Compare Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now (by Martin Sorcese); how does the film version intermingle the tale’s thematic concern with imperialism? What does Conrad’s Heart of Darkness suggest about imperialism? Explain.

Paper Topics and Instructions for English 2206

INSTRUCTIONS:
All students in English 2206 must write an original paper on one of the readings featured in the Norton Anthology of World Literature. The paper must be at least 1200 words long, contain a clear thesis supported by textual references, and adhere to MLA formatting guidelines. Final papers must include research, but need not take the style of a formal research paper; more on this topic in class. The following list contains only suggestions for a paper; students may devise their own topic in conjunction with the Instructor.

Seventeenth/Eighteenth-Century Literature

Compare the theme of forbidden love in Moliere’s Tartuffe to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. What features are similar? Which are different? To what effect?

Examine any thematic concern in Moliere’s Tartuffe that you find interesting.

Discuss Mary Wollstonecraft’s work (A Vindication of the Rights of Women) as a precursor (or founder) of modern feminism.

Discuss any aspect of symbolism as it appears in Gulliver’s Travels.

What’s going on with the rebellion attitude found in the philosophy of the Enlightenment era? Explain

Nineteenth-Century Literature

Study the sections relating to revolutionary ideas and offer some observations about the nature of revolution. What are the characteristics of revolution? Are all revolutions good or bad? What does a country’s revolution reveal about its people? (e.g., America).

Compare any three poems in Blake’s Songs of Innocence to their companion poems in his Songs of Experience. How are they different?

Discuss (or compare/contrast) any two-three poems by an early Romantic writer (Coleridge, Blake, or Wordsworth) to a later Romantic Writer (Shelley, Keats, or Byron).

Compare Goethe’s Faust to its source play, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. What does Goethe change? To what effect? Which play is more effective?

How has this fable remained popular with reading audiences for centuries? Explain.

Twentieth-Century Literature

Compare Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now (by Martin Sorcese); how does the film version intermingle the tale’s thematic concern with imperialism?
What does Conrad’s Heart of Darkness suggest about imperialism? Explain.

Discuss in the symbolism in Joyce’s “The Dead” and explain how it informs the narrative.

What’s going on in Jamica Kincaid’s “Girl”? Explain.

What does James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” suggest about racial relations in mid-twentieth-century America?

General Topics

Compare any two or three works by any British Romantic writer to those of any American Romantic writer (Bryant, Irving, Cooper, to name just a few). What similarities do you find? What differences?

Examine Frederick Douglas’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave” and discuss the state of slavery in America during the Nineteenth Century.

What is the “cause” of Billy Budd in Melville’s tale?

Compare Emily Dickinson’s treatment of death in any two or three poems.

Compare any three sonnets by Elizabeth Browning to any three by Shakespeare (or another sonneteer).

Any topic devised by the student and approved by the Instructor.