Books and websites for UGC-NET, SLET EXAMS

The season of the UGC-NET and SLET exams is approaching and I am often asked what books should be consulted for preparation. So here goes my recommended list. The basic problems before the aspirants are due to irrationality of the test and own lack of interest in the subject. 

Here is my tip for anyone who wants to perform well at the NET or SLET or any exam for the matter:

Scoring well or clearing is what score board is to a game. The question should not be how to make more runs but how to improve batting or bowling.  Clearing an exam is an outcome of performance , not performance itself. Hence if you develop interest or love for the subject ( History of English literature and criticism)  your performance will improve on its own. 

However, here it goes: 

For the first paper, I think one can use books on Reasoning and Clerical Aptitude published by  Competition Success Review and Manorama Year Books are good for current affairs.

However, for other papers I recommend these books:

Abrams, M.H. and G.G. Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. eleventh edition, Cengage India Learning Pvt Ltd, 2014. Lucid, useful and very wide-ranging introduction to key terms and ideas in the field.

Abrams, M.H. et all ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. I and II. New York and London. W.W. Norton and Company. 10th ed, 2018 is The Maa and Baap of all examinations of English literature. Massive. If you are serious and committed to clear NET/SLET this is the place. But if you are seriously interested in studying English literature this is THE place.

Anjaria, Ulka. ed. A History of the Indian Novel in English. Cambridge University Press, 2015 a much-needed history of Indian novel in English.

Asagoff, Lubna et. all ed. Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an International Language. New York. Routledge. 2012

Cohen, Walter. A History of European Literature: The West and the World from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford University Press. 2017, very useful for world literature questions.

Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2nd ed, 2011. Very lucid and exciting introduction, my personal favourite! Now also has a list of schools and approaches. 

Devy, GN ed. Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation, Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd, 3^rd. ed, 2020. A place to start exploring the key texts in Indian literary criticism and theory, an extremely useful anthology.

Habib, MAR.  A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to Present. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. One of the best introductions to the subject. The chapter on 20th century Criticism is one of the most lucid introductions to a very complex field.

Kudchedkar, Shirin. ed. Readings in English Language Teaching in India. Hyderabad. Orient Longman Pvt Ltd., 2002

 Leitch, Vincent B et al. eds. The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory. NY and London: WW Norton and Co., 3rd ed, 2018. The BAAP of all anthologies of literary criticism and theory. An anthology of essential statements from Plato to Posthumanism, you name it and you have it. 

Mehrotra, AK. An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English, New Delhi: Permanent Black (Ravi Dayal), 2003. A very good starting point for literary history of Indian writing in English.

 Natarajan, Nalini. ed. Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India. Greenwood Press, 1996, a valuable introduction to the twentieth century modern Indian literatures.

Richards, J and Rogers, T. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2nd Edition. 2001. A very comprehensive Introduction to ELT. I studied it during my masters.

Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature.3^rd ed, OUP, 2005, in my view the best history of English literature I have read, though there are others more useful from examination purposes, this one provides an analysis based on the sociological and cultural contexts and is very readable. It replaces the dated Legois and Cazamian history. Paul Poplawski ed. English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2^nd ed, 2017 is more examination oriented.

Stinger, Jenny ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English. Oxford and New York. Oxford University Press. 1996. Fairly comprehensive guide to key texts and authors of world literature in English. 

You can check out following links too:

i) Luminarium.org is a very good site

ii) Indian English Literature

iii) Bartleby is a very good site
iv) Britannica. com for English literature also has a good entry on prosody 
v) Lang Nagoya is a site with links to other sites
vi) Study.com has an online course on basics of English literature 
vii) Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy provides a discussion and reading list for literary criticism and theory
viii) Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has a good information about literary theory and criticism 

ix) Here is a link to OTHER USEFUL LINKS ON THE NET is made by yours faithfully. It is a very good page indeed ...
x) MY YOUTUBE PLAYLIST OF USEFUL VIDEOS FOR NET/SET ASPIRANTS

From Shoka to Shloka in Gujarat

Today, I attended a very interesting lecture on `Poetry as Language of Persuasion’ delivered by one of the best living poets of Gujarat, Sitanshu Yashashchandra Mehta at Forum of Contemporary Theory, Vadodara. Evoking the epics by Dante and Valmiki, Prof Mehta discussed how poetry is an account of travel and journey. The lecture was organized under the national workshop on ` Towards an Ecology of Knowledge’ by the Forum on Contemporary Theory and Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and other Human Sciences. Prof Mehta was critical of the Indian intellectual’s reliance on the Western paradigms. He advised us not be the ` darlings of the West’ by quoting Derrida etc. He was also critical of the idea of `General Semantics‘ as being imported. He remarked that the experts in General Semantics’ who had come to enlighten the participants of the workshop would be rewarded if the young Indian scholars would `offer them `our’ riches, as intellectual return gifts’. He then talked of the ancient Indian poetics  and talked about the mythical story of the origin of poetry where Valmiki, the composer of the Ramayana, saw a hunter kill one of the Krauncha birds which were mating nearby. Valmiki , as the legend goes, was so deeply grieved ( shoka= grief) by the plight of birds that he composed the first shloka ( a couplet) of the Ramayana. The inspiration for the epic came from the grief of a bird. Prof Mehta also talked about Auden’s famous elegy on Yeats , quoting the following lines:

 In the nightmare of the dark

          All the dogs of Europe bark,

Prof Mehta pointed out how the poets have to descend the depths of darkness when the dogs of Europe ( like Musolini , Hitler and, Prof Mehta said, Indians would add Churchill) barked ceaselessly.

In the question answer session, yours faithfully expressed his reservations and doubts ( as usual). I said that the whole idea of ` our riches’ is not that simple. Determination of what  is `ours’ is probably as violent as `othering’. Who decides what is `ours’ and who would feel that the `ours’ is not really `ours’, I asked.

I also pointed out that forget the Congress vs the BJP or the notion of activism or of ideology ( the things ,our reputed poet , should not pressurize  a poet to write certain type of poetry). I said even if we stayed within the classical notion of poetry of shloka( poetry)  being inspired by shoka ( grief) of a dying bird, I dont understand why so many poets ( I was not referring to him in particular but many Gujarati poets ) did not find inspiration or feel shoka in the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and write shlokas about it. Instead, I said continuing the Audenesqe analogy,  they preferred to join the Dogs of India in barking. Had Valmiki been alive, he would not have preferred the seclusion of his hermitage in such circumstances. I said that the question was not of ideology but of the poet’s sensitivity.

Prof Mehta, very kindly responded that he, like many others had indulged in silences but one should not be selective in protesting. One should not just protest the killings after the Godhra tragedy but also protest the death of people who died in the train, he said. He said we should also protest the plight of Kashmiri pandits who have lost their homes.

I thought to myself how can a person who does not understand or sympathize with  the tragedy of the rape and burning alive of pregnant women near home can ever understand the tragedy of people living in Kashmir. When one is insensitive to terrorism at home, can one understand terrorism in a far away land?