Back to English/WS 315 Home | Paper Guidelines
In this paper, you will be developing an argument in relation to more than one of the texts we have read. You may write on any of the works we have studied, but you should write on one of the following topics (not a topic from the two previous assignments), and you should include discussion of at least one text that you have not yet written on.
These topics are to help you focus your argument. You are encouraged to read a few pieces of literary or other criticism on your texts (of course, you may use the pieces included in the coursepack), and to contextualize your discussion in other reading that you have done (for example, historical or theoretical readings). Try to engage in some kind of dialog with these other readings, if you can, so that your paper becomes part of an ongoing critical debate. Remember that every point you make should be backed up by evidence from the text you are discussing (ie. with a quotation or a specific textual reference). Whenever you quote, make sure you include full details of the text you are quoting from (author, title, publisher, date of publication of your edition) in a bibliography, and give the page number in parentheses after the quotation itself. You do not have to base your answer around one of the questions that follow, or necessarily around texts that we have studied in class, but if you decide not to, you must discuss your chosen topic or texts with me before you start to work on your paper. You should refer to at least two texts in your paper.
- "’Lesbianism’ is not a ‘natural’ identity, but one that is experienced and lived in relation to the dominant cultural discourses of the day. For example, Radclyffe Hall takes as her model the "mannish invert" of Havelock Ellis, Ann Bannon the style of the 1950s butch, and Rita Mae Brown the adventurous feminist of the 1970s." Do you agree? Answer with reference to two texts of your choice.
- How have any two writers used indirect, coded or oblique language to write about desire between women?
- Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando were published in the same year, 1928. Compare and contrast their styles, and suggest some of the consequences that the author’s choice of style had for the reception of their text.
- "It is impossible to think about sexual identities without also thinking about racial, gender and class identities." How do any two texts explore the relations between sexuality and race, gender, or class?
- Is the genre of "lesbian romance" a contradiction in terms? Answer with reference to the work of at least two writers. (To answer this question you will need to read another lesbian romance – of your choice!)
- Are lesbian texts inevitable feminist texts? Discuss with reference to the work of at least two writers.
- "A ‘lesbian narrative’ inevitably challenges the shape and conventions of dominant literary genres, for example the novel, the biography, the pulp romance." Do you agree?