English 2476X0 Victorian Studies

Fall Term Essay

10 September 2007

Please choose one topic listed below and write an essay of 2000 words.  Consult two books, two journals, and two Internet sources for this paper.  These sources may be specific to the author and/or work on which you are focusing or they may provide you with background information and/or a theoretical context for your argument  Be certain that your essay is focused by a clear thesis and that you refer directly through quotation and paraphrase to the primary texts with which you are working.  The citation method should be MLA or Chicago.  Document your sources carefully to maintain academic integrity and avoid plagiarism.

Due: 29 November 2007

1. Do some research to find out about the conventions of the sonnet tradition and offer a close reading of THREE of the sonnets we have discussed this term in order to make the argument that the technical attributes (rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, personification, imagery) are appropriate means of reflecting specific features of Victorianism.  Sonnets to choose from are Sonnets from the Portuguese, Brother and Sister Sonnets, Mother and Daughter, "Motherhood," "God's Grandeur," and "The Windhover."  In the case of Barrett Browning, Eliot, and Webster, feel free to discuss sonnets from the sequences that we did not discuss in class, but please include in your essay only one sonnet from an individual author.

2. Marriage is a theme common to Jane Eyre and The Woman Who Did.  The former novel was published before the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, legislation that arguably changed the way people viewed marriage.  Discuss the development of the theme of marriage in these two novels, explaining how each novel reflects the author's currency with society.

3. Robert Browning has been called the master of the dramatic monologue.  Discuss "Two in the Campagna" and "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" as single speaker dramatic poems, explaining how the dramatic form enables the poet to develop his ideas.  Your discussion should be informed by some sense of what other critics have said about dramatic poetry in general and Robert Browning in particular. 

4 In both "Guinevere" and "Goblin Market" the iconic "fallen" woman (fallen angel) figure familiar to Victorian readers is used to develop theme.  In The Woman Who Did this figure is even more complex.  Discuss the fallen woman in these three works, explaining the ways in which Allen's end-of-the-century fallen woman Herminia resembles or differs from her earlier fallen "sisters."  

5. Although both "Dover Beach" and In Memoriam precede Darwin's contentious publications, evolutionary theories inform some of the references to nature in these poems.  Write an essay in which you begin by establishing the link between Darwin, Tennyson (choose one section of the poem) and Arnold.  Then contrast Hopkins's view of nature in "God's Grandeur" to the views put forward by Tennyson and Arnold.

6. The New Woman figure is important to late century works: Jean in "In Dull Brown," Vivie in Mrs. Warren's Profession, and Herminia in The Woman Who Did are all New Women.  Research this figure to provide context for your discussion of the importance of the New Woman figure to theme in each of these works.

7. Goblin Market, "Guinevere," "Jenny," and "A Castaway" focus on the issue of sexual immorality.  Write an essay in which you discuss the role this perspective on women plays in the development of theme.