(Fall 2000, ENGL 3050)
George IV, Prince Regent throughout most of the Romantic Period,
as depicted by the cartoonist Gillray.
BRITISH LITERATURE SURVEY
3050PAPER TOPICS
#2 - Alan RauchSTYLE & CONTENT: Don't forget to review your papers for syntax, spelling, and accuracy. Avoid short teletype sentence and try to develop a strong flow of logic and continuity. Don't "internalize" ideas, but rather express them fully and clearly. Slow down and take your time to make yourself understood. Avoid using "colloquialisms: if you can avoid it and remember that "messages" come via bottles and email, not in literature
Go to my home page for links to information about style and hints about writing.
Choose one of the following and develop a 7-page essay exploring the topic. Use 2 or more non-web critical sources. Cite all of your sources properly and do not borrow (plagiarize) phrasing or material from ANY source.
(Due: Last day of Class).
N.B. If you want to explore another topic, that's fine... as long as you run it by me first. If you want to discuss your ideas, make an appointment with me. If you want me to look at some materials, I'll be happy to give you feedback.
1.) The Romantics turn the gaze of literature away from human society to a much larger frame where nature, most notably, puts human action in perspective. But the natural world is not merely a good thing for its own sake, it is the "power" (to use a Shelleyan term) that helps the human mind think about its role in the entire inter-relationship of "things" (again a term from Shelley's "Mont Blanc"). Explore the writing of two or more of the Romantic poets in the context of how nature helps reform human thought and helps shape human action.
2.). When Shelley writes that poets "are the acknowledged legislators of the world," he is suggesting that literature can have a lasting impact on the way that people think about society and culture. Consider the social and political role that literature attempts to have in reshaping the world around, keeping in mind that by preserving literature we also preserve the ideologies behind it. Remember too -to confuse things a bit that literature is also shaped by prior social and political forces. So, where Wordsworth believes himself to be an innovator in the Lyrical Ba lads, he is also responding to socioeconomic changes that have opened up his readership.
You can look at this question across periods. How do writers try to shape new ways of thinking or how do they articulate situations in a way that requires readers to revisit fundamental assumptions about the world?
3.) The Victorians are haunted by a sense that a world organized and ordained by God may be too simplistic given by the latest innovations in science and technology. But they are also too pragmatic to accept the Romantic notion that there exists amorphous and transcendent power to which we can all aspire. Among the refuges the Victorians seek, as a result of this uncertainty, are the importance of duty, responsibility, and earnestness. Consider how these qualities function to shape a "Victorian sensibility" in the works that we WILL have read.