Choose one of the following questions and write an essay in answer that is at least 1,500 words. You should use your book for quotations and other supporting material, but do not use any other outside sources. Please put the number of the question you are answering under you name on the first page of your essay.

1) As they wrote art criticism, Walter Pater, Matthew Arnold, and John Ruskin spent a great deal of time considering the role of the critic both in terms of aesthetics and society in general. Choose two of these writers and compare their views on the role of the critic. Be sure to connect their ideas about the critic to larger Victorian issues such as class, imperialism, and gender etc.

2) Much of the poetry we have read in this section deals with the relationship between the body and art. For the Victorians, this dynamic was a way to discuss larger cultural issues (see the question above) as well as a fundamental concern of all art in general. Choose two poems by different authors and compare how the works explore this relationship and the wider implications of that discussion.

3) Science and religion often came into bitter conflict for some Victorian writers, and yet also harmonized for others. Choose two works that deal with the relationship between science and religion. Remember a lot of the works we have read deal with this issue in some way, not just those in the "Perspectives: Religion and Science" section. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the different ways in which this tension is represented in the work.

4) Our Mutual Friend is book of families--literally, both for and about families. Choose one type of familial relationship that two different characters share (i.e. both are mothers) and compare the way these characters either succeed or fail in that role and how that success and/or failure impacts other characters. Be sure to discuss how Dickens is using these characters to suggest the ideal of your chosen relationship as well as what this relationship and what Dickens is arguing about it means in terms of the novel as a whole. Remeber that you may use everything in OMF up until (i.e. not including) installments 14 and 15 that are assigned for Thursday.

5) As we all soon head out on our travels this summer (whether at home or abroad), consider that one of the most powerful tools of imperialism is commercial travel. In the Victorian period as well as our own, to open a land to tourists was to claim it in very particular ways. Compare and contrast two works that deal with Victorian England's interactions with colonial others and discuss how they collude with and/or challenge this discourse of ownership. Remember almost all of the works we have read deal with this issue in some way, not just those in the "Perspectives: Travel and Empire" section. Be sure to connect the individual author's views with larger Victorian discourses of imperialism.