202 BRITISH LITERATURE ESSAY TOPICS ~ SECOND TERM

PLEASE NOTE: you can substitute a Poetry Postcard for one of the second term essays, if you
have not already.
Essay 2 Restoration and 18th Century
Essay 2 (5-6 pages; app. 2,000 words) 15% (10 Feb Mon, in Tutorial)
1) Gullivers Travels and Satire (BABL 3: 389; and BABL website). Write an essay on Swifts
satire in Gullivers Travelsfocusing on the sections in our Broadview anthology (You can
approach the topic widely or narrowly (say, a satire on human society generally, or, more
specifically, on education/knowledge), but either approach should be well-supported by
quotations from the text. You can focus on a specific destination/place that Gulliver travels to, a
particular race/people that he meets, or a particular idea that you see Swift satirizing throughout
the book (to name only a few topics). Setting the scope of your essay will take some preparation,
and I am happy to help you do so.
2) Discuss three of the texts found in the Contexts: Mind and God, Faith and Science
section (BABL 3: 143-195). You are free to select any three texts, and the selection will involve
some decision making: read the texts in the entire section, about 59 pages, taking notes on
similarities and differences. From your careful reading, and note-taking, you should have some
strong ideas about three texts that work well together, either sharing or differing on key ideas. At
the heart of your comparison/contrast essay, then, is a discussion of these points.
3) Sheridans School for Scandal (BABL 3: 972). Early in the play, Snake says to Lady
Sneerwell Not in the least; every body will allow that Lady Sneerwell can do more with a word
or look, than many others with the most laboured detail, even though they accidentally happen to
have a little truth on their side to support it (1C: 3004). His remarks touch on several key issues
in the play: truth and the role of language (that is, how characters manipulate both). Write an
essay in which you consider the relationship between truth and the use of language in the play.
You can approach this in several ways: you could consider a specific word and how characters
use it differently; you could focus on one or two characters use of language; you could also
discuss the relationship between the use of language and truth as it connects to another theme
(how reputation is a key issue in the play; or how love is toyed with--to name only two); or you
could consider genre (satire and the comedy of manners).
4) Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot (BABL 3: 584). Write an essay on
Popes poem in which you examine genre and theme. In what ways, does Pope address the life of
a writer in a world of writers that is highly critical (even satirical). How does patronage,
publication, publicity and reputation play a role in the publishing and reception of literature?

Essay 3 Romantics
Essay 3 (5-6 pages; app. 2,000 words)15% (31 Mar Mon, in Tutorial)
5) Discuss three of the texts found in the Women and Society section (BABL 4: 100). The
choice of which three is yours. This will involve decisions on your part: read the texts in the
section, about 25 pages, taking notes on similarities and differences. From your careful reading,
and note-taking, you should have some strong ideas about two texts that work well together,
either sharing or differing on key ideas. At the heart of your comparison/contrast essay, then, is a
discussion of these points.

202 BRITISH LITERATURE ESSAY TOPICS ~ SECOND TERM

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6) Compare some of the key ideas developed by Wordsworth in the preface to Lyrical Ballads
(BABL 4: 223) and apply them to either Coleridges poem This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison
(BABL 4: 425) or Wordsworths poem Tintern Abbey (BABL 4: 221)
7) Write an essay in which you discuss the relationship between the preface to Coleridges
poem Kubla Khan and the poem itself (BABL 4: 438). What ideas about the poems
composition, his state of mind, and the art of poetry does Coleridge touch on in the preface (and
the footnotes will be helpful) and how do these helps us to read his enigmatic poem.
8) Discuss P.B. Shelleys poem Mont Blanc (BABL 4: 732) as an example of Edmund
Burkes ideas of the sublime in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the
Sublime and the Beautiful (BABL 4: 365). You should establish the key ideas in Burke, and
argue for their presence in Shelleys work. Additionally, you may want to consider what type of
romanticism Shelley presents here; that is, is nature presented by Shelley in a manner similar
to or different from Wordsworth.