Write an eight-page research paper on one of the topics listed below, due on Canvas by Thurs., Dec. 5 at noon. Each paper must cite at least four scholarly secondary sources (i.e., scholarly books or peer-reviewed journal articles such as those found on BRANCH, JSTOR, or Project Muse, or any of the scholarly articles we read in class). If you wish, you may also cite web-based sources, news articles, encyclopedia entries, television programs, and student presentations, though they are considered tertiary rather than secondary sources. For help finding appropriate sources, please see SLU’s Victorian Literature Research Guide online: https://libguides.slu.edu/victorianlit or ask me for assistance. You may also contact SLU librarian Martha Allen at [email protected]
Each paper must have a debatable argument supported by textual evidence from both primary and secondary sources. Papers will be graded according to the SLU English Department Rubric, available on our Canvas course homepage.
Note on rough drafts: I am happy to look at thesis statements or short paragraphs you are working on and give you advice, but I typically do not have time to look at entire paper drafts outside of office hours. You are welcome to make an appointment with SLU Writing Services if you need a review of an entire draft, but please sign up early as spaces fill quickly.
Final paper checklist:
• Eight full-length pages, plus additional works cited page
• At least four scholarly secondary sources
• Correct formatting: double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, 1-inch margins
• Correct MLA style for in-text citations and works cited page
Final Paper Topics
1. Write about an aspect of Victorian medicine, material culture, or lifestyle (such as gynecology, fashion, vaccinations, food, interior décor, etc.) as represented in one or two* of the works we have read this semester. For instance, you could write about opium use in “The Lotus Eaters,” funeral customs in In Memoriam, women’s fashion in The Lifted Veil, etc. Discuss how the literary work(s) in question comment upon your chosen medical or lifestyle trend. If you wish, this paper can expand upon a topic you explored in your presentation and paper 1, though you cannot simply cut and paste long segments of that document. Also, you should cite new source material in addition to previously consulted works. For this paper, you must focus primarily on the literary text(s) under consideration as they relate to your chosen medical or cultural phenomenon.
2. Choose one primary source excerpt from the anthology Embodied Selves: an Anthology of Psychological Texts, 1830-1890, ed. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth (two copies of this book are on reserve for our class at the front desk of Pius Library). Each excerpt in this book is written by a nineteenth-century expert about some issue related to psychology. In your essay, you will relate your chosen excerpt from Embodied Selves to one of the literary works we have read in class. Here are some examples of good pairings — though you are free to choose others — and the reasons why I think they match up well:
George Combe, “Phrenology and Education” and George Eliot, The Lifted Veil (the narrator of Eliot’s novella gets a phrenological reading)
Thomas Laycock, “The Nervous Diseases of Women” OR Robert Brudnell Carter, “Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria” and Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (many readers feel that Catherine Linton suffers from some kind of mental illness, possibly hysteria)
Henry Maudsley, “A Case of Moral Insanity” and Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (some readers have speculated that Heathcliff, too, suffers from a form of mental illness, possibly moral insanity)
Arthur Ladbroke Wigan, “The Duality of the Mind” and Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde (both relate to dual personality and its possible causes)
Make sure your essay includes an argument about how your chosen excerpt relates to the work of literature you have selected, and why it is important to compare the two texts. Perhaps the excerpt expresses a widespread medical opinion that surfaces in the literary work. You may also choose an excerpt that presents a view of human psychology that is dramatically different than the one presented in your chosen literary work.
3. Write about the servants in one or two of the texts we have read this term (such as Nelly Dean in Wuthering Heights or Poole in Jekyll and Hyde). Keep in mind the liminal social status of servants in Victorian households: that is, how they were simultaneously employees and, in many cases, members of the family. How do the works we have read comment upon the role of servants in Victorian life?