Assignment: Write an essay paper (5-7 pages, about 1,500-2,100 words) in which you discuss a text or texts, touching on the themes of revolution and romantic literature that we have seen in the class.

The paper must be typed, double-spaced, and on one side of the page. Leave no more than a 1 1/2-inch margin on both sides of your page, number your pages, and fasten them together (staple or paper clips; staple is best).

Guidelines for writing the paper
All essays in general require a topic and a thesis. In this assignment (and most English paper assignments) you are essentially writing an "argumentative essay." In other words you are making some specific claim (your thesis) about a subject and then "proving" that claim with "evidence" and supporting details in the body of your essay.

Topics and theses are related but NOT the same thing: topics are much more general than theses.
 

Topic	Thesis
Kindness and the condition of the poor in "The Old Cumberland Beggar"	Wordsworth's theme of "treat the poor kindly and the community will benefit" represents a sell-out of his earlier, more radical support of the political aims of the French Revolution.
The relation of man and monster in Frankenstein	Frankenstein and his monster represent opposite figures in the unequal society of the times.  Frankenstein is the quintessential tyrant, who fails to recognize his moral obligation toward the common people, represented by the monster.
The relation of man and monster in Frankenstein	Frankenstein represents Mary Shelley's criticism of fast food in her society.  Victor is destroyed in the novel but the monster lives on, and this is because the former had a horrible greasy empty-calorie diet composed of hamburgers and french fries whereas the latter ate only vegetables and legumes.

Some possible topics

• the uses of the past:  revolution versus evolution in the writings of Burke and Paine
• the image of France in pro and anti-revolutionary writing in Britain
• Wordsworth's retreat from radicalism, as evidenced in The Prelude
• "Kindness" as welfare program in "The Old Cumberland Beggar"
• Wordsworth's use of the picturesque landscape in "Tintern Abbey"
• Picturesque art and picturesque poetry: similarities and differences
• Sex as a political act in Burn's "sex" poems
• Romantic writing and Scottish nationalism in the poetry of Burns
• metaphors of birth and death in Frankenstein
• Shelley's indictment of the masculine ego in Frankenstein
• The country versus the city in the works of Wordsworth and others
• "Libertie, egalitie, and sororitie!"  The French revolution and the feminist writings of Mary Wollstonecraft.
• "Anti-feminist" women writers of the Romantic period
• Female writers, "masculine" writing, in  the Romantic period
• The image of Napoleon in Romantic literature
• Wordsworth and Shelley: new Romantic radicalism versus old
• Nature and human society in the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley
• the image of slavery in Romantic literature:  Mary Prince versus Mary Wollstonecraft
• The limits of liberty:  colonialism and Romantic literature

Read the poem(s) or passage(s) you intend to use very carefully before you begin to write your paper.

If you choose a longer work (such as Frankenstein),you will probably need to focus your answer on part(s) of the text. If you choose a very short poem, you might possibly write on more than one--for example, two or three poems by Blake. But be careful that you treat each poem thoroughly.

State your thesis right in the introduction of your paper. It's best to get to your point in the first or second paragraph.
Support your thesis with specific details of the poem (or whatever) you are using.  It's best to be as specific as you can about your work's actual phrasing, imagery, word choice, plot details, characterization, etc.

 Make sure that you document all quotations and references to other people’s work. Short quotations can be included in the body of your text in double-quotation marks with a citation in parentheses: "Five years have past; five summers, with the length/Of five long winters! and again I hear/These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs . . ." (Wordsworth 1-3)

Long quotations of three lines or more of writing should be a) indented 10 spaces b) written out as verse (if poetry) c) single-spaced d) not in quotation marks e) with ending punctuation before documentation:
 

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being: all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. (Shelly 99)

You are required to do outside research on this paper. I will provide a bibliography of useful or interesting scholarly works related to issues of revolution and the politics of the times that will hopefully help to get you started on your search for information. (Many times you can also find a useful bibliography of secondary material in the back of a given edition.) It might be best, though, first to reflect and brainstorm on the topics and works that might interest you before embarking on your research at the library.

Using the Library Catalog for Research

Select Online Catalog from the Library home page to access CONSULS:

Select Keyword Search:

To find literary criticism, search on the author's name and the word criticism:

Using the Library Databases for Research

Use Database A-Z when you know the name of the database you want to use. Use Databases By Subject to see the recommended databases for Arts & Humanities:

To find out more about the database, use the About link. To search, click on the name or the Web link:

Let's start with MLA: The MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB), published by the Modern Language Association, covers scholarship published since 1963 in literature, linguistics, folklore, literary theory and, since 1998, rhetoric and composition. It is also an important resource for the non-technical aspects of theater and film studies, cultural studies, critical theory, and the history of printing and publishing. MLAIB does not cover scholarship in Greek, Latin, and other ancient languages and literatures. Only bibliographic citations are included; there are no abstracts. Citations are primarily to journal articles, books, essays in multi-author collections, dissertations, and conference proceedings. Book and performance reviews are not included. Coverage for the years 1921-1962 is available only in print and the Library has 1969-1987 and 1989-1991 in Reference Z7006.M64. The electronic version offers easy searching by keyword, author, and subject (characters, literary themes, etc.).

How did we do?

Let's broaden our search:

Let's take a look at our results:

Notice the word Charity in the 2nd "hit". Let's redo our search using that keyword rather than "kindness":

Now how did we do?

Use the link, Search CONSULS for this title, to find out where you can access the full text of the article:

Here's what the CONSULS record looks like; in this case, you would need to order the article via Interlibrary Loan:

Let's try Academic Search Elite: Academic Search Elite provides full text for more than 1,715 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for 2,794 journals. More than 1,880 journals are peer reviewed. Full text backfiles go as far back as January of 1990, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984.

Caveat! Check the Peer Reviewed Box to limit your search to scholarly journals:

Whenyou have a choice between HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text, always select PDF to get an exact replica of the originl journal article:

Now let's try JSTOR: JSTOR is an archive of core scholarly journals in cross-disciplinary fields such as anthropology, economics, mathematics, and the arts and sciences. Dates of coverage work with a "moving wall" set by publishers, ranging from 2-5 years back from the current publication year of each title. Some journals are archived back to the 1800s. The database is updated monthly and contains approximately 117 journal titles.

First enter your search terms:

Next, scroll down and select your subject area(s):

Scroll back up and click on the Search button:

A nice feature is where you can see your search terms.

Interlibrary Loan

For books from the CSUs, use the Request Book button in CONSULS: Your book will be here in 2-4 days (you must be in the record for the book in order to access this feature). For journal articles from other CSUs, use the online form or the paper form at the Reference Desk. Journal articles will also arrive in 2-4 days.

Photocopies of journal articles are $.10/page. You will be notified by telephone or e-mail (you select this option on the form) when the books or journal articles arrive. Interlibrary Loan books and journal articles may be picked up at the Circulation Desk.

You may order books or journal articles from any other library via Interlibrary loan (ILL) but it will take at least 7-10 days (perhaps 2-3 weeks). You can request a book or journal via ILL on the Library's ILL page. Go to the Library home page and rest your mouse on Library Services (see illustration below). You'll see a drop-down menu; click on Interlibrary Loan.


On the Interlibrary Loan page, you can read the policies and access online forms for journals or books:

Caveat! When searching the databases, if you get results from Dissertation Abstracts, you may request the dissertation, using the ILL book form. Some dissertations are not available and, if available, there may be fees involved.

When you need help with your research, please come to the Reference Desk or call us @54699.

When you do refer to an outside source in your paper, give its full title, author, and publication details in a Works Cited list at the end of your paper (use MLA style guidelines). Don’t use footnotes in the paper itself.

I will provide you with a sign-up sheet for a short meeting with me in my office to discuss your paper draft.  For this meeting,  I would like you to have at least a basic outline of you paper , with a clear indication of your topic and some indication of your thesis and research materials you have consulted up to that point. You must meet with me and obtain my go-ahead before turning in your paper.

For  internet links to useful sites on Romantic literature and research see the last page of my Romanticism Syllabus website.

Lastly, please give your paper a title, and please proofread your paper carefully before turning it in.