This document provides the instructions for a final exam on the course "Modernism and Beyond". It lists 5 essay questions students can choose from to answer in 1500-2000 words. The questions cover topics such as how modernist novels rejected tradition and convention, themes of alienation and isolation in modernist works, skepticism about beliefs and language expressed in novels by Joseph Conrad, and representations of sexuality/death, freedom/constraint, and the "New Woman" in modernist literature. Students have 2 hours to complete the exam on April 6th, 2009 from 8-10pm.

1. BBL 5106 MODERNISM AND BEYOND
FINAL EXAMINATION
SECOND SEMESTER 2008/2009
6 April 2009
8.00 p.m. – 10.00 p.m.
Answer only one question.
Length of essay: 1500-2000 words
Questions
1. ‘The most controversial aspect of the modern movement was, and remains, its rejection
of tradition, both in organization, and in the immediate experience of the work. This
dismissal of tradition also involved the rejection of conventional expectations: hence
modernism often stresses freedom of expression, experimentation, radicalism, and
primitivism.’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism). Illustrate the statement above by
discussing two or more novels that have been covered in this course.
2. ‘Until now . . . we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist,
which means that to be truthful is to use the customary, hence edifyingly expressed
metaphors; we have heard only of the duty to lie in accordance with firm conventions, to
lie herd-like in a style binding for all.’ (Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On Truth and Lie in an
Extra-Moral Sense’.) Explore the sense of alienation and isolation in two or more
Modernist novels that have been covered in this course.
3. 'Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once
pronounced, die.' Joseph Conrad, 'Letter to Cunninghame Graham' 14th January 1898.
Discuss the scepticism about the efficacy of belief and / or language in two or more
Modernist novels that have been covered in this course.
4. Discuss the relationship between sexuality and death, or freedom and constraint, in two
or more Modernist works.
5. Examine how the ‘New Woman’ is represented by two or more Modernist writers.
GOOD LUCK