Assignment

Write a well-developed essay of 4-5 paragraphs on ONE of the topics below. Be sure to refer to the texts to support your main ideas. You might note that some of these topics correlate with those discussed in the Course Introduction.

1. Relying upon Montaigne's "Of Cannibals," discuss what Montaigne would make of the Mayan ball game, in which the loser, often a king or high official, would be sacrificed to the gods.

2. Agree, disagree, or modify the following statement: "In The Tempest, Caliban represents the deprived colonial subject, and Prospero, the usurping European colonizer." Be sure to support your argument with reference to speeches in the play. You might also review what you learned about argument in this previous section: The Importance of Argument.

3. Imagine a dialogue between Prospero and one or two of the Renaissance humanists that we studied in this unit (Rabelais, More, Cervantes, Machiavelli). You can create an actual dialogue or write an essay that covers 2 or 3 subjects or ideas that Prospero and the humanist might address. Here's just one example: both Rabelais and Prospero address that key Renaissance humanist concern, education. What do the two have to say about the importance and nature of education?

MLA Formatting

Everything in the paper, including citations and the Works Cited page, must follow current MLA guidelines. For specific information on how to use MLA format, please see the Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide.