Must-Prepare Topics for Prose

ESSAYS (1625) by FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)

OF TRUTH, OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE, OF GREAT PLACE, OF FRIENDSHIP, OF STUDIES, OF REVENGE, OF LOVE, OF TRAVEL, OF EMPIRE, OF RICHES, OF GARDENS, OF NOBILITY, OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN, OF DISCOURSE, OF YOUTH AND AGE, OF DEATH, OF ADVERSITY, OF ENVY, OF SUSPICION etc.

1. Prose Style of Bacon
2. Bacon’s Worldly Wisdom/ Machiavellism
3. A Reflection of Renaissance Spirit
4. Bacon, as a Moralist
5. Bacon, as an Essayist

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS (1726) by JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)

1. A Neurotic Fantasy / Swift, as a Misanthropist
2. Satire in Gulliver’s Travels
3. A Tale of Adventure and Wonder
4. Character Sketch of Lemuel Gulliver

ON LIBERTY (1859) by JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873)

1. Views on Liberty of Thoughts and Discussion
2. Concept of Individuality
3. Concept of Public Opinion and Individual Opinion

EMINENT VICTORIANS (1918) by LYTTON STRACHEY (1880-1932)

CARDINAL MANNING, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, THOMAS ARNOLD, GENERAL GORDON

1. Strachey, as a Biographer
2. The Portrait of Florence Nightingale

ADONIS AND THE ALPHABET (1956) by ALDOUS HUXLEY (1894-1963)

EDUCATION OF AN AMPHIBIAN, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING, THE DESERT, LIBERTY, QUALITY, MACHINERY, ADONIS AND THE ALPHABET

1. The Difference Between Knowledge and Understanding
2. Spiritual Insight
3. Salient Features of Huxley’s Prose Style
4. Evaluation of Essays Adonis and the Alphabet and The Education of an Amphibian
5. Aldous Huxley, as an Essayist

SCEPTICAL ESSAYS (1998) by BERTRAND RUSSELL (1872-1970)

ON THE VALUE OF SCEPTICISM, MACHINES AND EMOTIONS, EASTERN AND WESTERN IDEALS OF HAPPINESS, THE HARM THAT GOOD MEN DO, THE NEED FOR POLITICAL SCEPTICISM, FREEDOM VERSUS AUTHORITY IN EDUCATION, PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, CAN MEN BE RATIONAL etc.

1. Russell, as a Rationalist / Sceptic / Atheist
2. Need of Scepticism
3. Russell’s Prose Style

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