JAMB Literature in English 1984 Past Questions

In Julius Caesar, we learn that political success depends largely on

'Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?'is a memorable lines from Julius Caesar by

The combined reactions of the plebeians after the separate speeches of Brutus and Antony show that the common man as portrayed in Julius Caesar

Brutus joined the conspiracy against Caesar because he

What literary mode best described Soyinka's The Trial Of Brother Jero, the most central deals with the

Brother Jero's attitude to his vocation is

Of the issues raised by Wole Soyinka in The Trials Of Brother Jero, the most central deals with the

The 'curse' the old master put on Brother Jero is that he would

'Vanished. Transported. Utterly transmuted.
i knew it. i knew i stood in the presence of God...
This statement of Ecstasy was made in The Trials Of Brother Jero by

The dominant mood in Senghor's poem in Memoriam' is one of

In 'Nuit de Sine,'the word 'dark' in 'listern to our dark blood beat' is used

Besides describing scenes of African village night, Senghor's poem 'Nuit de Sine' makes a definiten statement about

'Let me listen in the smoky hut where there comes a glimpse of the friendly spirits
My head on your bosom warm like a dang smoking from the fire'.

The dang in the verse from 'Nuit de Sine' refers to

What feeling dominates J.P Clark''s ''Song''?

'Nkosi Sikekela' in Brutus' 'After Exile', refers to a

The speaker in 'When a Strainer Takes in Water invokes a series of natural impossibilities in order to

'We sang the song before in the thousand seasons of good harvest and full fish following our fathers' footprints on the long shores.'
The most obvious sound device in these lines from Kofi Awoonor's 'More messenger' is

In the poem 'Night Soyinka considers nightfall as

In the poem 'Night Soyinka considers nightfall as

'Clothes were like tattered flags
Flying off
To expose dangling breasts
As jaggered blinding flashes
Rumble, tremble, and crack
Amidst the smell of fired smoke
And the pelting march of the storm'

The general atmosphere portrayed in the above passage is one of

In Animal Farm, the commandments originally drawn up by Snowball and Napoleon sought to declare

'Thou art the giver of
All that thy creatures love,
Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;
Every beast great or small
Sleeps at peace in his stall
Thou watchest over all...'

The poem (Animal Farm) refers to

In Animal Farm, the song
'Beasts of England, beast of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.

was first sung by

Since George Orwell was in fact writing about men while pretending to be writing about animals, his novel, Animal Farm can be classified as

'All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than the others.

In the content of Animal Farm, this statement means that equality

Achebe's Things Fall Apart, can be described as a

'When the district Commissioner arrived at Okonkwo's compound at the head of an armed band of Soldiers and court messengers he found a small crowd of men sitting wearily in the "obi" He commanded them to come outside, and they obeyed without a murmur'
This passage from Things Fall Apart suggests that one of the reasons why traditional African society disintegrated was that Africans are

'A deathly silence descended on Okonkwo's compound. Even the very little children seemed to know. Throughout that day Nwoye sat in his mother's hut and tears stood in his eyes.'
The mood describe in this passage from Things Fall Apart has been bought on by the

The episode in which the priestess of Agbala takes Ezinma to the shrine at night is meant to demostrate how

'...A man who calls his kinsmen to feast does not do so to save them from staving. they all have food in their houses. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound.'
In this passage, as in many other parts of Things Fall Apart, Achebe celebrates

We can take you where he is, and perhaps your men will help us.
In the above sentence taken from Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the pronoun he refers to

A question put, not chiefly to elicit an answer, but to make an emphatic statement is known as

Writing about an abstract object as though it had human qualities is known as

A short emphatic, witty saying, often involving antithesis or paradox is an

The plot of story generally refers to the

The protagonist of a story is generally

What we call 'tragic flaw' is the

A well known epic in English literature is

'Assonance' is the product of a poet's use of

To be complete, a play MUST have

Which of the following was not written by Wole Soyinka?

Which of the following novels was written by a Nigerian?

'Contrition twines me like a snake
Each time i come upon the wake
Of your clan,...'
In this passage 'contrition' is

'It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours...'
The description of the town in this passage suggests

'There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth and every common sight
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore:
Turn wheresoever i may,
By night or day
The things which have seen i now can see no more.'
The mood captured in this passage is one of

'Political languages is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure minds.'

The writer here suggesting that political language is

'The whole space was walled with dark aromatic bushes and was a bowl of heat and light. A great tree, fallen across one corner, leaned against the trees that still stood and rapid climber flaunted red and yellow sprays right to the top.'

In describing the action of the climber, the writer has used the literary device of

'The gates of polished reed closes behind them and the west is let in.'The above are the last two lines of David Rubadins ' Stanley meets Mutesa' and they suggest that

I am not afraid of anything ;, he told them 'I have done almost everything in this world. I have committed all crimes you can think of and been called for most of them. I have been in prison more hours than I have been out of it within the last five years. In recounting his criminal life, this speaker's tone is

'My room was the smallest space I'D ever been in on which a door had closed. There was a bed, built in wardrobe, chair and small table, and above in the ceiling was screwed a one-candlepower bulb it really made you feel welcome....'

The last statement in this passage is an example of