ENGLISH LITERATURE

Let's get this straight- I love literature but as to English literature for UPSC, I’m pretty confused. To start with, my notes are super messy for an outsider (they make perfect sense in my head.) But more importantly, it’s the seesaw marks. 

I found the jump from- 268 in my first attempt to 285 in the second attempt to be perfectly justified. In this 3rd attempt, I was extremely happy and confident that I’d performed perfectly well and was expecting anywhere over 290+, maybe even 300 and beyond (with a fairly realistic comparison to what I’d written in the 2nd attempt in my judgement). Alas, the score crashed to 262 super unexpectedly. So now, I’m not too confident of whether it was just a super bad day or do I need to question my notes and answers. 

Nonetheless, let me set the record straight in UPSC style- pros and cons of English Literature as an optional.

PROS

• Fiction is fun- always.
• Not too technical- common sensical and creative reading is expected to be displayed in lucid writing (No literary theories, technical terms, details about writers or eras etc expected unlike graduation)
• Well defined boundaries- seldom anything is asked beyond the  five plays, 14 novels and about 55 odd poems.
• Repetitive – themes and sometimes even questions are repeated over the years.

CONS

• Uncertain scores (at least in my experience)
• Subjectivity as against science related optionals like maths etc (jisme sahi h to full marks).
• Lack of coaching teachers, mock tests etc.
• Reading can become bulky eg. 400-500+ pages novels.

Having seen the two sides, now bring out the Nancy Drews and Sherlock Holmes in you as my notes are coming. My basic approach has been-

First of all check what themes they’ve been asking in PYQs, read the text keeping those themes in mind and keep underlining the parts relevant to those themes in the 1st cycle.

Eng lit themes

In the 1st cycle almost everything looks important and it will make little sense (so it should be). Attaching 1st cycle notes for Paper 1 drama- it can be completely skipped unless you don't know that you gotta step into the dirty, illegible bit to reach your final set of notes. 

Paper one drama 1st cycle

Continue shortening and structuring down to the gist in multiple cycles so that you finally reach the point where you can form answers to the themes asked from your notes.

Paper one drama final notes

Some more examples of similar nature-

Paper 1 novel

For Eg in mill on the floss- I could largely find just two themes asked: uniqueness of narrator and how much was the protagonist’s fate dependent on her choice vs societal obligations. 

In Tess as well, it was the similar question of determinism vs choice. Other things asked were its symbolism and similarity to Greek drama.

Similarly, in Huckleberry Finn, they’ve asked about slavery, River and other issues/satire addressed in the book so that has been covered in the notes. 

Paper 1 poetry

Again, first 3 pages are the rough notes of 1st cycle. Next 3 are the final notes- was the poet of the Devil’s side or God’s side, traditional epic versus Christian epic and patriarchy in Paradise lost.

I couldn't find too many of my attempted answers as there were no full length tests and hence all the answers are scattered but will keep updating as and when I find them here-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VXRw4EVyHAzWZpGYVNIVGmQcbvzK1NMN?usp=drive_link

Find yourself a corner and lose yourself between the pages!