Critical Essay Assignment

Assignment: Pick one of the following topics for your researched critical essay. Please jot down the following and present your essay proposal to me before you get too far along (in case the idea is too off-base for the course requirement, time constraints, or my ability to read your primary text): a working thesis statement or theme and an outline projecting the ideas you have and how you might begin drafting the essay.

1. Use one or more ideas derived from Aristotle's Poetics to help you work out an original Aristotelian interpretation of one of the works from our class readings.

2. Brainstorm for a common theme between two of the works in our text. Explore how the theme is developed in both works and attempt to synthesize insights from the two different angles to broaden your own understanding of that theme.

3. Pursue the insights you have had concerning one of the works read by our class. Refer to relevant passages in the work, and identify and address any contradictory evidence. The essay should be coherent and unified around those insights.

4. Pick one literary genre which we have read or which is discussed in Gwynn. Research the history of that genre, its essential criteria, and some of its exemplary or notable practitioners and/or works. Use an example from the book for purposes of illustration.

5. Research the biography of one of the authors whose works we've read. Beyond a mere "book report" style synopsis of the author's life, show how the author's life sheds some light on the literary text. (This will involve analysis of the literary work as well as the author's life. If you cannot relate the life to the work, then it may be a bad choice to write about, given our time constraints.)

6. Research one of the major critical approaches to literature (cf. Literary Analysis Questions handout for ideas) and use an appropriate work from Gwynn to produce a competent and fruitful reading of the work in that approach.

Formal Requirements: 4-5 pages plus a Works Cited page, MLA format (12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins). Source use must be documented in the text of the essay with signal phrases and parenthetical citations. (Review Appendix A in Gwynn 1303 ff. for more formal considerations.) Essays should be proofread and edited so that the reader is not distracted from the message by substandard American English usage. Points will be deducted for such usage and other errata.

Sources: While the essay should clearly explain the student writer's own reading of the work, it also needs to draw from at least one primary and two secondary sources. The primary source should be a work we have read from Gwynn or one of our handouts. Interpretation should be argumentative (involving claims, evidence, and sound reasoning) and demonstrate a thorough and accurate understanding of the texts involved. If textual support for the essay's claims is absent, I will consider the interpretation at best speculative, unconvincing, and most fit for the low end of the grading scale.