In second term, you'll be giving two more seminar presentations. The first will be on one of the subjects listed below; the second will be on your work in progress on your research papers.

The script of each seminar is due, as always, the Friday after you present. It can be in point form, but please provide a full bibliography of primary and secondary works cited, and please give page numbers for books and articles and line numbers for your poem.

As before, your seminar should present a focussed, engaging argument, not just a summary of one poem. If you're focussing on one poem or poet, try to contextualize it. Continue to contextualize your ideas in current critical scholarship: the library tour will help you find appropriate articles and books.

Possible poems are listed farther down this page.

January 10th Class and gender issues: Mary Leapor and Mary Collier subvert the country house poem and the georgic.

January 17th Women in/on nature: topographical poetry.

January 24th Women and nature: helpless or dead little animals.

January 31st Race, class, and gender: Phillis Wheatley, slavery.

February 7th Domestic and foreign politics.

January 3: Library tour (one of the smart classrooms on the 4th floor of Robarts)

January 10 - February 7 Seminar 3

February 14-19: Reading week

February 21: No seminars.

250-word outline/proposal and annotated bibliography for your research paper.

February 28: In-class test.

The test will be open-book and will consist of either two essay questions (some choice), or one essay question and several passages for commentary.

March 6 - April 3: Seminar 4: reports on research in progress.

April 10: Major paper due.

By NOON on Saturday December 4th, please email me/leave at Wetmore Porter (a) your preferred 3 dates/subjects for seminar 3, (b) your preferred 3 dates for presenting your work in progress.

Here are some possible poems for seminar 3. I've listed far more than we can all read, so I'll be asking you the week before your seminar to let us know which poem(s) you'll be presenting on

January 10th Class and gender issues: Mary Leapor and Mary Collier subvert the country house poem and the georgic.

Mary Leapor's "Crumble Hall" (B297) as a response to

Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Burlington" (B141)

Mary Collier's "The Woman's Labour" (B257) as a response to

Stephen Duck's "The Thresher's Labour" (B 257)

January 17th Women in/on nature: topographical poetry.

Please also read Dyer, "Grongar Hill" (B228)

Yearsley, "Clifton Hill" (B443)

Seward, "Colebrooke Dale" (B524)

Seward, "Sonnet: to Colebrooke dale" (L316)

`Ophelia', "Snaith March" (L244)

Blamire, from "Stoklewath; or, the Cumbrian Village" (L283)

Wilson, from "Teisa" (L354)

Baillie, "A Winter Day", "A Summer Day" (L430)

January 24th Women and nature: tiny/dead/helpless little animals.

Moira Ferguson has written another book: Animal advocacy and English womena, 1780-1900, Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1998. HV 4803 A3 F47 ROBA. Haven't looked at it yet.

Please also read,

Gray, "Ode on the death of a favourite cat" (B327)

Smart, "My cat Jeoffry" (B387)

Burns, "To a mouse" and "To a louse" (B459)

Barbauld, "The mouse's petition" 1773 (L302)

Seward, "An old cat's dying soliloquy" 1792 (L319)

Savage, "The disaster" 1777 (L351)

Cave, "A poem for children" 1783 (L374)

Williams, "Elegy on a young thrush" 1790 (L415)

Hands, "... a mad heifer" 1789 (L424)

Francis, "An elegy on a favourite cat" 1790 (L447)

January 31st Race, class, and gender: Phillis Wheatley, slavery.

There's an on-line bibliography about the slavery debate

Read through Wheatley's poems on line.

Please also read Warton, "The Dying Indian" (B366)

Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford, `The story of Inkle and Yarico: a most moving tale from the Spectator' 1726? (L106)

Hannah More, `Slavery: a poem' 1788 (L330)

Ann Yearsley, `A poem on the inhumanity of the slave trade' 1788 (find somewhere!)

Anna Letitia Barbauld, `Epistle to William Wilberforce'

February 7th Domestic and foreign politics.

Barbauld, "Corsica" 1769 (B471)

Williams, "To Dr Moore" 1792 (B534)

Barbauld, "On the expected general rising of the French nation in 1792" 1792 (L304)

Seward, "Verses inviting Stella to tea" 1782 (L314)

Blamire, "Wey, Ned, Man!" 1792 (L290)

More, "Patient Joe" 1795 (L331)

Smith, "The Emigrants" 1793 (L370)

Alcock, "Instructions" c1792 (L462)

Plumptre, "Ode to moderation" 1795 (L493)