DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERARY STUDIES
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE
FIRST ASSESSED ESSAY
Write an essay of approx. 3,000 words on one of the following topics. One hard
copy of the essay and an electronic copy should be submitted to the English
Department Office by 12.00 noon on Tuesday 13th January 2015. You must refer
in detail to at least TWO texts studied in Term 1. Please make sure that you are
aware of the department guidelines for the presentation of essays and of the
regulations on plagiarism. This essay is worth 30% of your course mark.
How much does the body seem to matter in eighteenth-century literature?
How fixed are gender roles in eighteenth-century society as we’ve read about it, and
how does literature work with or complicate their assignment?
In what ways can the prose fiction we’ve read – Pamela, Fanny Hill, Tristram Shandy, A
Simple Story, and Gulliver’s Travels – be seen as contributing to the development of the
novel as an emergent genre?
To what extent do the texts you’ve read depend upon or problematize an understanding
of narrative as “progress”?
Looking at one or two of the texts we’ve studied (The Dunciad, The School for Scandal,
Pamela, Tristram Shandy are all possibilities), consider how writing is figured as an
activity and as a problem. What does it mean for a text to represent a character holding
a pen?
John Cleland described Tristram Shandy as an outrageously bawdy book. In what ways
can it be seen as more so than Fanny Hill?
Consider the relation of subjects and objects in two or more of the texts we’ve studied.
How do objects matter to human relations? In what ways is this specific to the
eighteenth century? (You might, for instance, consider the way body parts are
described as objects in Fanny Hill or their centrality in “Rape of the Lock”.)
How, using specific examples, would you describe the practice and politics of
eighteenth-century humour?
To what extent do the satirical texts you’ve studied set out to humiliate or injure their
targets? Must satire inflict harm of some kind to be considered effective?
Many of the texts you’ve read make use of parody, whether as a structuring principle or
a local strategy. What is the relationship between the parodied and the parodying text?
Must a reader possess knowledge of the former to understand the latter?
Write an essay in which you explore the concept of “surface” in the texts you’ve studied.
How do the texts you’ve studied work to construct – and perhaps trouble – the presence
and function of the author?
Although eighteenth-century fictions very often end in marriage, it is rare that married
life is portrayed in novels. Consider the exceptions to this, either in the case of Tristram
Shandy or Simple Story as novels that experiment with going beyond marriage, or by
contrasting novels with plays, where married life is more directly approached.
Regardless of which topic you choose, you should come and see Tina or David
before the end of term 1 to discuss your essay, bringing with you (or emailing in
advance) a page of notes about your topic.