UGC NET & SET English – Best Topics to Prepare for the Beginners

As per the newly implemented syllabus of UGC NET English, the following major topics are derived from each unit. This will help you what to prepare in all the units of the syllabus. This will be the same for the SET Exams in English Literature of all states.

Unit-1 Drama

• British Literature & Non-British Literature
• The Tragedy, Morality, Miracle, Mystery Play and Interlude, The Melodrama, The Tragi-Comedy, The Romantic Comedy, The Comedy of Humours, The Comedy of Manners, Sentimental Comedy, The Farce, The Masque, The Poetic Play, The Dramatic Monologue, The Problem Play, The One Act Play
• University Wits, Other Groups of Dramatists

Unit-2 Poetry

• British Literature & Non-British Literature
• Epic, Mock-Epic, Sonnets, Ode, Lyric, Pastoral, Pastoral Elegy, Elegy, Ballads, Satires
• Chaucerian Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Elizabethan Poetry, Modern Poetry, etc.

Unit-3 Fiction, Short Story

• British Literature & Non-British Literature
• Novel of sentiment and sensibility, Picaresque, Gothic, Industrial Novel, Silver Folk Novel, Campus Novel, Prose romance, The Travelogues, The Epistolary Novel, The Domestic Novel, The Historical Novel, The Regional Novel, The Prophetic Novel, The Psychological Novel, The Short Stories

Unit-4 Non-Fictional Prose

• British Literature & Non-British Literature
• Long Prose works, The Essay, The Periodicals, The Biography, The Auto-biography, The Memoirs, historical writings, scientific writings, etc.
• Johnson, Hazlitt, Sidney, Ruskin, Walter Pater, Arnold, etc.

Literary Groups and Movements From Unit-1 to 4

•       The Romantic Movement

•       The Oxford Movement

•       The Aesthetic Movement

•       The University Wits

•       The Graveyard school of poetry

•       The Pre-Raphaelite School of Poetry

•       Tribe of Ben

•       Bloomsbury Group

•       Kailyard School

•       The Metaphysical School of Poets

•       Utilitarianism

•       Aestheticism and Decadence, Expressionism

•       Impressionism

•       Imagism, Futurism & Vorticism, Surrealism,

•       Kit-cat Club

•       Diasporic Writers

•       The Renaissance

•       The Reformation

•       Periodicals

•       Disaster/Catastrophe/ Apocalyptic Fiction

•       Edwardian and Georgian poetry

•       Beat Movement

•       Important Literary Terms & Devices

•       Poet Laureates

•       Nobel Laureates

•       Chronological Order of Literary Movements

•       New Apocalyptic Movement, Movement Poets

•       Gay and Lesbian Writing

Unit-5 Language: Basic Concepts, Theories and Pedagogy. English in Use

• Concepts of English Language: ESL, EFL, TESOL, EAP, etc.
• Communication skill and English
• Recommendations of Education Commissions on teaching English language
• Methods & Approaches to ELT
• Evaluation and Assessment in ELT; Various types of Tests: Achievement test, Proficiency test, Diagnostic test

Unit-6 English in India: History, Evolution and Futures

• English before Independence and after Independence
• Recommendations on English Language Teaching in India
• Charter Act, Macaulay’s Minute, Wood’s Dispatch, Indian Education Commission(1882), Indian Universities Commission, Indian University Act, Calcutta University Commission, National Policy on Education(1968), Acharya Rammurti Commission(1990), The Study Group Report on the Teaching of English(1969-71)

Unit-7 Cultural Studies

• Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy
• F R Leavis’ The Great Tradition
• Raymond Williams & Richard Hoggart
• Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS-1964)
• Stuart Hall and Four Stages of Communication
• IMP Books: Uses of Literacy by Hoggart; Culture and Society and The Long Revolution by Williams; The Making of the English Working Class by Thompson

Unit-8 Literary Criticism

• Classical Criticism: Plato, Aristotle, Horace and Longinus
• Medieval & Renaissance Criticism
• English Neo-Classical Criticism: Dryden, Pope, Johnson
• Romantic & Victorian Criticism: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold
• 20^th Century Criticism: Eliot
• Structuralism, Post-structuralism & Deconstruction, New Historicism, Cultural Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxist Criticism, Post-Colonial Theory, Queer Theory, Ecocriticism

Unit-9 Literary Theory Post-World War II

• New Criticism (I A Richards, Wimsatt and Beardsley, Cleanth Brooks)
• Cultural Materialism (Raymond Williams)
• Feminist Criticism (Four Waves)
• Russian Formalism (Victor Shklovsky, Roman Jacobson)
• Post-Colonialism (Edward Said’s Orientalism, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha)

Unit-10 Research Methods and Materials in English

• Research Tools and techniques in Literature
• Research Terminology in Literature
• Research Materials in Literature Studies
• Types of Research in English Literature
• APA Style, MLA Style, Hypotheses, Research Report, Article & Paper writing, Publication ethics, Peer Review, UGC Care, etc.