EN227 Romantic and Victorian Poetry – Assessed Essay 2014
Write a 5,000 word essay using one of the following questions. You should make
reference to the work of at least 2 poets in your essay.
1. In consultation with your seminar tutor, construct a question that enables you to write
about an aspect of the course that you have found especially interesting.
2. ‘Thither aspiring Fancy fondly soars,/Wandering sublime thro’ visionary vales’
(Charlotte Smith, ‘Beachy Head’). Is the sublime gendered in Romantic poetry?
3. Romanticism is often described as ‘secular religion’. To what extent do the Romantics
create their own religious system?
4. Is there a unified Romantic conceptualization of the relationship between nature and
the self?
5. Write an essay on the impact of changing landscape upon Romantic poetry.
6. Write an essay on the theme of loss in the work of any two Romantic and/or Victorian
poets.
7. What role does memory play in the poetic impulse? Discuss in relation to two
Romantic and/or Victorian poets.
8. Discuss sentiment and sentimentality in the work of two Romantic and/or Victorian
poets.
9. Discuss the use of mythology in the poetry of two or more Romantic and/or Victorian
poets.
10. Examine the representation of oppression and/or freedom in the work of any two
Romantic and/or Victorian poets.
11. How do Victorian poets respond to religious anxiety? Discuss the work or two or
more poets.
12. Discuss the representation of masculinity in Victorian poetry.
13. Discuss the use of the figure of the abused and/or abandoned woman in Victorian
poetry.
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14. Discuss the impact of developments in the field of geology and/or cosmology and/or
biology on Victorian poetry.
Emma Francis 30.1.2014
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