwright.
• He is a modern dramatist and called him the father of Modern English Drama.
• He is famous for his 'Drama of Ideas'.
• He awarded Nobel Prize in 1925.
• His famous plays:
- The Apple Cart,
- Arms and the Man,
- Man and Superman,
- Doctor's Dilemma,
- Pygmalion,
- Caesar and Cleopatra,
- St. Joan,
- The Philanderer,
- Major Barbara,
- Heartbreak House,
- The Devil's Discipline,
- You Never Can Tell etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• The real name of O'Henry is William Sidney Porter.
• His famous works:
- The Gift of the Magi,
- Sixes and Sevens,
- Roads of Destiny,
- Cabbage and Kings,
- The Four million,
- The Voice of the City,
- The Ransom of The Red Chief,
- Hearts and Hands,
- Heart of the West.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Edgar Allan Poe is an American short story writer and literary critic.
• He is The Father of English Short Story and Modern Detective Story.
• His famous short story:
- The Tell Tale Heart,
- The Raven,
- The fall of the house of usher,
- The Black Cat,
- The Oval Portrait,
- The Gold Bug,
- The Light House.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Thomas Stearns Elliot was an American Born British poet, dramatist and social critic.
• He is famous for his 'Theory of Objective Correlative'.
• His famous dramas:
- Murder in Cathedral,
- The Family Reunion,
- The Cocktail Party,
- The Elder Statement.
• His famous poems:
- The Waste Land,
- Journey to the Magi,
- Ash Wednesday,
- Four Quarters,
- The Hollow Man,
- Portrait of a Lady.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Francis Bacon is the Father of English Essay and Father of Modern Prose.
• His famous quotations:
- Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.
- Wonder is the seed of knowledge.
- Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, written an exact man.
- Opportunity makes a thief.
- It is impossible to love and be wise.
- History makes man wise.
- Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
- Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
- The secret of success is the constancy of purpose.
- Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability.
- Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested of studies.
- Unmarried men are best friends, best Masters, best servants but not always best subjects.
Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

• Percy Bysshe Shelley is known as
- Revolutionary Poet,
- Lyric Poet,
- Poet of Wind,
- Poet of Hope and Regeneration.
• His famous works:
- Prometheus Unbound,
- Adonais (An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Shelley),
- Ode to the West Wind,
- To a Skylark,
- Ozymandias,
- The Cloud,
- To Night,
- Song of Proserpine etc.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• William Butler Yeats is an Irish dramatist, poet and critic.
• He wrote the preamble of Tagore's 'Gitanjali' in 1912, which later got nobel prize in 1913.
• W. B. Yeats got nobel prize in 1923.
• His famous poems:
- The Wild Swans at Coole,
- The Tower,
- The Winding Stair and Other Poems,
- The Resurrection,
- The Second Coming,
- The Cat and The Moon,
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree,
- Among School Children,
- The Lord of Harts,
- Falling of Leaves,
- A prayer for My Daughter,
- When You Are Old.
Source: Live MCQ Lecture and An ABC of English Literature & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a Russian Novelist and writer.
• His famous novels:
- Crime and Punishment,
- The Idiot,
- The Brothers Karamazov,
- Poor Folk,
- A Little Hero,
- The Eternal,
- Notes from Underground.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, deals with the major themes of duality, revolution, and resurrection.
- The theme of this novel is 'The French Revolution'
- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in London and Paris, as economic and political unrest lead to the American and French Revolutions.
- 'Sydney Carton' is the important character in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- The Cocktail Party is a play which is written by T. S. Eliot.
- The Birthday Party is a play which is written by Harold Pinter.
- The Garden Party is a short story which is written by Katherine Mansfield.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Charles Dickens is the greatest novelist in the Victorian Period.
• His famous novels:
- David Copperfield,
- A Tale of Two Cities,
- Great Expectations,
- Our Mutual Friend,
- Oliver Twist,
- The Christmas Carol,
- The Pickwick Papers,
• Important characters of Great Expectations:
- Pep,
- Estella,
- Miss Havisham,
- Joe Gargery etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Lord Alfred Tennyson was a Victorian Poet.
• He is best known for his melodious language.
• He was represented of the Victorian Age.
• His notable works:
- Poems,
- In Memoriam,
- Maud and other Poems
• His famous poems:
- Oenone,
- Ulysses,
- Lotus Eaters,
- Locksley Hall,
- Tears Idle Tears,
- Tithonus,
- The Two Voices,
- The Lady of Shalott,
- Vision of Sin,
- Morte D'Arthur etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman and Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- Catestrophe is the dreadful consequence of the story of tragedy.
- Apostrophe is an address to someone absent but seems like present.
Source: Merriam Webster Dictionary.

• Saul Bellow is an American famous novelist.
• His famous novels:
- Seize the Day,
- the Adventure of Augie March,
- Herzog,
- Dangling Man,
- Henderson the Rain King,
- The Victim etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman and Live MCQ Lecture.

• 'Elizabethan Period's Young dramatist and pamphleteers are called  'University Wits.
• They were 'Oxford and Cambridge University's Scholar/Witty students.
• Total 7 University Wits:
- Christopher Marlowe,
- Thomas Kyd,
- Robert Greene,
- George Peele,
- Thomas Nashe,
- John Lyly and
- Thomas Lodge.  
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• H. G. Wells is a British science fiction writer.
• His famous works:
- The Time Machine,
- The Invisible Man,
- The War of the Worlds,
- The Island of Dr. Moreau.  
Source: Live MCQ lecture.

• William Shakespeare was an English dramatist and poet of the sixteenth century.
• He is known mostly for his plays.
• He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets.
• His famous Tragedies:
- Hamlet,
- Macbeth,
- Othello,
- King Lear,
- Julius Caesar,
- Romeo and Juliet,
- Antony and Cleopatra,
- Titus Andronicus,
- Timon of Athens.
• His famous comedies:
- As You Like It,
-The Comedy of Errors,
- Twelfth Night,
- The Taming of The Shrew,
- Mid Summer Night's Dream,
- The Tempest,
- The Two Gentleman of Verona,
- The Merry Wives of Windsor,
- The Winter's Tale,
- Cymbeline,
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre,
- The Two Nobel Kinsman,
- Much Ado About Nothing,
- Love's Labours Lost.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman and Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Sir Walter Scott is the Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet.
• His famous novels:
- Patriotism,
- Ivanhoe,
- Talisman,
- Waverly.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• William Somerset Maugham is an English Novelist, Playwright and Story writer.
• His famous short stories:
- The Ant and the Grasshopper,
- The Luncheon.
• His famous Novels:
- Of Human Bondage,
- The Sacred Flames,
- The Razor's Edge,
- Cakes and Ale,
- The Musician,
- The Moon and Sixpence,
- Lady Frederick.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Rudyard Kipling was born in India. He is the first British to won Nobel prize in 1907. He is mainly a Short Story writer.
• His notable works:
- The Jungle Book (Collection of Stories),
- Kim,
- Plain Tales from The Hills,
- Just So Stories,
- Puck of Pook's Hill,
- Rewards and Fairies,
- Departmental Ditties,
- The Tomb of His Ancestors,
- The Man who was,
- The Mark of the Beast,
- Soldiers Three etc.  
Source: Live MCQ Lecture and An ABC of English Literature.

- The repetition of a consonant sound especially at the beginning of two or more words or within words.
- The repetition of a consonant at the beginning of two or more words or stressed syllables is called Alleteration.
- Examples:
- 'The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free.' Here 'f' and 'b' have been repeated.
- 'Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux' is an example of Alleteration. Here 'p' has been repeated thrice and 'b' twice.
- Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
- Ruins seize thee, ruthless king!
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- The Romantic Period began in 1798.
- The duration of the Romantic Period is 1798 to 1832.
- The Victorian Period began in 1832.
- The duration of the Victorian Period is 1832 to 1900.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman.

• Aldous Huxley is an English novelist.
• He remains best known for one novel, Brave New World (1932), a model for much dystopian science fiction that followed.
• Notable Works of Aldous Huxley: ,
- Brave New World,
- Crome Yellow,
- Eyeless in Gaza,
- Point Counter Point,
- The Devils of Loudun,
- The Doors of Perception,
- Those Barren Leaves,
- After Many a Summer Dies the Swan,
- Antic Hay etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- Thomas Moore is a social philosopher, English lawyer, author and statesman.
- He wrote the book 'Utopia'.
- The main theme of 'Utopia' is Humanity.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Elegy is a Lyric poem mourning for the death of an individual or lamenting over a tragic event.
• Famous elegy of English Literature:
- In Memoriam (Alfred Tennyson),
- Lycidas (John Milton),
- Adonais ( P. B. Shelley),
- Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Thomas Gray) etc.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

- Epic is a long narrative poem that tells in grand style the history and aspirations of a national hero.
- Ballad is a narrative poem that tells a story through dialogue and action.
- Ode is an exalted lyric poem that begins with an address to someone, instil anguish in the middle part and ends with consolation.
- Elegy is a Lyric poem mourning for the death of an individual or lamenting over a tragic event.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman.

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist.
• He is considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era.
• His Notable Works:
- The Sorrows of Young Werther,
- Faust,
- Hermann und Dorothea,
- Stella,
- Alexis und Dora,
- Egmont,
- Venetian Epigrams etc.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• The Middle English Period of English Literature is divided into 3 short period.
- The Anglo Norman Period (1066-1340).
- The Age of Chaucer' (1340-1400).
- The Dark or Barren Period (1400-1485/1500).
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman.

•  An apparently self-contradictory statement that hides a rational meaning is called paradox.
• Some example of paradox:
- The world will be saved by failure.
- Cowards die many times before their deaths.
- There is no one so poor as a wealthy miser.
- Sweet are the uses of adversity.
- Ignorance is strength.
- I must be cruel only to be kind.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman.

• Robert Loius Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer.
• His notable works:
- Treasure Island,
- Kidnapped,
- The New Arabian Night,
- The Black Arrow,
- Prince Otto.  
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Kenneth Grahame is a famous British author.
• His notable works:
- The Wind in the Willows (1908) (one of the classics of children’s literature).
- Pagan Papers,
- The Golden Age,
- Dream Days,
- The Reluctant Dragon,
- The Headwoman etc.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr. M Mofizar Rahman & Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• Walt Whitman, in full Walter Whitman, is an American poet, journalist, and essayist whose verse collection Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, is a landmark in the history of American literature.
• His Notable Works:
- Calamus,
- Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,
- Democratic Vistas,
- Drum-Taps,
- I Sing the Body Electric,
- O Captain! My Captain!,
- Song of Myself,
- Specimen Days & Collect,
- Starting from Paumanok.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

• George Robert Gissing was an English novelist.
• His notable works:
- The Nether World,
- Born in Exile,
- The Odd Women,
- Denzil Quarrier,
- The Paying Guest,
- The Whirlpool,
- Charles Dickens: A Critical Study.
Source: An ABC of English Literature, Dr M Mofizar Rahman.

• Charles Dickens is the greatest novelist in the Victorian Period.
• His famous novels:
- David Copperfield,
- A Tale of Two Cities,
- The Battle of Life,
- Great Expectations,
- Our Mutual Friend,
- Oliver Twist,
- The Christmas Carol,
- The Bleak House,
- The Old Curiosity Shop,
- The Pickwick Papers,
- Hard Times,
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Source: Encyclopedia of Britannica.

Playwright is a person who writes plays.
Source: Merriam Webster dictionary.