EN328 English Literature and Feminisms 1790-1899
Spring Term 2015 - Assessed Essay 2
Write a 5,000 word essay on ONE of the following. You should be primarily
engaged with the set texts of the course studied in term 2. Supplementary
reference may be made to other texts, by agreement with the module convenor.
1. In consultation with the module convenor, construct an essay title that will
allow you to write on an aspect of the work of term 2 which has particularly
interested you.
2. Does New Woman literature represent a progressive or a regressive movement
for feminism in the later 19th century?
3. Discuss the relationship between socialism and feminism in the later 19th
century.
4. Discuss the new forms of heterosexual relationship envisaged in the writing of
the later 19th century.
5. Does Darwinian thinking constitute an opportunity or an obstruction for
feminist thought in the second half of the 19th century.
6. Discuss the representation of emergent fields of employment for women in
the later 19th century.
7. To what extent do feminist concerns become entangled with racial thinking in
the last two decades of the 19th century?
8. Discuss feminist engagements with religion and/or atheism in the later 19th
century.
9. Discuss depictions of the single woman in literature of the later 19th century.
10. Discuss the use of the supernatural in texts which address the woman question
in the later 19th century.
11. Explore the link between consumption and transgression in and two texts
discussed this term
12. Compare and contrast the ways in which 2 texts explore female sexuality.
13. ‘What is held up as the story of the feminine soul as it really exists underneath
its conventional coverings is a very fleshly and unlovely record’. Do you
agree with Margaret Oliphant’s reading of the sensation genre? Discuss in
relation to two or more texts.
Students taking the module by 100% assessed mode should answer a question
from this list. Students taking the module 50%/50% may answer a question
from this list or from the Assessed Essay 1 list.