UPSC Mains Syllabus 2024 For English Literature 2024-25- The UPSC Mains, also known as the Civil Services (Main) Examination, is the second stage of the Civil Services Examination (CSE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) of India. It is a highly competitive exam that selects candidates for various prestigious positions in the Indian government, including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), and Indian Revenue Service (IRS).
UPSC Mains Syllabus 2024
| UPSC Mains Syllabus Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| Papers | Subjects | Marks |
| Paper A | Any Indian Language (compulsory) – qualifying paper | 300 Marks |
| Paper B | English – qualifying paper | |
| Paper 1 | Essay (you can choose to write it in a medium of your choice) | 250 Marks |
| Paper 2 | General Studies 1 (Indian and World History, Culture, Heritage, & Geography) | |
| Paper 3 | General Studies 2 (Polity, Constitution, Governance, International Relations & Social Justice) | |
| Paper 4 | General Studies 3 (Economic Development, Technology, Disaster Management & Security, Biodiversity) | |
| Paper 5 | General Studies 4 (Aptitude, Ethics, & Integrity) | |
| Paper 6 | Optional Subject: Paper 1 | |
| Paper 7 | Optional Subject: Paper 2 | |
Paper-I
Literary Theory and Criticism
- Major schools of literary criticism: Classical, Romantic, Marxist, Formalist, New Critical, Structuralist, Post-structuralist, Feminist, etc. UPSC Mains Syllabus 2024 For English Literature
- Important critical concepts: Genre, form, style, narrative, voice, metaphor, symbol, image, etc.
- Literary movements: The Renaissance, Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Metaphysical poetry, The Epic and the Mock-Epic, Neoclassicism, Satire, The Romantic Movement, The Rise of the Novel, The Victorian Age, Modernism, Postmodernism, etc.
Poetry
- Representative poems from different periods and genres
- Pre-Chaucerian poetry: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Chaucer: Canterbury Tales
- Renaissance poetry: Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe
- Elizabethan and Jacobean drama: William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, etc.), Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus), Ben Jonson (Volpone)
- Metaphysical poetry: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan
- Neoclassical poetry: Alexander Pope, John Dryden
- Romantic poetry: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron
- Victorian poetry: Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti
- Modern poetry: T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, etc.
- Postmodern poetry: Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Adrienne Rich, etc.
Prose
- Representative works of prose from different periods and genres:
- Medieval prose: Malory’s Morte d’Arthur
- Renaissance prose: Thomas More’s Utopia, Francis Bacon’s Essays
- Neoclassical prose: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
- Romantic prose: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
- Victorian prose: Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles
- Modern prose: James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, etc.
- Postmodern prose: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, etc.
Section B
A prescribed literary text:
Candidates will be expected to show a detailed understanding of the prescribed text, including its plot, characters, themes, language, style, and literary significance. UPSC Mains Syllabus 2024 For English Literature 2024
Paper-II
World Literature
- Major literary works from different parts of the world, including:
- Greek and Roman literature: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid
- European literature: Dante’s Divine Comedy, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Goethe’s Faust, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, etc.
- American literature: Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, etc.
- Asian literature: The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, etc.
- African literature: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind, etc.
Drama
- Representative plays from different periods and genres
- Greek drama: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Euripides’ Medea
- Elizabethan and Jacobean drama: William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, etc.), Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus), Ben Jonson (Volpone)
- Modern drama: Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, etc.
- Postmodern drama: Sarah Kane’s Blasted, Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, etc.
UPSC Mains Qualifying Papers 2024
Paper-A: Any Indian Language (Qualifying)
- You can choose any language listed in the 8th schedule of the Indian Constitution to answer this paper.
- The paper tests your basic reading comprehension, writing, and translation skills in the chosen language.
- The marks obtained in this paper are not counted for ranking and you only need to secure a minimum of 33% to qualify.
Paper-B: English (Qualifying)
- This paper assesses your basic understanding of English grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension.
- It involves writing essays, precis writing, and comprehension passages.
- Similar to Paper-A, marks obtained are not considered for ranking, and you only need to score at least 33% to pass. UPSC Mains Syllabus 2024 For English Literature