good timeline of British history

From the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/

Katherine Mansfield short story

Here is a link to the full text of "The Daughters of the Late Colonel."

interesting video

This video addresses some of the same issues we are discussing in class--in an interesting, engaging way. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g&feature=player_embedded

Paper 1 topics

This essay should be a concise, cogent literary analysis. You are not expected to use any sources aside from your class texts; if you do use them, they must be cited correctly and put to good use (not just plugged in to fill space or make your paper look more impressive). You may choose from the following paper topics. You may write on any topic, regardless of whether you have written a response paper about that text. We will be having a draft workshop on 10/25 in class; bring your completed rough draft on that day. Print it out and bring a hard copy—don’t just bring your laptop. Most of these questions are comparative questions, asking you to discuss two texts.

1. Compare the depiction of family life and the role of the family in The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. Is the family important? Why or why not?

2. Compare Rebecca West’s portrait of shell-shock in The Return of the Soldier with Pat Barker’s depiction of shell-shock in Regeneration. What do these two texts say about mental health and the definition of wellness? What do they share and what is different?

3. Discuss the role of male friendship in The Third Man. What does Greene suggest about the importance of male/male relationships?

4. Compare the representations of marriage in Rebecca and The Secret Agent. What do these writers say about marriage?

5. Compare the narrative voices of “Funeral Blues” and “This Be the Verse.” What are the differences between these two poems? How are they similar?

I might add a topic or two between now and the due date of the paper; if so, they will be posted on the course blog.

adjustment to syllabus

Instead of reading "The Beast in the Jungle," we will be viewing the rest of "The Importance of Being Earnest" on Wednesday, 9/22.

useful writing link

This page from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab has some helpful suggestions for writing a good thesis statement about literature.

And this link from Capital Community College includes helpful information about formatting and style concerns in a paper about literature (things like when to italicize versus when to use quotation marks, how to cite quotations correctly, etc.).