Topic for writing assignments

• Different views on the roles of women presented in twentieth-century English literature

• Views of parent-child relations or relationships among different generations
• Views of problems caused by class differences or racism in society
• Views of love relationships or marriage
• Views of love in different Victorian works
• Development of 19th-century realism in poetry and fiction
• Use of humor in literary works
• Report on a nineteenth- or twentieth-century British author (of adults' or children’s
literature). Focus on at least one major literary work by that author which you have read.
• Report on a social, historical, political, religious or scientific issue in Britain as it is reflected
in particular works of literature. For example, in some of Dickens’ novels problems with the
educational system in England are illustrated. Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s
psychoanalytical theories had a major impact on many writers. Yeats, Joyce, and others
wrote about political problems in Ireland.
• Report on a particular place in the British Isles or former British Empire and the sense of
place conveyed in specific literary work(s). For example, the Bronte sisters wrote about the
Yorkshire moors, George Eliot’s novels are set in the rural Midlands where she grew up,
Dickens and T. S. Eliot made use of London scenes in their times, Irish places were
important to Joyce and Yeats. Bring some pictures to class or display pictures on the
Internet or in PowerPoint.
• Create a short skit or some other kind of production that dramatizes a literary piece.

• Report on some aspect of social history that relates to particular works of literature. What
Jane Austen Knew and Charles Dickens Ate is an interesting book on nineteenth-century
life.
• Select any work of British literature that interests you and discuss how it illustrates major
characteristics of literary trends.
• Why do we consider Vanity Fair to be one of the greatest examples of the 19th century
critical realism?
• What themes does Charlotte Bronte touch upon in Jane Eyre?
• Why has Byron often been called a poet of “world sorrow”?
• What themes did Oscar Wilde touch on his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray?

• Explain what makes it possible to link Galsworthy with the best writers of world literature.
 Recommended literature
1. William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet, Twelfth Night
2. John Donne.(1572-1631): The Good Morrow, Good Friday.
3. John Milton. (1608-1674): Paradise Lost.
4. John Bunyan. (1628-1688): The Pilgrim’s Progress.
5. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
6. Jonathan Swift.(1667-1745): Gulliver’s Travels .
7. Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Rape of the Lock, Ode on Solitude, The Universal Prayer.
8. William Blake (1757-1827): Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell.
9. William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The World is Too Much With Us, The Daffodils, The
Rainbow, The Solitary Reaper
10. George Gordon Byron (1788 – 1824): When we two parted, Song for the Luddites
11. John Keats (1795-1821): On a Grecian Urn.
12. Walter Scott (1771-1832): Ivanhoe
13. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855): Jane Eyre.
14. Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility
15. Charles Dickens (1812-1870): Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield,
16. Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
17. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
18. William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair
19. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): The Picture of Dorian Gray
20. Robert Browning (1812-1889): My Last Duchess.
21. Gerald M. Hopkins (1844-1889): Pied Beauty
22. William B. Yeats (1865-1939): Easter 1916, The Circus Animals’ Desertion.
23. T. S. Eliot (1888-1965): Murder in the Cathedral, The Waste Land.
24. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): Pygmalion, Major Barbara
25. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): Heart of Darkness
26. D.H.Lawrence. (1885-1930): Sons and Lovers, England, My England.
27. James Joyce (1882-1941): A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses.
28. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): Mrs. Dalloway. Modern Fiction.
29. George Orwell (1902-1950): Animal Farm.
30. Graham Green (1904-1990): End of the Affair
31. William G. Golding (1911- 1993): Lord of the Flies.