Here are the questions people said they'd like to have explored, ranked in order by the number of people who chose them:

• 9 (#31) Is there a difference between the practice of male writers and the female writers during the 18th century? Was their subject matter different?
• 6 (#30) Why was Alexander Pope one of the most famous writers of the time?
• 5 (#32) What prompted the switch from the 17th century poetry of love and pastoral poems to the 18th century satirical writings?
• 4 (#28) Who is agreed to be the most acclaimed satirical writer of the 18th century and why?
• 4 (# 7) What do academics / critics agree are common themes in 18th century literature written by women?
• 4 (# 6) How did people access literature? and based on the literacy rate of the period and access to published works, how does the literature of the period represent the culture?
• 4 (# 1) What were some motives for the use of satire?
• 3 (#29) How did scientific advancements affect faith and religion?
• 3 (#27) Where do critics feel the gothic novel falls within the general history of English literature?
• 3 (#26) What specifically is the "graveyard poet"?
• 3 (#20) What role did drug culture play in 18th century literature?
• 3 (#16) 
• 3 (# 9) How did Swift's religious views influence or become prevalent in his works?
• 2 (# 3) Is there a correlation between increased literacy rates and new types of literature (i.e. the novel)?
• 2 (#22) What were some major scientific breakthroughs of the period? Did they affect themes of literature?
• 2 (#17) What were the early projects of the Royal Society of London, and what where the impacts of the project afterwards? Are there any lasting impacts today?
• 2 (#14) How did authorities respond to Newton's combining of theology and science in his work? Was he threatened in similar ways to Galileo? Or were his ideas well received?
• 2 (#11) Who are critics / academics / writers who address the topic of censorship and what do they say?
• 2 (#19) What do scholars say about eighteenth century philosophy?

Then, I'll ask everybody for a piece of paper with your name at the top and three or four questions you'd like to spend the next week with, in order of preference. I'll go through them and give everybody the highest choice I can, within the constraint that it would be a bad idea to have more than three people working on any one question. I'll do that this afternoon, and post the results in Prompt #16, along with some instructions (I'm going to be asking people to track their research strategies as well as reporting what they find).