Essays and Research Papers on British Literature

This 7 page paper argues that novel, The Picture Of Dorian Gray and the play, The Importance Of Earnest are two of his works that reflect how Wilde felt about being a homosexual during the Victorian era. Bibliography lists 7 sources.

This 5 page report discusses “The Adventures of Beowulf” and how it presents characters of epic and heroic proportions. Heroism such as that presented by Beowulf have shaped human ideals throughout the centuries regarding what it means to be a hero and how heroic action is personified. Beowulf is all that could be asked for in a good ...

A 5 page paper which compares and contrasts the two works, considering their social relevance and views on the philosophical debate of determinism vs. free will. Bibliography lists 5 sources.

A 5 page paper which examines how love is depicted in Wyatt’s “The Long Love That My Heart Doth Harbor,” “Farewell, Love,” “Whoso List to Hunt,” “My Gallery,” “Divers Doth Use,” “Madam, Withouten Many Words,” “They Flee From Me,” “My Lute, Awake!,” Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” “The Lie,” “Farewell, False Love,” Marlowe’s ...

This 5 page report discusses two of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” -- The Miller’s Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale -- and compares them with two epics of honor and chivalry -- “Beowulf” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The result is one in which two very different human natures are shown and two very different messages are presented for ...

An 8 page essay that discusses how the male characters in Jane Austen's Emma either mature, or don't mature, over the course of the novel. The writer discusses Knightley, Churchill and Elton, in this regard. No additional sources cited.

A 5 page essay that discusses the comic technique of nineteenth century playwright Oscar Wilde. The writer compares The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband. No additional sources cited.

A 5 page paper which examines how the novel’s main element is character. Bibliography lists 6 sources.

This 5 page report discusses how both Geoffrey Chaucer and the ancient writer of “Beowulf” present worlds in which human interactions with one another are not necessarily less imprint than the interactions of an individual with the natural world. The modern reader sees the ways in which the various characters that inhabit “The Canterbury Tales” as well as the epic of ...

A ten page paper which looks at the development of the Gothic genre of romantic fiction, its exposition of the darker side of human nature and the parameters of female sexuality, the way in which it can be seen as the forerunner of the modern science fiction novel and the importance of Gothic fiction in ...

This 5 page paper provides an overview of the society in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and considers the kind of social world, which appears to be cyclical and has little enduring opportunity for change. This paper considers the view of money, marriage and the lack of potential for change. No additional sources ...

A five page paper which looks at the way in which the rise of capitalism and the merchant classes was relevant to women in the eighteenth century, and the ways in which the works of Defoe and Centlivre illustrate this. Bibliography lists 1 source.

This 7 page report discusses “The Book of Margery Kempe” which is thought to be one of, if not the, first autobiographies in English. The book chronicles the spiritual life of a remarkably unusual and illiterate, medieval woman. Geoffrey Chaucer’s story of “The Wife of Bath” in “The Canterbury Tales” presents an equally unique woman, especially in terms of her railing ...

5 pages in length. Pressure and conflict are common in most everyone's lives, occurring in various degrees and created both externally (the world outside) and internally (one's own anxieties, needs and desires). Applying the concepts of pressure and conflict to the literary world, the student will find that D.H. Lawrence's Rocking-Horse Winner and ...

A 6 page discussion of the role of fate and tradition in setting the course of events which would unfold. Asserts that Hardy attributed more of life’s events to fate than to any sort of intelligent guiding force or supreme being. This attribution was fatalistic in that it meant that there was little ...

A 5 page discussion of the similarities and differences in these two works. Sometimes densely elusive, Eliot’s “The Waste Land” recaptured much of the essence of the metaphysical poetry of the Seventeenth Century but the author’s style is at the same time unique to his own period, the period of modernism. Asserts that ...

A five page paper which looks at the concepts of freedom and restraint in Book II of More’s Utopia, with reference to work, leisure, resources, politics, and marriage. Bibliography lists 1 source

Elizabeth Gaskell, in North And South, portrays the process of industrialization and modernization as the development of the capitalist system of economy. This 5 page paper incorporates the views of Karl Marx in its exploration of labor relations within the novel. Bibliography lists 2 sources.

A 5 page paper which compares and contrasts how these themes are explored in two stories from “The Canterbury Tales.” Bibliography lists 2 sources.

A 5 page paper which examines what the romance narratives contribute to the novel’s social and political arguments. Bibliography lists 3 sources.

A sixteen page paper which considers the main characters in Forster’s A Room With A View, Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, in terms of the types of women they represent and the way in which they are influenced by the socio-cultural codes and values of their environment. Bibliography lists 6 ...

A 10 page assertion that although Jane Austen continually explores the theme of psychological and moral development in her novels, no works better encapsulate these themes than do “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and “Sensibility”. This paper explores the importance of impulse and obligation to two of the characters of these works, Elizabeth Bennett ...

Every person in every society and from every age has 'quested' after what they belief is the unattainable - whether it is a knowledge of the unknown or the ability to love perfectly in an imperfect world - or whether it is an object or symbolic metaphor - these 'quests' often result in symbols and ...

This 5 page report discusses “Frankenstein” as a literary work from the psychological perspective of criticism. . Although “Frankenstein” has developed a life of its own (just as the monster did) separate from the original story, each version of the “myth” contains one primary and enduring factor, regardless of the context in which the story is re-invented and re-told. That ...

A 5 page paper which discusses the adequacy with which Laurie Lee conveyed his characters in "Cider with Rosie." Bibliography lists 2 additional sources.