Discuss Lear, Carroll's and Wilde's fascination with the concept of Nonsense. How does each artist define the term? How do they deploy "nonsense" in their works? To what end?

Discuss Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass as a Bildungsroman. In what sense is Alice educated in this novel? What does she learn in the course of these texts? about the world beyond her childhood experience? about language? authority? her own education?

Compare D. Rossetti's and Rossetti's depiction of women in his poetry.  What do his women look like?  What role do they play in romantic relationships? What is their place in society? Connect your discussion to Rossetti's role as a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Love

Orphans

Artist as Social Critic

Attitude toward the Past

Romanticism

Social Duty

Much Victorian literature concludes that love is the anodyne for the human and Victorian condition. Compare the idea about love presented in three of the following:  The Blessed Damozel, Goblin Market, The Importance of Being Earnest and Little Dorrit. To what extent does love save the individual? From what does it save her or him? What form must love take?

Discuss two of the major symbols in Little Dorrit. Discuss how Dickens uses the symbols to unify the diverse stories of the novel.

Discuss Little Dorrit as a work of social criticism. What structures and values create human suffering? Of what sort? Why? Can the individual survive the social order? By what means?