8:121 Victorian Poetry

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Florence Boos
319 English-Philosophy Building,
florence-boos@uiowa.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 4-5:15, Wednesdays 4-5:15 and many Thursdays 4-5:15

Texts: (in UI Bookstore, Mall)

Required: Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry, eds. Collins and Rundle, shorter version

I will give you handouts for Linton, Hamilton, Laycock, Michael Field, Housman, Mew and Yeats.

Assignments:

• come prepared to class each session and contribute to class discussion; sometimes I iwll ask you to bring in questions for discussion;
• past 7 short essays/reading responses to ICON on the texts we have read; these should be the euqivalent of about two typed pages (and please nmber postings);
• presnt to the class biographical/publication-reecption information on two or more authors we read;
• submit 2 6+ page esssays on topics of your choice, the first due October 23rd and the second due at the end of exam period. If you give me drafts the week berfore these are due, I will return them with suggestions. For this you are expecrted to use several critical/hsitorical sources (including several not available on the internet).
• present your final paper to the class during exam week.

Also our exam period is listed as December 19th, 2008, at 7 p. m., but if possible we will hold the exam earlier in the week.

Suggested Topics for Critical Essay

title and bibliography due October 14th; outline and abstract/thesis statement due the 16th; paper due the 23rd

Be sure to consider elements of style, form, language and audience as well as content, and to place the poems you discuss in appropriate biographical, critical and historical contexts.

• Rhetoric and Audience in "The Cry of the Children"
• The Industrial Revolution, The Factory Acts and "The Cry of the Children"
• The Rupture of Familial Relationships in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"/Race and Morality in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
• Necessary Infanticide? The Effectiveness of the Ending of "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
• "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" as an Abolitionist Poem/and the Barrett Family’s Relationship to Slavery
• Social Issues in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Cry of the Children" and "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
• Maternity and Children in the Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Augusta Webster

• Augusta Webster's "The Castaway" and Victorian Debates on 'The Woman Question'
• Contrasting Views of the Fallen Woman: D. G. Rossetti's "Jenny" and Augusta Webster's "The Castaway"
• Character or Situation? Identity in the Dramatic Monologues of Robert Browning and Augusta Webster (e. g., “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “The Castaway”)
• Tempering Judgment with Sympathy: the Dramatic Monologues of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning (or any others)
• The Dramatic Monologue as a Vehicle for Social Criticism/Psychological Exploration
• Character or Situation? Identity in the Dramatic Monologues of Robert Browning and Augusta Webster

• The Dark Tower: Symbol and Meaning in Browning’s “Childe Roland”
• “Childe Roland” as a Dream Narrative
• Art and Character: Aesthetics and Morality in "Childe Roland" and "Fra Lippo Lippi"
• Vasari's Lives and Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues on Artists
• Confronting Fear and Loss: “Childe Roland” and “In Memoriam”

• Patterns of Language, Imagery and Epiphany in Tennyson's "In Memoriam"
• Tennyson's Reshaping of Classical Myth in "Ulysses"
• Healing through Art in "In Memoriam"
• Death and Immortality in "In Memoriam"
• Science and Faith in "In Memoriam"
• Belief and Unbelief in "In Memoriam"
• Imagery, Metaphor and Sequence in “In Memoriam”
• 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"
• Rhythm and Meaning in Christina Rossetti's Lyrics
• Christina Rossetti’s “In An Artist’s Studio” and the Pre-Raphaelite Ideal of Woman
• Rhythm and Meaning in Christina Rossetti's Lyrics
• Christina Rossetti’s Devotional Poems/ Poems on Sisterhood
• “The “Fallen Woman” in the Poetry of Christina Rossetti and Augusta Webster (or EBB, DGR, WM and AW)

• “Le Morte d’Arthur”/ “The Defence of Guenevere” and Arthurian Themes in Victorian Painting
• Contrasting Arthurs: “Le Morte D’Arthur” and “The Defence of Guenevere”
• A Victorian Rewriting of Malory: William Morris's "The Defence of Guenevere"/”King Arthur’s Tomb”
• The Figure of Guenevere in “The Defence of Guenevere” and “King Arthur’s Tomb” Passion and Rhetoric in William Morris's "The Defence of Guenevere"/Is Guenevere Lying?: Guenevere’s “Defence”