Final Draft Due: Tuesday, February 6 at the beginning of class
Essay Length: 4-5 pages (approx. 1500-1800 words); graduate students (see me for details)
Getting Started
Read through all of the paper topics and spend some time planning a response to more than one. In other words, "try the topic on" to see how it fits. What text would you focus on? How does this text fit the topic? What are some of the complications that might arise from the use of this text, bearing in mind that complications can often be a source of the greatest interest for writer and reader?
Once you have selected a topic and the text that will be your focus, spend some time with the text. Reread it with the new perspective of the paper you plan to write. Be careful, though, not to simply reread it to find evidence to support your position. Instead be open to the possibility that you might find both confirming and contradictory evidence. Don’t dismiss the contradictory evidence. Keep track of it.
Look through your notes on the topic and the text and develop a preliminary thesis.
Write a draft (or drafts) of your paper. Find someone in class willing to look at your essay (offer to look at his or her in return). Be careful about relying on friends—you want good feedback that will help you revise your paper and make it better; you don’t want friendly comments like "It looks pretty good to me." You can also visit the Writing Center at any stage of the process—when you are trying to find a topic, when you are developing possible responses to the topic, when you are developing a preliminary thesis, when you are drafting.
Be sure to proofread your essays carefully, and consider giving your paper to a friend or classmate for proofreading. Also read your paper out loud to yourself before completing a final draft—make sure it sounds like spoken English and not like paper-ese. Try for an easy, graceful, but not overly casual writing style; assume a reader who knows the text, but has not memorized every detail.
Suggested Paper Topics
Analyze one section (or a couple of related sections) of Tennyson’s In Memoriam and argue for its significance to the work as a whole. Is there an issue raised, interrogated, and resolved in the section(s) in question? Or is this passage a moment of failed understanding and failed resolution, in which the speaker despairs? What themes and issues central to the poem as a whole does this passage explore? How does its form reflect the technical strategies of the poem as a whole?
Many of Browning’s dramatic monologues work very hard to seem like spontaneous reflections by a particular speaker. But this "stream of consciousness" effect is achieved by carefully calculated techniques. Do a close reading of a brief section or two of his poetry in which you analyze and explicate the technical strategies by which he achieves the effect of spontaneity.
Victorian poets were concerned with the problems of connection and communication between individuals. Focus on one poem (or one section of In Memoriam) and argue what position this poem takes on the importance and the possibility of connection.
Religious doubt led to other kinds of doubts for Victorian poets: doubts about values, about one’s place in society, about the purpose or even necessity of art, and many others. Focus on one poem (or one section of In Memoriam) and discuss how an understanding of doubt helps inform a reading of the text.
Discuss the ways in which one of the authors we have read explores the function of art in the Victorian Era. What does the author in question define as "art"? What should it do? What should an artist do? Does (s)he have any moral imperatives? Any responsibilities to his or her public? How are these responsibilities shaped by (what the author defines as) uniquely Victorian issues? In other words, how does the author define art and its role in his or her era?
Many of the poems we have read include addresses to an imagined reader. Analyze a set of these interruptions and argue for an interpretation of their significance to the poem from which they come.
Discuss the function of gender in one or two of the poems or essays we have read. How are femininity and masculinity constructed? What significance do these constructions hold for the poem or essay overall?
Discuss the treatment of the natural world in one of the poems we have read. How is "Nature" constructed? What is the relationship between "Nature" and "The Poet"? Does this relationship seem easy? conflicted? nurturing? hostile? What significance does this theme hold for the poem or essay overall? (You can use one or two sections of In Memoriam for this topic.)
You are free to ignore these suggestions and generate your own topic. I do recommend, however, that you discuss any independent topics with me.
Whatever you choose to write about, please be sure that you are not simply repeating points made in class or in the editors’ notes on the text. This assignment asks you to develop your own argument, not repeat one you have already heard or read. You do not need to do any research for this assignment.
Use MLA in-text (parenthetical) citation form. If you use editions besides the Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2b, please include a "Works Cited" page in MLA format.
For formatting information, see the course syllabus.