Princeton University - Department of English

Professor: Jonathan Lamb

Preceptor: Laura Sayre

ENG321

Travel in Eighteenth-Century Fiction and Prose Narrative

Paper Topics

English 321: Travel in 18th-Century Fiction and Prose Narrative

Final Paper Topics:

Topics for the final paper (10 pages) are as follows. Note: these include a few topics given for the mid-term paper; obviously you won't want to write on the same topic twice.

(a) It is common to mark the moment of contact between two cultures with an exchange of artifacts. What purpose does it serve? Does it instantly put the representative of a commercial culture at an advantage over someone from a gift culture? Or the opposite?

(b) It is an axiom of sensationist/empiricist philosophy (Locke, Hume) that nothing reaches the mind that has not already traversed the senses. How well is this exemplified in one or more of stories we have read?

(c) Sympathy is usually referred to as a benevolent disposition to share the pains of others; but to the extent that it arises from a certain rawness of nerves (`extravagant delicacy in all his sensations') it can lead to the opposite of sociability. With reference to some examples discuss the sociability of the sympathetic person.

(d) In her recent account of the rise of the novel, Nancy Armstrong claimed that "Written representations of the self allowed the modern individual to become an economic and psychological reality. . . and the modern individual was first and foremost a woman." Make an argument either for or against this statement with regard to one more of the novels we have read.

(e) The 18th century saw important political and social reorganization within Britain and Europe as well as global exploration and conquest, and we have read narrative accounts from voyages across the continent as well as across the Atlantic and Pacific. Is there a difference between local travel and travel abroad?

(f) Travellers seem to view exotic landscapes either for their aesthetic value or for their economic value. Discuss this process--either singly or in combination--in one or more of the texts we have read.

Home Syllabus Assignments Additional Reading WWW