Questions in American Literature
1. Puritan origins of American Literature
2. Benjamin Franklin and the American Enlightenment
3. Early American fiction (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of
one of the following authors: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper)
4. American Transcendentalism (R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau)
5. The work of Edgar Allan Poe
6. American Romantic fiction (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work
of one of the following authors: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville)
7. 19th Century American poetry (present a general overview; choose and discuss the
work of one of the following poets: E. A. Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson)
8. Mark Twain and his contribution to American literature
9. Realism and naturalism in American fiction (present a general overview; choose and
discuss the work of one of the following authors: Stephen Crane, Jack London,
Theodore Dreiser)
10. The art of Henry James
11. American modernist poetry (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work
of one of the following authors: T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams,
Robert Frost, Gertrude Stein, e. e. cummings)
12. American modernist Fiction (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work
of one of the following authors: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William
Faulkner)
13. American drama (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of one of
the following authors: Eugene O‟Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward
Albee, Sam Shepard, David Mamet)
14. Post-war poetry (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of one of
the following authors: Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Elizabeth
Bishop, Frank O‟Hara, John Ashbery)
15. Post-war American fiction (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work
of one of the following authors: Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John
Updike, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace)
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16. Literature of the American South (present a general overview; choose and discuss the
work of one of the following authors: William Faulkner, Flannery O‟Connor, Truman
Capote, Carson McCullers, Cormac McCarthy)
17. African American literature (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work
of one of the following authors: Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison,
James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison)
18. American ethnic writing (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of
one of the following authors: Amy Tan, Sandra Cisneros, N. Scott Momaday)
19. American women writers (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of
one of the following authors: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton,
Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison)
20. Masters of the American short story (present a general overview; choose and discuss
the work of one of the following authors: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O‟Connor,
Robert Coover, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace)
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TOPICS FOR THE BA FINAL EXAM IN BRITISH LITERATURE
1. Old-English texts and their historical context; the Old English genres: dream vision,
the epic; characteristic features of oral composition: allieration, kenning.
2. Most common medieval genres (characteristics and examples); the allegorical
significance of the General Prologue and the relation between the teller and the tale in
Geoffrey Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales.
3. The medieval romance: presentation of chivalry and courtly love.
4. The English Renaissance and its theatre: the playwrights, plays and the theatre of the
times.
5. William Shakespeare: his comedies (e.g. A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and tragedies
(e.g. Hamlet).
6. Metaphysical poetry: poets and their work; the reception of metaphysical poetry in
later epochs (e.g. Dr Samuel Johnson or T. S. Eliot on Metaphysical Poets).
Metaphysical conceit.
7. John Milton and his work. Biblical and ancient heritage in Paradise Lost.
8. The Age of Reason: major tenets and representatives.
9. The English Gothic of the 18th c. and its future applications (including the Gothic
elements in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens).
10. William Blake: a poet and a visionary.
11. The First Generation of English Romantic poets: representatives and points of
disagreement with their predecessors. The notion of the sublime.
12. The Second Generation of English Romantic poets: representatives and characteristics.
13. The changing face of the British novel, changing attitudes and approaches from its
beginning till the 20th c., including epistolary novel, Bildungsroman, realistic novel,
“stream of consciousness” novel, post-modern novel.
14. Dramatic monologue in English poetry (Browning and Eliot).
15. Victorian novelists and their novels; realism in British prose.
16. The modernist revolution in poetry: characteristic modernist developments and
attitudes, distinguished representatives.
17. The modernist revolution in prose: characteristic modernist developments and the
authors who conducted them.
18. Post-modernism in British prose and drama.
19. Scottish and Irish writers (present a general overview; choose and discuss the work of
one Scottish or Irish poet, novelist or playwright of the 20th century).
20. British women-writers (present a general overview; choose one representative and
present her work).
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Questions in British History and Civilization
1. Celtic and Roman civilizations in Britain
2. Britain in the Anglo-Saxon period and under the Viking rule
3. England in the Middle Ages (the Norman Conquest and its consequences, England
under Henry II, Edward I and the conflict with Scotland, 100-years War)
4. King Henry VIII and his times
5. Queen Elizabeth I and her times
6. The English Civil War – its causes and aftermath
7. English art and architecture (choose your favourite period: Middle Ages, Renaissance,
17th century, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century)
8. Britain‟s political and social thought (choose two figures out of: Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart
Mill, Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, William Morris)
9. The rise and evolution of political parties in 18th and 19th century Britain
10. The Victorian Era: trends in 19th century society and culture
11. Political and social reform in 19th and early 20th century Britain
12. The rise and fall of the British Empire (the British Raj, British presence in Africa)
13. The impact of WWI and WWII on British politics and society
14. The British Labour Party – from the Labour Representation Committee to Tony Blair
15. England and Ireland – history of the conflict
16. Margaret Thatcher and her times
17. Britain‟s parliament and elections
18. Britain‟s educational system
19. Media in Britain
20. Multicultural Britain
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Questions in American History and Civilization
1/ Different cultural, economic and social patterns in the British colonies in North America.
2/ Causes and outcomes of the American Revolution.
3/ The major constitutional and political controversies in the early years of the republic.
4/ The conflict between North and South: sources, most important events before the Civil
War.
5/ The impact of the Civil War on American politics, society and history.
6/ The most important facts, events and figures in the history of African Americans.
7/ The most important facts, events and figures in the history of Native Americans.
8/ History of immigration to the US: periods, most important events; influence of
immigration on US society, culture and economy.
9/ The role of inventions and business innovations in US economic history; famous inventors
and business leaders.
10/ The Gilded Age and the Progressive Period: major political issues, reform movements.
11/ The changing social and political status of the American woman.
12/ The rise of American Empire: Manifest Destiny, the Mexican and Spanish wars; the role
of T. Roosevelt.
13/ The political, social and cultural history of the 1920s and 1930s: a comparison; the New
Deal.
14/ U.S in WW I and WWII: the role of W. Wilson and FDR, respectively; influence of the
two world wars on American society.
15/ United States and the Cold War: the key international and domestic events.
16/ Society, culture and racial politics: 1945-1960.
17/ Political reform, society and culture, from J. Kennedy to B. Clinton.
18/ The constitutional system of checks and balances; the powers of the President, Congress
and the Supreme Court.
19/ American educational system.
20/ U.S. media
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Questions in General Linguistics and TEFL:
1. Define ‘Standard English’ and ‘Englishes’ (including accent, pidgin, Creole, and dialectal
varieties)
2. What language universals do you know? Discuss, providing examples.
3. Discuss the concept of a synonym, antonym, hyponym, homonym and metonym; and
provide examples.
4. Typology of natural languages (discuss major language families and their branches)
5. Do you agree with Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Argue for/against, providing examples.
6. Discuss major principles of language acquisition and learning the natural language.
7. Discuss the features of natural language (absent in animal languages)
8. Discuss the levels of linguistic analysis, providing examples.
9. History: What languages has English been borrowing from? Discuss morphological,
syntactic and lexical borrowings from the early ages until the 21st century.
10. Discuss the difference between inflectional and analytical languages, providing
examples. Illustrate the difference between inflectional and derivational suffixes.
11. Individual learner differences and FL learning
12. Learner strategies and learner autonomy
13. Approaches and methods in foreign language teaching
14. Teaching styles and teaching strategies for classroom interaction and management
15. Teaching aids and materials
16. The lesson in the teaching process
17. Culture and content: beyond language
18. Error correction
19. Language testing and assessment
20. Course planning and syllabus design
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Questions in General Linguistics and Translation Studies
21. Define „Standard English‟ and „Englishes‟ (including accent, pidgin, Creole, and
dialectal varieties)
22. What language universals do you know? Discuss, providing examples.
23. Discuss the concept of a synonym, antonym, hyponym, homonym and metonym; and
provide examples.
24. Typology of natural languages (discuss major language families and their branches)
25. Do you agree with Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Argue for/against, providing examples.
26. Discuss major principles of language acquisition and learning the natural language.
27. Discuss the features of natural language (absent in animal languages)
28. Discuss the levels of linguistic analysis, providing examples.
29. History: What languages has English been borrowing from? Discuss morphological,
syntactic and lexical borrowings from the early ages until the 21st century.
30.
Discuss the difference between inflectional and analytical languages, providing
examples. Illustrate the difference between inflectional and derivational suffixes.
31. Discuss the concept of equivalence, its types, degrees and levels; and provide
appropriate examples.
32. Discuss the concept of methods, techniques and procedures in one of the two translation
strategies (domestication or foreignization); and provide appropriate examples.
33. Discuss the concept LSP vs. LGP translation, and provide appropriate examples.
34. Discuss the concept of linguistic and cultural (un)translatability; and provide appropriate
examples.
35. Discuss the concept of audiovisual translation; its modes and the choice of techniques in a
given mode; and provide appropriate examples.
36. Discuss the concept of translation vs. adaptation; and provide appropriate examples.
37. Discuss the role of the translator in translation vs. interpreting; and provide appropriate
examples.
38. Discuss and provide practical examples of the Scopos theory.
19. Discuss and provide practical examples of the Polysystem theory.
20. Provide an analysis of the original and its two published translations of a book/ article of
your choice.
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