English 244E

Final paper:  2,500 words, due April 7.


1) You may write on any topic having to do with the literature we have covered in this course.  Possible topics include the discussion of a recurrent theme, motif, or image in several texts; the explication of the relation between  two or more works in a single genre (how does the genre develop during the century?); the in depth examination of a single major work; or the discussion of how a single historical event or trend is represented in a group of literary works.

2) Your argument in this essay is required to be supported by research.  In the course of your essay, you must make reference to at least three published works of theory, literary criticism, or history that are relevant to your topic.  You may cite them as authorities, as antagonists whose arguments you wish to refute, or as sources of historical evidence.  In doing your research, please seek out sources that are scholarly and up to date.  Give preference to work published by university presses and in refereed scholarly journals.  Besides the library catalogue, you should use online databases such as the MLA Bibliography and Humanities Abstracts to search for material relevant to your topic.

Many of the journals to which you will be directed by the MLA bibliography are available online at UWO through site licenses. You will need to look for other journals in the library stacks, as you will for books. I advise you, however, to take the trouble to seek out these scholarly sources, rather than doing research by a simple websearch using a search engine. Material published in scholarly books and journals undergoes a process of evaluation and checking, and is thus more reliable than much of what appears on self-published or commercial websites.

This paper is worth 25% of your final grade in the course.  If you would like to discuss your topic with me, or need assistance in your research, I will be glad to see you during my office hours or by appointment.

I remind you that whenever you use anyone else's ideas in your work, you must provide a citation, whether the source is printed text, a website, or any other medium.

See links at the bottom of this page to the library catalogue, to the MLA bibliography, and to a guide to proper citation format. Some of these links will only work from a computer on the UWO network.




 English 244, paper three.

I have put on reserve for this course at Weldon two photocopies;

1) "The Ideological Work of Gender", from Mary Poovey, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England.  (Chicago, U. of Chicago Press: 1988), 1-15.

2) "Introduction: Rereading Victorian Poetry," from Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics.  (London, Routledge: 1993), 1-21.


Please read them, and then write an 800-word essay on the following question.


Discuss a poem or novel you have read this term with reference either to Isobel Armstrong’s concept of the "double poem" or to Mary Poovey's  of the "binary organization of sex".  In your essay you should
a) show that you understand the concept , and
b) use and test it in an interpretative argument.  You might thus wish to discuss how a particular Victorian poem either does or does not correspond to Armstrong’s paradigm of the "double poem," or how a particular text either reflects or protests against the gender representations analyzed by Poovey.

Due Feb 12.



English 244, paper 2.

Please write a 1500-word interpretative paper on a topic of your choice that is relevant to the work we have done this term.  You may choose to write on a single work or author we have studied, or to examine a single topic with reference to a group of authors or works.  In either case, be sure your essay makes a coherent interpretive argument that is supported with specific references to the work or works you are analyzing.  The paper is due Tuesday December 7.

Though you are not required for this assignment to consult secondary critical or historical sources, you may wish to do so.  If you do, I strongly recommend referring to scholarly criticism, which you can find either in library books or in journal articles.  You can search for library books using the library catalogue; in general, turn fist to the most recent works you can fins, and to works published by major university presses.  You can search for journal; articles using the MLA bibliography; here too, once you have searched for works on your topic, begin by reading the most recent.

Many of the journals to which you will be directed by the MLA bibliography are available online at UWO through site licenses.  You will need to look for other journals in the library stacks, as you will for books.  I advise you, however, to take the trouble to seek out these scholarly sources, rather than doing research by a simple websearch using a search engine.  Material published in scholarly books and journals undergoes a process of evaluation and checking, and is thus more reliable than much of what appears on self-published or commercial websites.

I remind you that whenever you use anyone else's ideas in your work, you must provide a citation, whether the source is printed text, a website, or any other medium.

Links follow to the library catalogue, to the MLA bibliography, and to a guide to proper citation format.  Some of these links will only work from a computer on the UWO network.

Library catalogue: <http://alpha.lib.uwo.ca/screens/opacmenu.html>

MLA bibliography: <http://www.lib.uwo.ca/database/secure/jumpstart.shtml#M>

Guide to citation format: <http://www.uwo.ca/english/undergrd/mlatips/index.html>


MLA citation format examples:

After he had made his fortune, Okonkwo "had clearly washed his hands" (Achebe 12).

. . . as we see when Achebe describes Okonkwo's success:  "He was a wealthy farmer . . . and had just married his third wife" (11-12).

Achebe writes that "[h]e [Okonkwo] was already one of the greatest men of his time," and so could eat "with kings and elders" (12).

The narrator says that Marlow was "the only man of us who still 'followed the sea'" (Conrad 18).

Oedipus at the end says of himself "I stand revealed at last-- / cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage / cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands" (Oedipus the King 1308-10).

The chorus concludes that when we see our lives truly, they are meaningless:
        O the generations of men
        the dying generations--adding the total
        of all your lives I find they come to nothing . . .
            does there exist, is there a man on earth
        who seizes more joy than just a dream, a vision?
                        (Oedipus the King 1311-15)
When the Nun lifts her veil to reveal the face of "an animated Corse", Raymond himself seems to feel the touch of death:

I gazed upon the Spectre with a horror too great to be described.  My blood was frozen in my veins.  I would                 have called for aid, but the sound expired, ere it could pass my lips.  My nerves were bound up in impotence, and         I remained in the same attitude inanimate as a Statue.              The visionary Nun looked upon me for some minutes in silence: There was something petrifying in her                     regard.                                      (Lewis 160)

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua.  Things Fall Apart.  New York: Fawcett, 1969.
Conrad, Joseph.  Heart of Darkness. Ed. Robert Hampson.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.
Lewis, Matthew.  The Monk.  Ed. Howard Anderson.  Oxford:  Oxford U. P., 1973.
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays.  Trans. Robert Fagles.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.