Unit 1 - Poetry in English Literature
UGC NET English Paper 2 Complete Study Material
✍️ This comprehensive unit covers the evolution of poetry from Anglo-Saxon verse to contemporary experimental forms, including major poets, poetic movements, critical theories, and analytical approaches essential for UGC NET English Paper 2 preparation.
Anglo-Saxon poetry (Beowulf), Middle English (Chaucer), Elizabethan sonnets (Shakespeare, Sidney), Metaphysical poetry (Donne, Herbert), and Cavalier poets.
"Batter my heart, three-person'd God" - John Donne
Key Concepts: Alliterative verse, Iambic pentameter, Conceit, Carpe diem, Petrarchan vs Shakespearean sonnet
Study Early PoetryNeoclassical poetry (Pope, Dryden), Pre-Romantics (Gray, Blake), and Romantic movement (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron).
"My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky" - Wordsworth
Key Concepts: Poetic diction, Sublime, Negative capability, Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
Master RomanticsTennyson, Browning, Arnold, Pre-Raphaelites (Rossetti), and transitional poets (Hopkins).
"Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why" - Tennyson
Key Concepts: Dramatic monologue, Inscape/Instress, Pathetic fallacy, Victorian doubt
Explore VictoriansYeats, Eliot, Pound, Imagists (H.D.), and war poets (Owen, Sassoon).
"April is the cruellest month" - T.S. Eliot
Key Concepts: Objective correlative, Mythic method, Free verse, Stream of consciousness
Study ModernismConfessional (Plath, Sexton), Beat (Ginsberg), Postcolonial (Walcott, Heaney), and Language poetry.
"I have done it again. / One year in every ten" - Plath
Key Concepts: Disjunction, Intertextuality, Performativity, Ecopoetics
Analyze ContemporaryPioneers (Derozio, Tagore), Post-independence (Ezekiel, Ramanujan), and contemporary voices (Daruwalla, Patel).
"Where the mind is without fear" - Tagore
Key Concepts: Hybridity, Indigenous forms, Postcolonial identity, Bhakti influences
Explore Indian PoetrySonnet, Ode, Elegy, Villanelle, Sestina, Blank verse, Free verse, and experimental forms.
"Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" - Dylan Thomas (Villanelle)
Key Concepts: Meter, Rhyme scheme, Enjambment, Caesura, Synesthesia
Study Poetic FormsClassical (Aristotle, Longinus), Romantic (Wordsworth, Coleridge), New Criticism, Reader-response, and Poststructuralist approaches.
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" - Wordsworth
Key Concepts: Intentional fallacy, Affective fallacy, Defamiliarization, Death of the author
Learn Poetic TheoryPoetry Analysis Practice
Identify the Poetic Device
"The fog comes on little cat feet"
Match the Poet to the Work
Scansion Practice
Mark the meter in this line:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
🚨 UGC NET ALERT!
For any specific content reach out us on Instagram and Master it !
Join Telegram channel for instant updates
All the best for UGC NET june 2025