Form an argument about contrasts
between ideologies. Comparing the ideas and politics
within one Romantic poem and one Victorian poem.
You will do this by unpacking the argument each poem makes, taking this argument as evidence
about what the poet thought. In addition, though, you must also identify places where the form of
the poem helps illustrate the argument (and thus the ideology of the poet). For example, Shelley
is a revolutionary, free-thinking sort of person, and his grammar illustrates what he thinks of the
stagnancy and redundancy of the aristocracy (of which he was a member).
Your final goal is to claim which poet uses form better to express content, but within this claim
you must also make a claim about what constitutes both a Romantic, and then a Victorian,
outlook on life.
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Poems you can choose to analyze from the Romantic side are “Darkness,” “Ode to the West
Wind,” “England in 1819,” “Tintern Abbey,” or “Eolian Harp.”
Poems you can choose to Analyze from the Victorian side are “A Musical Instrument,” “When
Our Two Souls Stand up Erect and Strong,” “Dover Beach,” or “In an Artist’s Studio.”
