AP English Research Topics: Sign-up Sheet
1. Golden Age of Ancient Greek Drama:
culture, theater, dramatists (Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes – their style,
importance, and biography)
1._______________________
2. Jacobean Period (reign of James I 16031625): change in culture/attitude/focus from
Elizabethan period. Characteristics/focus/writers
of prose, poetry, and drama. (esp. Ben Jonson,
Beaumont and Fletcher, John Webster, Thomas
Kyd, John Donne and metaphysical poets, and
Baroque poetry, King James Bible,
epigrammatic poetry – Ben Jonson)
2._______________________
3. Caroline and Cromwellian Literature (16251660, Charles I through Cromwell): Historical
events and their effect on culture & literature.
Famous writers/works/styles of this period in
poetry/prose; emergence of diaries, pamphlets,
political writings, and newspaper precursor as
new lit forms (Thomas Hobbes, John Milton,
John Ford, Samuel Pepys, Andrew Marvell,
Carpe Diem poetry, Robert Herrick, Thomas
Browne)
3.__________________________
4. The Restoration in England (1660-1685):
Historical events and their effect on culture &
literature. Famous writers/works/styles/focus of
this period in poetry/prose/drama (John
Milton—Paradise Lost, John Locke—Treatises
on Government, John Dryden, William
Congreve, John Bunyan—Pilgrim’s Progress,
rise of journalism, first emergence of the novel,
etc.)
4.___________________________
5. The Augustan Period/The Enlightenment/The
Age of Reason (1689-1750): Historical events
and their effect on culture & literature. Famous
writers/works/styles/focus of this period in
poetry/prose/drama (Alexander Pope, rise of the
English essay, rise of the novel, Daniel Defoe,
Jonathan Swift, Richard Steele, John Rich—
pantomime theater, Licensing Act of 1737,
Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, etc.)
5___________________________
6. 18th Century (latter half)– The Age of
Sensibility: focus and philosophy of this period
reflected in culture and literature. Deism; Denis
Diderot; Horace Walpole and the gothic novel,
William Beckford, Matthew Lewis.
6._________________________
7. The Romantic Movement: What inspired it,
and what are the characteristics/concerns/issues/
forms of this literature? POETS ONLY--Major
contributors: 1st generation and 2nd generation;
William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge,
William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John
Keats.
7.________________________
8. Victorian Period and Literature (1837-1901):
Historical influences that molded the culture/
style/values of society and lit. (Imperialism, etc.)
Novelists only: Bronte sisters, William
Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy,
George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Sheridan Le Fanu,
Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Hope,
H. Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, etc.
8.____________________________
9.Victorian Period—Poets only: Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Thomas Hardy, Matthew Arnold,
William Ernest Henley and others.
9.____________________________
10. Early 20th Century: Culture & influences on
lit and writers. Thomas Hardy (poetry/novels),
Rudyard Kipling (poetry/novels), William Ernest
Henley, Erskin Childers, J.M. Barrie, Emma
Orczy, Kenneth Grahame, Robert Baden Powell,
Aldous Huxley. Drama: George Bernard Shaw,
Henrik Ibsen
10.__________________________
11. British/European Modernism (poetry and
novels): Causes/influences/inspiration for this
movement? Characteristics/style/philosophy?
(Started in late 19th century during Victorian Era;
peaked between two World Wars) A.E
Housman, Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Joseph
Conrad, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, T.S.
Eliot, P.G. Wodehouse, E.M. Forster, Evelyn
Waugh, Dylan Thomas, Vladimir Nabokov, .H.
Auden, Graham Greene, Anton Chekov, Noel
Coward.
11._____________________________
12. American Modernism (poetry and novels):
Causes/influences/inspiration for this
movement? Characteristics/style/philosophy?
(peaked between two World Wars) Novelists
and poets only! American Modernists: Robert
Frost, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway,
Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein,
Ralph Ellison.
12.____________________________
13. Harlem Renaissance (1920’s-1930’s):
Causes/influences/inspiration for this movement.
Styles/characteristics/literary forms. Famous
writers of the movement.
13._______________________________
14. Post-Modern Literature and Writers (peaks
1960’s-1970’s: Causes/influences/inspiration for
this movement. Styles/characteristics/literary
forms. Samuel Beckett, Beat Generation: Jack
Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg,
Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote,
Henry Miller.
14.______________________________
15. Post WW II: Popularization of new genres--George Orwell, Agatha Christie, Dorothy
Sayers, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Ian Fleming,
Anthony Burgess, Roald Dahl, Arthur Clarke,
Douglas Adams, William Golding, Ian McEwan,
J.K. Rowling
15.______________________________
16. Victorian Era: Children’s lit: Lewis Carroll,
Beatrix Potter. Drama: Oscar Wilde, Gilbert &
Sullivan, etc.
16.__________________________________
17. American Modernism :
Causes/influences/inspiration for this
movement? Characteristics/style/philosophy?
(peaked between two World Wars) Playwrights
only: Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams,
Eugene O’Neill.
17.__________________________________
18. The Romantic Period : Novelists only -Novelists: Mary Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, Jane
Austen, etc. cover Gothic style – origins,
characteristics, influences, time period, writers.
18.______________________________