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8:121 Victorian Women Poets

Assignments

M W 3:30-4:45, Room 208 EPB

Instructor: Florence Boos florence-boos@uiowa.edu

http://english.uiowa.edu/~boosf/2013WomPoe121/index.html

Office: 319 EPB, office phone 335-0434 (answering machine)

Office hours: most Mondays and Wednesdays until 5:20 p. m.; Thursdays 2:30-3:30 and 5:15-6:15 p. m.; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons by appointment.

Textbook at UI Bookstore: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Norton Critical Edition

Angela Leighton and Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Women Poets, Blackwell (can be purchased on Amazon)

I will also hand out several critical essays for use during the course.

Course Requirements:

1. contributions to class discussion: please read the assignment carefully and come prepared to ask questions and comment on unusual features of the poem or essay. You should work out the metrical and stanza pattern of each poem.

Also I will ask students to provide brief biographies of the poets we read together. For these, please consult a biography or the Dictionary of Literary Biography, not simply Wikipedia.

2. You will be asked to present to the class a brief biography of a poet of your choice, and to lead an approximately half-hour class discussion of one or more of her poems.

3. There will be at least two tests, and in addition there may be a surprise quiz or two.

4. journal/reading responses: please prepare 6 reading responses, the equivalent of two double-spaced typed pages each, to be posted on ICON so that your fellow students may read them. Four of your responses should be on course readings, and two on literary criticism about Victorian women poets. For this latter, you may use our handouts if you wish.

5. In addition to posting these resopnses to the class web site, you will be asked to write a six-page critical/research paper, and a six-page final take-home examination.

Your critical/resarch paper must be based on research in the biographies, book-length critical studies, and critical articles on the author you have chosen (that is, you cannot merely use internet citations). It is due October 29th.

6. The final essay/take-home exam will be a comparative critical discussion of the works of two or more poets you have read during the course.

The final will be held during examination week, most likely on Monday, December 16th unless students vote for another day that week.

7. You will be asked to present a precis of the substance of your final essay at our last session December 16th. Final essays (both electronic and print copies preferred) are due Friday December 20th, 2013.

8:121 Victorian Women Poets: Some Possible Paper Topics

6+ pages, topic and bibliography of articles, books and other reference materials due Friday October 18th; abstract and short draft due Friday October 25th by e-mail; paper due Friday November 4th. Be sure to consider issues of language and form as well as content.

Language/Silence/Naming in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”
The Rupture of Familial Relationships in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
Race, Color and Morality in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
Nature and Violence in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
Necessary Infanticide? The Ending of "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
Passion and Anger in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
"The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" as an Abolitionist Poem
Anger, Irony, and Sarcasm in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poetry
E. B. Browning's and Augusta Webster's Portrayals of Social Outcasts
Maternity and Children in the Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Augusta Webster
Rhetoric and Multiple Perspectives in “The Cry of the Children”
Child Voices in “The Cry of the Children”
“The Cry of the Children” and the Victorian Factory Acts
Religious Arguments for Social Reform: “The Runaway Slave,” “The Cry of the Children,” and Aurora Leigh
Augusta Webster's "The Castaway" and Victorian Debates on 'The Woman Question'
The ‘Fallen Woman’ in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” and Augusta Webster's "The Castaway"
The Victorian Dramatic Monologue as a Vehicle for Social Criticism /Psychological Exploration
Tempering Judgment with Sympathy: the Dramatic Monologues of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Augusta Webster
Contrasting Uses of the Sonnet Form: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Augusta Webster, and Christina Rossetti
What Are Those Goblin Fruits: Sensuous Experience and Repression in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"
Sisterly Love in "Goblin Market"
Redemption in "Goblin Market": The Devotional Life of Christina Rossetti
Fairytale as Allegory in "Goblin Market"
Social Criticism in "Goblin Market"
Fairytale as Allegory in "Goblin Market"/Social Criticism in "Goblin Market"/ "Goblin Market" as a Tale of Sisterhood
Christina Rossetti’s “In An Artist’s Studio” as a Critique of Artistic/Pre-Raphaelite Depictions of Women
Rhythm and Meaning in Christina Rossetti's Lyrics
Secrecy and Mystery in the Poems of Christina Rossetti
Thresholds/the Supernatural Realm in the Poems of Christina Rossetti
Remembrance and Forgetting in the Poems of Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti’s Devotional Poems/ Poems on Sisterhood
The “Fallen Woman” in the Poetry of Christina Rossetti/Other Women Poets of Period