English 202 Paper Topics


General Requirements:
Length: 5-7 pages (1200 word minimum)

Research: This paper is not a "research paper," and it is not intended as an exercise in library skills; however, because I believe some token research will help you write more effective papers, incorporation of quotes from at least two secondary sources of literary criticism, history, or biography is mandatory.  You may cite information from the Internet, but at least two of your sources must be hard-copy materials from the UT library.  Naturally, you should also quote the primary texts your paper examines for specific illustration of each of your major points.

Formatting: Papers must be typed and formatted according to MLA guidelines; quotes and references should be cited with MLA-style documentation.  See chapter 34 in the Harbrace College Handbook, and/or click on "English 202 paper details."    

Conferences: You must meet me for at least one conference outside of class to discuss your topic before you write the paper.  Time permitting, I will be available to review drafts of papers before they are submitted for grading.  If you would like to arrange a conference time via email, follow this link, English 202 conference schedule, select a time slot, then click on the "Dear Chip."

Due dates: Papers are due, as our syllabus indicates, on Tuesday, April 21.  However, I will allow an extension until Tuesday, April 28 if and only if you ask for one.  If I don't hear from you, I will expect your paper on the 21st.  Late papers will be penalized one letter grade (ten percent on a numerical scale) for each class day it is late.


Topic Suggestions

The Romantic Period
Show how any of the major poetry we haven't read (in full) by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Keats, or Percy Shelley fits into "the Romantic tradition."  Naturally, you will need to define "Romantic tradition" in order to demonstrate how the particular work or works are recognizably Romantic.  Suggestions:

Consider any novel by Sir Walter Scott or Jane Austen in the context of English Romanticism.  Demonstrate how the novel in question either adheres to or departs from the "Romantic tradition."  Definition of the "Romantic tradition" is essential.  Suggestions: Both Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns are recognizably "British," but they are both also recognizable more specifically as Scottish.  Demonstrate how the poetry of one or both writers does or does not fit in with mainstream British Romanticism, and demonstrate, too, what besides the language marks the poetry as different from the mainstream Brits: how is the poetry recognizably "Scottish"?

The Victorian Period
Compare Tennyson's treatment of Arthurian legend in "The Epic [Morte d'Arthur]" or any one of his Idylls of the King with that of other writers--Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, for example.  How are they like?  How do they differ?  

Robert Browning's poetry is often seen as being outside the main stream of Victorian literature, in part because of his refusal to preach an obvious moral, and in part because of his concentration upon individual figures from widely different times and places.  Make a case for any two or more of Browning's poems as recognizably "Victorian."

Consider the critical principles Matthew Arnold expounds in "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" or "The Study of Poetry."  Apply these principles to any one of his poems.  Show how Arnold's poetry does or does not adhere to his stated poetic theory.
 
Read any Dickens novel other than Hard Times, any novel by William Wilkie Collins, Charlotte Bronte, William Makepeace Thackeray, George Eliot, George Gissing, George Moore, George Meredith, or Thomas Hardy: explain how the novel delivers criticism or comments on recognizably Victorian social concerns.

Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations are three novels in which Dickens's central character is a child: explore Dickens's treatment of childhood development or maturation in any of these three novels.

Demonstrate why Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is more Romantic than Victorian.  Of course, you will need to define "Romantic" and "Victorian."  Note: this is the only valid topic for papers dealing only with Wuthering Heights.

Demonstrate Lewis Carroll's satire of specific, recognizable features of Victorian life in either or both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Make a case for either Robert Louis Stevenson or Lewis Carroll as a serious literary artist--that is, explain and demonstrate why the author should not be regarded as a mere teller of children's stories.  (Rudyard Kipling would work here, too.)

Discuss either Oscar Wilde's or George Bernard Shaw's criticism of specific aspects of Victorian society in any one or more plays.  (John Millington Synge is a possibility, too.)

The Twentieth Century
Compare and contrast Heart of Darkness with any of Conrad's other fiction in terms of either theme or exploration of "human psychology."
 
Demonstrate how any novel by Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, or George Orwell is distinctively "modern": that is, how does the novel in question react against the past, and how does it explore new possibilities in fiction?

Explore the theme of entrapment, or of the feeling of being trapped, in any three of Joyce's stories in Dubliners.

Compare and contrast any H. G. Wells science-fiction novel with more recent science fiction--identify and explain the essential elements of science fiction in general.

Compare Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own with any of the other pointedly feminist works we are reading this semester: what common ground does Woolf share with Wollstonecraft, Shelley, Mill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, G. B. Shaw, D. H. Lawrence, Doris Lessing, or any other writers we've studied?  Where and how is Woolf's argument different from the others'?

Explain how any play by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, or Tom Stoppard is distinctively "modern" or "post-modern."  Naturally, you will need specific definition of "modern" or "post-modern." 

Consider the poetry of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, or Philip Larkin: show how any three poems by any one of these authors treats the same primary theme in different ways.

Compare the use of the "quest motif" by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings with the quest in other British literature--the field is wide open here, but only so long as you explain what exactly each author says about the human condition through the vehicle of "the quest."

Come up with your own paper idea.  I'm very willing to work with your preferences and predilections.  Are there writers on our syllabus who interest or intrigue you, but who don't figure into any of the suggested topics above?  Are there other British writers between 1790 and the present who interest you?   Are you interested in comparing two of the writers we are reading on a specific theme not mentioned here or in class?  Is there a contemporary British writer you would like to explore?

You are not limited strictly to the topics listed above, but remember that your topic must be approved before you start writing.  If you would like to pursue ideas not listed here, keep in mind the following restrictions:

The writer(s) and work(s) you discuss must be "literary," at least to the extent that secondary materials of criticism are available in the UT library.

Papers must address primary works we have not discussed in class.  You may address works from our syllabus only if you are making connections between those works and others which are not on the syllabus.

Any writers you discuss must be British or Irish, and the works of at least one of the writers you discuss must have been written and/or published after 1790.

If you have an idea for a topic and it meets these three requirements, feel free to send email and get my feedback before we meet in conference.  Just say Dear Chip.

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