Concours Général d'Anglais 2007

Je poste le sujet de l'épreuve que j'ai passée aujourd'hui.

Durée : 5 heures
Classes : Terminales ES, L et S
L'usage de tout dictionnaire est interdit

But while the country people suffered the extremity of want, and the trade of the country was at a standstill, London enjoyed a carnival of the utmost brilliancy. The Court was at Greenwich, and the new King seized the opportunity that his coronation gave him to curry favour with the citizens. He directed that the river, which was frozen to a depth of twenty feet and more for six or seven miles on either side, should be swept, decorated and given all the semblance of a park or pleasure ground, with arbours, mazes, alleys, drinking booths, etc. at his expense. For himself and the courtiers, he reserved a certain space immediately opposite the Palace gates; which, railed off from the public only by a silken rope, became at once the centre of the most brilliant society in England. Great statesmen, in their beards and ruffs, despatched affairs of state under the crimson awning of the Royal Pagoda. Soldiers planned the conquest of the Moor and the downfall of the Turk in striped arbours surmounted by plumes of ostrich feathers. Admirals strode up and down the narrow pathways, glass in hand, sweeping the horizon and telling stories of the north–west passage and the Spanish Armada. Lovers dallied upon divans spread with sables. Frozen roses fell in showers when the Queen and her ladies walked abroad. Coloured balloons hovered motionless in the air. Here and there burnt vast bonfires of cedar and oak wood, lavishly salted, so that the flames were of green, orange, and purple fire. But however fiercely they burnt, the heat was not enough to melt the ice which, though of singular transparency, was yet of the hardness of steel. So clear indeed was it that there could be seen, congealed at a depth of several feet, here a porpoise, there a flounder. Shoals of eels lay motionless in a trance, but whether their state was one of death or merely of suspended animation which the warmth would revive puzzled the philosophers. Near London Bridge, where the river had frozen to a depth of some twenty fathoms, a wrecked wherry boat was plainly visible, lying on the bed of the river where it had sunk last autumn, overladen with apples. The old bumboat woman, who was carrying her fruit to market on the Surrey side, sat there in her plaids and farthingales with her lap full of apples, for all the world as if she were about to serve a customer, though a certain blueness about the lips hinted the truth. ‘Twas a sight King James specially liked to look upon, and he would bring a troupe of courtiers to gaze with him. In short, nothing could exceed the brilliancy and gaiety of the scene by day. But it was at night that the carnival was at its merriest. For the frost continued unbroken; the nights were of perfect stillness; the moon and stars blazed with the hard fixity of diamonds, and to the fine music of flute and trumpet the courtiers danced.
(...)
The river had gained its freedom in the night. It was as if a sulphur spring (to which view many philosophers inclined) had risen from the volcanic regions beneath and burst the ice asunder with such vehemence that it swept the huge and massy fragments furiously apart. The mere look of the water was enough to turn one giddy. All was riot and confusion. The river was strewn with icebergs. Some of these were as broad as a bowling green and as high as a house; others no bigger than a man’s hat, but most fantastically twisted. Now would come down a whole convoy of ice blocks sinking everything that stood in their way. Now, eddying and swirling like a tortured serpent, the river would seem to be hurtling itself between the fragments and tossing them from bank to bank, so that they could be heard smashing against the piers and pillars. But what was the most awful and inspiring of terror was the sight of the human creatures who had been trapped in the night and now paced their twisting and precarious islands in the utmost agony of spirit. Whether they jumped into the flood or stayed on the ice their doom was certain.



I. Version
Traduire de "But while the country people..." jusqu'à "was yet of the hardness of steel".

II. Questions
1. To what purpose and with what benefits does Woolf alternate description and narrative in those passages ?
2. Show on what contrasts the text is based and what effects they convey.
3. Literature and painting are sometimes called the sister arts; how do they relate here ?
4. Would you say the expected ending of the revels illustrates the power of God's wrath or that of poetic justice ?

Oula, je comprend rien, en meme temps, je suis tres tres mauvais en anglais alors...

bon je vais même pas chercher à comprendre je crois ... lol

haha je l'ai fait aussi ce concours mais bon je suis en terminale s et vu les questions ça m'a pas trop aidé.... En plus avant d'arriver dans le centre d'exam ( lycée internationale de st germain ) dans le bus il y avait tous les élèves du lycée qui parlaient en anglais entre eux... ça stresse un peu quand même mais bon finalement ça s'est pas si mal passé que ça j'aurai pu rendre feuille blanche et partir au bout de 30 min mais bon je suis resté 5 heures et j'ai réussi à tout faire... plus ou moins bien lol.. autant dire que je peux rêver pour être récompensé. Si quelqu'un l'a réussi ( éventuellement la personne qui a posté le sujet ) je veux bien voir ce que vous avez fait histoire de voir le niveau !! thx

Franchement ce texte me fait peur.

Surtout que je suis censé avoir un niveau de fou pour l'année prochaine en prépa.

Il est évident que ce concours ne donne une chance de victoire qu'à des bilingues ayant de solides connaissances en littérature anglaise.
Néanmoins avec de l'entraînement (4 sujets blancs pour ma part), on pouvait produire une copie honorable et progresser en vue d'une classe préparatoire.
Je ne peux pas vous poster ma réponse à la version car je l'ai rédigée directement sur la copie. Voici par contre un aperçu de mes questions :

1.
Most of the time, the scene is overseen by the reader. Woolf focuses on the river and describes it as if she wanted to embrace the landscape. But the narrative raises problems since the reader lacks the thread which could lead him amid this hallucinated universe. There is a single leitmotiv in the first passage as far as the narrative is concerned, namely the king. We are told his decision which are embodied by two rare action verbs, viz., "directed" and "reserved". The courtiers' behavior cannot be seen as an actual narrative since it is rather a picture. All the same, King James is percieved also through his feelings, which advises the reader to consider him as a narrative character which "specially liked to look upon [the sight]". In the second passage, "the human characters who had been trapped in the night" do convey a narrative idea since we are told their tragic "doom". Being condemned to death and to the reader's despair, they become a kind of heroes whose "agony of spirit" the reader does sympathise with.
The description and the narrative being clearly distinguished, what do they alternate for ? Woolf's stream of consciousness conveys the idea of a world drawn by one single hand and in which her characters' lifes are melted and can extend to an infinity of events and places. Thus, she does not actually alternate description and narrative but she wants the reader not to be able to split them up. Each description echoes to a hidden narrative which she does not always reveal. The image of the admirals who "strode up and down the narrow pathways" evocates "the north-west passage" but does not lead to any development.

2.
First and foremost, there is a contrast between two worlds, the rich one and the poor one. The first universe is hardly evocated in the first sentence of the text : "the country people suffered the extremity of want". But since none cares about them, they are marooned, cast away and almost forgotten there by the reader. But the utmost contrast is definitely that between the court's celebration and the silent frozen world underground. If the strange royal landscape could be compared with the most psychedelic musical observations of King Crimson (In the Court of the Crimson King), the ice of the river closely borders on death and motionlessness.
These contrasts have a political meaning through the opposition between the king's luxury life and the people's poverty. Blaming him for his blindness, Woolf ridicules James. Instead of "curry[ing] favour" for his apotheosis (apo-theoô means turned into a god in Greek), he is considered as a fool who is unable to take care of his land. In addition, the contrasts have an aesthetical effect upon the reader. Woolf's artistic taste for oppositions and illusions reveal a baroque conception of art which the image of the congealed woman looking "as if she were about to serve a customer, though a certain blueness round the lips hinted the truth" is a singular proof.

3.
To begin with, literature is closely linked with painting in its way to turn the words as images according to Horace's conception : "ut pictura poesis". The scenes which are described are chosen for their equivoque power. Thus the "frozen roses [which] fell in showers" have a painted dimension thanks to the color that the reader will guess as being red and the ice which is linked with a tactile feeling. Throughout the description, Woolf manages to be as detailed as possible so that one can almost paint the scene. For instance, the "bonfires" are so precisely described that their hypotyposis, though illusory, is almost lived by the reader.
However, the painted dimension of literature can only be admitted if one considerers that imagination and image are the same word, but they are not. When Woolf says "the moon and stars blazed with the hard fixity of diamonds", she evocates an impression of brightness and wealth which is but constituted by emotion. No drawing is possible since it would always lack an element of the text.

4.
The sentence "their doom was certain" conveys the idea of God's wrath against the weak ones. God's action is a revenge since "these human creatures" symbolize those who did not choose between a world or the other but stayed upon "precarious islands". Their sin is their hesitation which exists against the race of the world. Their figure can be compared with that of Eveline from Dubliners by James Joyce. She is unable to make up her mind about leaving or not leaving to Buenos Ayres with Frank. Thus "a bell clang upon her heart" announcing her death. It is a punishment against those who'd rather change the order of the world than their desires, against Descartes' advice. Thus, in Shakespeare's play Macbeth, the Weird Sisters' soothsaying leads the thane of Glamis to stab Duncan and to seize the throne of Scotland. But as a feedback effect, the dead "rise again to plague the inventor". This is the proper stuff of tragedy.
"All was riot and confusion." This sentence is the actual illustration of poetic justice which is an expression of wrath and of passion. The contrast between both worlds is resolved through an "awful and inspiring [sight] of terror". Positive or negative, it is always linked with the loss of every basis and the simple illumination which the last verse of John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale shows : "Do I wake or sleep ?" The expected poetic ending is the exact opposite of the beginning, expression of a vague random such as that of another novel by Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway : "Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself." An incredible expression of nothingness.

WOAHH !!!! Pas mal du tout. Je pourrais savoir de quel lycée tu es ? Moi je viens d'un petit lycée et du coup je n'ai eu aucune préparation. Mes réponses étant donc un peu plus longues mais un peu moins précises ( peut être même un peu confuses... ).
En tout cas c'est sur que se préparer pour ce concours est vraiment un bon entrainement pour le supérieur !!

Je viens du lycée Audiberti à Antibes dans les Alpes Maritimes (06).

nico a écrit:

WOAHH !!!!

Je serais tentée de faire le même genre de cri de guerre !

Je n'ai pas tout lu mais tes réponses m'ont frappée notamment par le vocabulaire riche que tu emploie. Je suis en terminale L et je me débrouille plutôt bien en anglais (je viens de section européenne, ce qui n'est pas forcément un gage de qualité mais bref ) et je n'ai jamais rendu une copie pareille.

Comment fais-tu, Imagine, pour progresser en anglais ?

Pour progresser, on ne saurait redire assez de lire et de regarder des films en VO, c'est probablement le meilleur moyen de se familiariser avec la langue.
Ensuite, concernant ce concours en particulier, ma méthode de travail a été surtout basée sur l'entraînement plus que sur l'apprentissage. J'ai choisi de me tester sur quatre sujets tombés les années précédentes - deux en durée indéterminée, deux en temps limité - et de les donner à voir à mon professeur d'anglais pour obtenir diverses suggestions, ce qui permet notamment la précision lexicale.

Punaise je m'en souviens de l'entraînement! Vive les concours blancs qu'on a pu se taper...

Quels bons souvenirs cloisonnés cinq heures dans cette salle au 4e étage du bâtiment des BTS !

Qu'est ce que les gens vont penser!
Sans compter qu'on a l'air d'associaux là mdr!