AQA English Literature Coursework

Hi! I'm currently in Y12 and we're beginning to decide what books and poetry we want to study for our coursework. We have to look at it through the lens of either: Feminist, Marxist, Narrative, Eco-Critical, Post-Colonial, or the Literary Value and the Canon. I have decided to choose to do the Feminist lens to study Shelley's Frankenstein* for the novel part, but I'm not sure about the poetry section. I would have to choose any of the others but Feminism for this. I wanted to look through some poems through a queer lens using a classic queer poet's work - I was thinking maybe Oscar Wilde, Sappho, or Emily Dickinson. However, I'm not sure if or how I could do this. Does anyone know of a way to warp one of these lenses in order for a queer angle to viewed?
* Also, I am not sure if I will be able to study Frankenstein for this as it is on the AQA A-Level spec. It is my favourite novel of all time, so I probably will crash out if I can't lmao. Does anyone know if you can study things on the spec for coursework if you are not studying it for the exams?

Hi! I did aqa english lit for a-level, but my school did the A spec, and you seem to be doing B. I was able to do Frankenstein for my NEA, so I don't believe it is on the spec anywhere, and I definitely think that a feminist reading of Frankenstein would be very interesting. I'd ask your teacher to make sure you can do it. For the queer poetry, I wouldn't recommend Sappho, as much as I love her (I wrote my epq about her), I think that because of how fragmented her work is and how differently people translate it (I read 5 translations for my epq), it may be quite difficult to write about and apply critical theory to in such a short essay. However, I think perhaps for Emily Dickinson you may be able to find an interpretation that works - perhaps something to do with religion, or eco-criticism as she uses lots of natural imagery. I do think the easiest way to fit a queer reading into one of these lenses would be through feminist, if you change the frankenstein lens as that easily has many different interpretations. I personally think an eco-critical view of frankestein is interesting. Hope this helps slightly

Thank you! I will definitely have a look at doing Emily’s poetry with an Eco-Critical lens. For the Frankenstein part, I wanted to look at how Victor creates the Creature in a way which does not require a female - then looking into Shelley’s own experience with motherhood and birth -, whilst also looking at the treatment of Elizabeth and the Creature’s Bride (or lack of). Do you think it is worth looking into the idea of Dickinson in terms of The Canon and how her being female and queer ties into that?

I think that analysing how Dickinson fits in the canon as a queer woman poet could definitely be interesting, and perhaps you could consider how the fact that the vast majority of her poems were published after her death ties into this? A good source for Dickinson, and also just a great read in general, that I'd recommend is Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington. It's on kindle unlimited and it's adds some good context around her poems, as most of them were sent first as letters.
Your Frankenstein ideas sound very interesting, especially the idea of tying it to motherhood. Personally in my essay I focused on the isolation of the creature, and suggested that this may reflect the isolation of women in a society not made for them.