Lone Star College-Kingwood

Survey of British Literature II

   Potential Research Paper Topics

All topics must focus on England during the mid-eighteenth century to the present and must be approved by Dr. Samuelson.

Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

A critical study of changes in religion during the nineteenth century
The effects of Darwinism and/or archaeological discoveries on traditional beliefs, culture, and society
Treatment of children and/or the poor in the nineteenth century
The pre-Raphaelite painters
Romanticism in literature, music and/or painting
The development of medicine, psychology or philosophy in England
British Fin de Siécle artists
The English World War I poets
Impressionism in British painting
Realism in English art and/or literature

You may also do a researched critical analysis of one of the novels in the textbook: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, or Bernard Shaw's play, Mrs. Warren's Profession.  You may also choose works by Willliam Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, The Brownings, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, or Doris Lessing.

BOOKS

Books will be among your greatest resources for this project.  There are many appropriate titles in the LSC-Kingwood Library.  Here are a few suggested reference books:  

• REF CB411.S8   Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.  An annual publication indexed in MLA International Bibliography
• REF D208 .N4   The New Cambridge Modern History:  vols. 11-14. London: Cambridge University Press, 1957-. | Covers art, literature, religion, education -- worldwide, not just Great Britain.
• REF DA550 .E53  The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World.  NY: Holt, 1996.
• REF DA550 .V53 1988   Victorian Britain: an Encyclopedia.  NY: Garland, 1988. |  covers all aspects of life in England during the Victorian Age -- people, society, events, art, literature, religion, music, law, and everyday life.
• REF  N31 .D5 1996   The Dictionary of Art.  NY: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996. |  34-volume set covering all aspects of art and artists, worldwide throughout history.
• REF PN50 .M625  World Literature and Its Times.  Detroit: Gale, 1999-.  |   Multi-volume reference with profiles of notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them.  Volume 3 covers Britain through the 1830s, and volume 4 covers 1837 to the present.
• REF PN610 .C53  Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1981-.  |  Multi-volume collection of  excerpted literary criticisms of writings by authors who died during the nineteenth century, with introductory essays about  the authors and their critiqued works.
• REF PN771 .G27  Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1978-.  |  Multi-volume collection of  excerpted literary criticisms of writings by authors who died between1900 and 1959, with introductory essays about  the authors and their critiqued works.
• REF PR473 .T84  Twentieth-century British literature. NY: Chelsea House, 1985-. |  Multi-volume collection of  excerpted literary criticisms with introductory essays about  the authors and their critiqued works.

JOURNALS AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES (ONLINE ACCESS) 

Literature Resource Center  |  Includes most of the information in Nineteenth-century Literature Criticism and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism.  It also has links to scholarly journal articles and appropriate Internet sites. This database also includes a link to the MLA International Bibliography.

MLA International Bibliography  |  The most comprehensive index to literary criticism.  Most articles are not available online, but they may be available through other database. Use the "Check LinkSource" option to find the complete article.  You may need to obtain them from the library or through interlibrary loan.

JSTOR Arts & Sciences  |  Search or browse the complete back issues of scholarly journals in literature, economics, history, social sciences, science and mathematics.

Project MUSE  |  Search and browse the full text of recent scholarly journal articles in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

History Study Center | Contains journal articles, primary sources & reference books.

Biography Reference Bank  |  45,000 biographies of people from antiquity to the present.

Academic Search Complete  |  Collection of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles. Many scholarly.

Proquest  |  Collection of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles. Many scholarly. 

Grove Art Online  |   Full text art reference covering all the visual arts from prehistory to the 1990's with image links.

INTERNET SITES 

Suggested Web Sites

Literary History.com: Indexing the Internet - Excellent site linking to free critical articles related to authors and their works.

Academic Info : English Literature  |  links to literature sites for all periods, including Romantic, Victorian and Modern.

The Victorian Dictionary   |  A delightful guide to the social history of Victorian London.  Not really a dictionary, but an encyclopedic arrangement of articles and other information reflecting how life was lived in Victorian London. Also some good links to other relevant web sites.

The Victorian Web   |   Literature, history, and culture in the age of Victoria.  A very comprehensive site from the National University of Singapore.

Romantic Circles  |  University of Maryland site devoted to the literature, art, history, and culture of the Romantic Period. Especially helpful  are the sections titled, "Electronic Editions" and "Features & Events."

Romanticism on the Net   |   An International Refereed Electronic Journal devoted to British Romantic studies.

Literary Resources -- Twentieth-Century British and Irish   |   Links to appropriate literature web resources, created by Jack Lynch of Rutgers University, Newark.

Voice of the Shuttle: Modern British & American Literature   |   Web links to modern British & American literature and authors -- from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

GETTING HELP FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Avoiding Plagiarism   |   Excellent information and guide on how to avoid plagiarism from the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

University of Texas Copyright Crash Course | This helpful guide on copyright is suggested by Lone Star College-Kingwood Teaching and Learning Center.

Learning Center  |  Offers tutoring services for Lone Star College-Kingwood students in most subjects as well as other services.

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Talk to a librarian. If nobody answers, please leave a message and we will e-mail a reply as soon as possible.

REMEMBER, the final authority on this paper is Dr. Samuelson.