Assignment: A Room of One’s Own is a species of creative non-fiction, part lecture, part literary history, and part imaginative hypothetical musing, as in the story of Shakespeare’s sister. Questions 1-4 concern chapter 1 [Women and Fiction]. Questions 5-9 focus on the excerpt from Chapter 3 [Shakespeare’s sister]. 1. Read the editor’s introduction to Woolf’s essay, taking … [Read more…]
Assignment: We’ll spend two days on Mill’s essay. Please read the entire essay, then for day one, focus on questions 1-4, although you should feel free to range further ahead. Restate Mills’s basic premise i.e., the claim his essay will develop and explain why he thinks the relationship between the sexes is such an important … [Read more…]
Assignment: [AURORA’S EDUCATION] How is England different than Italy? What specific language and images depict the two countries and Aurora’s experience in each? What does Aurora’s portrait of her Aunt tell us about the orphan’s childhood and/or the conventional route towards Victorian womanhood? List some of the “courses” and readings of Aurora’s education. How does … [Read more…]
Assignment: Describe the speaker in each of these poems. Describe the woman depicted in each of these poems. What is the relationship between viewer and subject? Which viewer? How is the reader implicated in this relationship? Discussion: 1. The speaker in Rosetti’s “In an Artist’s studio” is one out of a group of people … [Read more…]
Assignment: We’ll be spending one day each on discussion of Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and Rosetti’s “In an Artist’s Studio,” and the questions to guide each discussion are the same. Describe the speaker. Describe the woman depicted. What is the relationship between viewer(s) and the Duke and/or the Duchess? How is the reader implicated in … [Read more…]
Assignment: According to Wordsworth, what do most readers think of when they think of poetry? What must its characteristics be to count as poetry? a How are the poems in the Lyrical Ballads different? b For example, what sorts of topics should the poet take for his subject? How does the poet process feeling, or how does … [Read more…]
Assignment: What are the poet’s subjects, or what does this poem seem to be “about”? Offer a brief description. When is the action of each stanza occurring? Make a quick list that includes examples of these textual time stamps i.e. the language that specifies time. How does the poet make use of the past? For example, … [Read more…]
Assignment: Evaluate the “prevailing opinion” that women were created for men. What implications derive from this opinion? How does Wollstonecraft aim to change it? To what extent are her arguments valid today? How is romantic love used to degrade women? In what sense can passion be rational according to Wollstonecraft? How important is beauty to … [Read more…]
Assignment: Wollstonecraft uses the Introduction to define and narrow her subject. What subtopics will a discussion of women’s rights entail? What is her main point? Wollstonecraft describes women as she finds them but uses her essay to argue for what they could be. What characterizes contemporary women, in her view? How does she distinguish “individual … [Read more…]
Assignment: Once you’ve annotated the reading, return here to answer four of the eight questions. Your responses should be at least a few sentences long (3-5). If you want, or need, to write more, that’s fine but not necessary. If you get into it and see patterns, answer all eight. How does Burke want citizens to view their … [Read more…]
