Choose 1 from
the following questions and answer it with 200-250 words.
- In “The Good-Morrow,” John Donne writes: “Where can we find two better hemispheres,/Without sharp north, without declining west?” Explain the meaning of the sentences. What does “sharp north” represent here? What’s the implication of “declining west”?
- What is the theme of W. B. Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan”? What does it mean when the poet wonders whether Leda, "being so caught up" in her brief encounter with God, gained "knowledge" of the meaning of history?
- What is the “metaphysical conceit”? How is it used by John Donne in his poetry (e.g. “The Flea” or “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”) in which striking parallels are established between two very dissimilar things?
- In Claude McKay’s “The Tropics in New York,” what does “the tropics” stand for him as a symbol?
- Describe the conflict in Antigone and its embodiment in the two principal figures.
