1. PRICE/BURKE/WOLLSTONECRAFT/PAINE

2.  It’s difficult to overstate the influence of the political revolutions of this era on the literature  Consider, especially, how enthusiastically Romantic thinkers were involved in political debate, struggling to realize such abstractions as LIBERTY, JUSTICE, EQUALITY in concrete social terms

3.  Consider the extent to which the former transfixes the latter  These texts are concerned with the English controversy about the Revolution  Consider analysis here of LANGUAGE/POLITICS/FORM/FUNCTION

4.  These texts demonstrate the ways in which such wars were about control over language  Who owned the correct meaning of key words such as as “rationality” or “civility”?

5.  The way a political statement is made, as Burke knew well, is as important as what the statement is  Forget liberal or conservative biases of today’s media; forget the frantic efforts to put the desired ideological spin on images during a heated political race

6.  Consider his use of the dual meaning of this word  Social and political convention is what binds society and ensures peaceful, stable transitions from generation to generation  Literary conventions, however, are recognized structures of poetic or rhetorical traditions

7.  Burke draws an explicit parallel between literary and political structures when he quotes Horace on the need for poems to have beauty and to raise affection: “The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states” (157)

8.  Price puts forth his celebratory ideas in the form of an enthusiastic sermon, speaking to fellow dissenters who share his beliefs  Burke sends a chilling counter-message in an open letter meant to engage the sympathies of upper-class English men and women through emotional rhetoric and appeals to cherished values of chivalry  Burke’s lament for the fallen queen is the height of such sensationalism

9.  Wollstonecraft repeatedly urges her lack of polish as a political statement, while Paine counters Burke’s “incivility” with the ostensible presentation of objective facts  However, each has his or her own rhetorical excesses:  Wollstonecraft: European gentleman as “artificial monster”  Paine: French government as “augean stable of parasites and plunderers”

10.  The implication that the Revolution had for poets: convention belonged to the past, while innovation, new vision, and hope lay within their own imaginative enterprises  Consider how the political arguments authorize the texts’ departure from literary authorities