To understand the historical context, I want you to choose one of these topics or trends and gather information. I don’t mind if you use your Norton intro, Wikipedia, or more specialized sources, but I do want you to feel confident that you can explain the importance of the topic to the era–and, ideally, to the poetry of the time. Please write on one of these topics: (a) English responses to the French Revolution; (b) Working-class unrest in Britain, including the Luddites and the Peterloo Massacre; (c) struggles for freedom abroad (consider Haiti or Greece, where Byron died helping in the struggle for independence); (d) public discourse on slavery and the slave trade; (e) Mary Wollstonecraft and the origins of modern feminism.