NB:  IF YOU HAVE A CONFLICT WITH THE FINAL EXAMINATION TIME BELOW, PLEASE E-MAIL ME BY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9 (saville@illinois.edu) SO THAT I CAN FIND AN ALTERNATIVE TIME THAT WILL ACCOMMODATE ALL REQUESTS. PLEASE INCLUDE IN YOUR MESSAGE SOME TIMES WHEN YOU WOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR AN ALTERNATIVE EXAM. 

1. The final exam is scheduled for Tuesday night, December 14, from 7:00 - 10:00pm in the regular lecture room (Armory 101). Those students who have contacted me about a conflict will take the exam at the alternative time and in the place we have arranged.
2. You will not be allowed to use books or notes during the exam.
3. Exam answer booklets will be provided.
4. Take care not to miss this exam. All-campus rules require that we give a course grade of "ABS" -- an automatic failure -- to any student who is absent from the final. Only a dean can excuse a student from a final exam for only very limited reasons. 

The exam will have three parts: 

Part 1: Identifications (3 x 10 = 30 marks/Suggested time--30 minutes?)
Part 2: Comparing periods through close reading (1 x 30 marks/1 hour?)
Part 3: Final Consolidation Essay (1 x 40 marks/30 minutes?)
Total marks = 100 ÷ 4 = 25%           
Total time = 2 hours' work (you may use 3 hours if you need them.)

Let me describe each part in more detail:

Part 1: This will follow the pattern used in the Midterm. Out of 5 quotations, you will be asked to choose 3; identify the author (2 points), the work (2 points), and summarize the significance of each quotation for the work in which it appears (6 points).
ONLY TEXTS READ FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ONWARD (that is, from Week Eleven, Thomas Hardy onward) WILL BE TESTED IN THIS SECTION.

Part 2: This question is intended to test your ability to recognize the characteristics of particular periods as they emerge within representative literary works. The titles of works and their authors will be supplied. In other words, there is no testing of identification in this section.
Part 2 is introduced with the following instructions: 

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1. Below are three sections (A, B, & C) each containing two compared passages.
2. Choose one of the sections, e.g.
A: THE ROMANTIC PERIOD AND THE VICTORIAN AGE
or
B: THE VICTORIAN AGE AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
or
C: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

            3. Write an essay of roughly 4 pages (a page = one side) discussing how the extracts from the two
literary texts in your chosen section reflect, engage with, or avoid the cultural concerns that prevail in the periods from which they are taken.

[NOTE: The following prompts may help you to stay focused, but you should NOT answer them directly:
I: What is the chief preoccupation of each passage, and more broadly, each work quoted?
II: What if anything is remarkable about the literary genre or form each writer has chosen?
III: Are you struck by any particular figures of speech used? If so, consider how the figure works.         
IV: Do you notice any common themes in the two passages?
V: Do the passages reflect any striking contrasts? ]

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TO DO THIS SECOND SECTION WELL, you will need to have a clear sense of the characteristics, issues, and preoccupations that predominate in each period. If you can demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the text from which the extract comes and the author who wrote it, you will do better than the person who depends purely on the cited material.

Part 3: This will be a broadly phrased essay question asking you to write a narrative, plotting shifts in British cultural consciousness reflected in the literature of the time period that we have studied (1798 to the Present). It is up to you to choose which narrative threads you want to emphasize and which texts you will draw on to illustrate them. You might, for instance, focus on shifts in representations of individual interiority or public consciousness; differing representations of relations between men and women; changes in religious beliefs; shifting relations between English national identity and the British Empire, and so on. The richer your perspective, the more tightly argued and specifically illustrated your account, the more points you are likely to earn. This is your chance to show off the best of what you have learned in the past 15 weeks. The length limit here will be roughly FOUR pages.

Last Note:
No direct questions will be set on:
                      Jane Austen, Persuasion
                       Charles Dickens, Hard Times .
If you particularly enjoyed these novels, you are welcome to include discussion of them in Part 3, your consolidation essay.

"Bon Courage" for the final review process.