THE ORAL EXAMINATION

Every candidate for the M.A. in English must pass an oral examination. For this examination, the candidate will present a reading list of 30 to 40 works produced in consultation with his/her orals advisor or thesis director and approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. The design of the list should reflect a "framework" that provides some critical perspective on the material. The candidate will provide the orals committee with a description and rationale for this framework. The list must include major canonical works from periods both preceding and following 1700, and must include works by Chaucer and Shakespeare. In addition, the list must include both British and American literature and may include other non-British literatures.

The intention is that the candidate will provide an organizing theme, genre, interpretive problem, etc. that will allow the exam to explore a wide range of material while retaining a critical focus. For example, choosing first-person lyric poetry as a genre might require not only that the candidate read several significant works in that form, but that he or she also read and be ready to discuss its relation to and difference from first-person narrative poetry, the soliloquy, frame narratives, and other related forms. The candidate should know something about the critical problems presented by first-person discourse and how writers have approached the issues over time. The exam itself should show that the candidate has carefully thought out a problem, as displayed by a command of the exam's framework and reading list. For those candidates who choose the thesis option, the exam's design should in addition give evidence of the candidate's having thought out a subject and approach for the thesis.

You should be meeting with your chosen advisor at least five or six times over the course of a semester. The more you discuss your proposal and your choices of texts, both with your advisor and with other professors, the more you will be rehearsing for the actual examination, and the more comfortable you will be with your ideas. Last minute attempts to gather together a reading list, a proposal, and a supervisor will probably result in failure; as a guideline, you should have all three ready by the beginning of the term in which you intend to take the examination.

A plan for adequate preparation should also follow these guidelines: a) the proposal and reading list should be scrupulously proof-read (this is a degree in English; spelling mistakes in titles and the names of authors are especially bad, if not fatal); b) you must know the who-what-where-when-why-and-how of your chosen texts (memorized quotations of significant lines or phrases, moreover, will be most welcome); c) you must be able to demonstrate that you have read the whole text. You should be able to provide all prospective examiners with a complete proposal and list at least one week prior to the examination.

The exam will be administered and chaired by the advisor and will include two or three other faculty members, one of whom must come from outside the department.

The scheduling of the exam will depend on whether the candidate chooses the thesis or the non-thesis option. In all cases, the candidate should establish a relation to an advisor by the time he/she has completed 18 hours of course work, and should propose a design for the exam soon afterwards, generally at the end of the first year or the beginning of the second year of study.