MAE Comprehensive Exam

Each fall, the MA in English exam committee chooses 4-6 literary texts drawn from a variety of literary periods, genres, and traditions, along with a single critical essay that introduces a topic or theme developed prominently in these literary works. Some literary texts that have appeared on the exam in the past include King Lear, Song of Solomon, Villette, The Beaux Strategem, and Pride and Prejudice. Some recent topics have included: “the carnivalesque,” love and knowledge, and romantic comedy. To take the exam, students must have completed their coursework or be taking their final courses in the quarter in which the exam is offered.

The exam takes place in the computer lab in McGaw on a Saturday in March/April and in September of each calendar year. Students may bring to the exam only the works on the reading list. These texts may be annotated, but no secondary material or other sources will be allowed, except for a dictionary or thesaurus. The exam is divided into two periods--three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, usually 9:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00.

In the morning half of the exam, students write two/three short essays (from a choice of four topics) which demonstrate their ability to perform close and meticulous readings of the formal and thematic features of individual passages drawn from the literary texts.

The afternoon question asks students to draw sustained and supportable connections among all of the texts on the exam, both literary and critical. The afternoon question will be sent one week in advance to students by e-mail. The committee encourages them to prepare diligently to write this question, but not to bring in actual drafts or notes.

In advance of each exam, the program director in English will hold at least one orientation session to assist student in their preparations for the test.

The MAE exam committee will evaluate the exams and deliver the results to the MA program director about a month after the exam date. The Director will notify students via e-mail. The exam grades are Distinction, Pass, and Fail.


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Texts for the Exam

The second session of the final exam for the MA in English will take place on Saturday, September 13, 2008. The works on the reading list are as follows, in the following editions:

William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew: Texts and Contexts, edited by Frances Dolan. (St. Martin's Press, ISBN 978-0312108366)

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. (Dover Thrift edition: ISBN 978-0486419312.)

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea with the Norton Edition,l (ISBN 978-0393960129 )

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (Norton, ISBN: 978-0393312836)

This exam will ask students to think about the relationship between language, power and literary writing. To what extent has language been a way of mediating, challenging, or re-imagining regimes of power? How might we think of literary writing as both a lens and a tool for the dismantling of power? In what ways do these works examine the relationships between violence and power, voice and power, identity and power in imaginative ways?

How does power work through class and gendered subjectivities and how is it resisted through the strategic deployment of these very identities? How are strategies like mimicry and counter-realism used to resist and subvert the power of the colonial/masculine gaze?

Additional Resources

We are also making available (in McGaw 255) a small selection of additional secondary material which we expect you to read and consider:

1. Fanon, Frantz. "The Negro and Language" in Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Constance Farrington. NY: Grove Press, 1994.

2. Author: Bhabha, Homi. "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse" in Rice, Philip (ed.); Waugh, Patricia (ed.), Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. London, England: Arnold, 1996.

3. Bhabha, Homi. "The Other Question: Difference, Discrimination, and the Discourse of Colonialism, " in Baker, Houston A., Jr. (ed. & introd.); Diawara, Manthia (ed.); Lindeborg, Ruth H. (ed. & introd.); Best, Stephen (introd.), Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader. Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1996.

Needless to say, these three readings are only the beginning of your research.

Rules and Format of the Exam

You may bring to the exam only the four works on the reading list. Your texts can be annotated, but no secondary material or other sources will be allowed, except for a dictionary. While you are not expected to write a polished, “take-home” essay, your writing has to be correct and clear, and you have to respond to the questions posed with pointed, specifically supported discussions. Students fail this exam when their writing is consistently incorrect, when they ignore or misunderstand the questions posed, or when they do not respond to the required number of questions. Pace yourself. Leave time to revise and edit what you write.

In case of a computer malfunction, another computer will be provided, but it is your responsibility to save your work. At the end of both the morning and afternoon session, we will save each student’s exam to a flashdrive. The exam is divided into two periods--three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, usually 9:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00. These time limits will be strictly enforced; you must stop writing when the end of each period is announced. After each period is over, you may print out your discussion for that period.

****Important Note****

• Copies of the texts have been ordered and should be available through the DePaul Lincoln Park Campus Bookstore. You may also order them on Amazon as long as you get the editions listed above.

• Copies of the Additional Resources should be available for a small fee in the English Department Office, McGaw 255, on Wednesday, May 28, 2007. Please see Mrs. Cathy Clarke, the English Department Secretary, for the copies. In addition, we have scanned copies into the MA in English Blackboard site for the benefit of those students who are unable to make it to campus before the English Department Office closes.