Paper topics

Fall semester.
1. Allegory and symbols in N. Hawthorne’s short stories.
2. Analyse a story by E.A. Poe with regard to its fulfilling his standards for short prose narrative.
3. E.A. Poe’s devices for heightening the effect of horror and terror in short stories.
4. Historical and social context in W. Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” (or any story from “The Sketch Book”).
5. W. Irving and E.A. Poe as romantic writers (contrastive analysis).
6. W. Irving’s humor and irony in romantic tales (“Rip Van Winkle”, “The Devil and Tom Walker”, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”).
7. Means of characterisation in H. James’s “The American”.
8. Conflict and plot in H. James’s “The American”.
9. The importance of setting in “The American”.
10. S. Crane as a naturalist and impressionist in his short stories.
11. H.W. Longfellow as a “master technician” (using any poem as an example, explain as fully as possible why he deserves this description, take into consideration the use of appropriate imagery, figurative language, alliteration, etc.).
12. Line and rhythm in H.W. Longfellow’s poetry.
13. The new form of W. Whitman’s poetry (use any poem or poems from “Leaves of Grass” as an example, explain his innovations in form, rhythm, style, etc.).
14. Emily Dickinson’s poetic inventions (rhyme, language, grammatical innovations, punctuation and capitalization, word choice).

Spring semester.
1. E.A. Robinson and R. Frost as the followers of the New England classical tradition.
2. C. Sandburg – the poet in the Whitman’s tradition (compare “Song of myself by W. Whitman and C. Sandburg’s “Jazz Fantasia”; or “I hear America singing” and “The people will live on”).
3. Contrasting the poetry of R. Frost and C. Sandburg.
4. Traditions of conventional poetry in Robinson’s “Miniver Cheevy”.
5. C. Sandburg as a breaker of conventions.
6. R. Frost’s poetry and E. Dickinson’s traditions.
7. The role of details in T. Draiser’s short stories.
8. Rhythm and sounds in C. Sandburg’s poetry.
9. T. Draiser’s principles of short story writing (traditions and innovations).
10. The theme and the symbols in “The Great Gatsby”.
11. Means of characterisation in S. Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”.
12. Changes in the narrator’s attitude to the characters in “The Great Gatsby”.
13. Some peculiarities of the narration in “The Great Gatsby” (flashbacks, foreshadowing, inner speech, etc.).
14. The symbols of the 20s and their signigicance in the novel.