TERM PAPER

LITS2002 POETRY II

TERM PAPER SEMESTER II, 2007-2008

Answer ONE of the following questions:

1. Comparing at least two poems, one by Pope and the other by either Wordsworth or Coleridge, say in what ways Romantic poetry may represent something of a revolution with respect to the Neoclassical poetry which preceded it.

2. "All Romantic poetry expresses, in one way or another, the epiphany that, as Wordsworth puts it, 'The power which . . . Nature thus / Thrusts forth upon the senses, is . . . a genuine counterpart / And brother of that glorious faculty / Which higher minds bear with them as their own' (The Prelude, Book VI) or, as Coleridge puts it, "I may not hope from outward forms to win / The passion and the life, whose fountains are within' ("Dejection: an Ode")." Discuss with reference to at least one poem by Wordsworth and at least one poem by Coleridge.

3. The symbol, Coleridge argues, is "characterised by the translucence of the eternal through and in the temporal" (The Statesman’s Manual). Discuss the role of symbolism in at least one poem by Wordsworth and at least one poem by Coleridge.

4. Would you agree that Romantic poetry "oscillates between sublime joy and profound depression"? Discuss with reference to at least one poem by Wordsworth and at least one poem by Coleridge.

5. Through close reference to at least one poem by Wordsworth and at least one poem by Coleridge, outline some of the formal and thematic characteristics of what M. H. Abrams has termed the ‘greater Romantic lyric.’

6. "Escapist poetry, poetry that retreats from socio-political realities and flees towards mysticism." Do you agree with this assessment of Romantic poetry? Discuss with reference to at least one poem by Wordsworth and at least one poem by Coleridge.

DEADLINE: 6 pm, Thursday March 27, 2008

LENGTH: 7 pages maximum (typewritten, double-spaced)

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