British Literature I
Second
Essay Assignment:
Poetry
of Beauty, Love, and Sex
The
second essay will be due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, May
4.
The
essay should be approximately 5 pages in length. In the essay, you should
carefully compare and contrast any two of the poems we studied
since the mid-term.
You
are free to choose the poems and the themes that you want to address, but
here are some suggestions:
-
The
first 126 of Shakespeare's sonnets seem to be addressed to a fair young
man; the remaing sonnets are addressed to a "dark lady." Does
it matter to whom the poem is addressed? Compare one of the poems to the
young man to one of the poems to the lady. What do the differences reveal
about Shakespeare's conceptions in this sonnet sequence of ideal love, beauty,
sex, or gender?
-
Throughout
his sonnets, Shakespeare returns time and again to themes of beauty, time,
and art. Compare and contrast two poems on this theme to show Shakespeare's
various images, ideas, and conclusions.
-
Few
of Donne's love poems are in sonnet form, but most of them take up conceits,
images, themes, or lyric perspectives familiar from Renaissance sonnet sequences.
Compare and contrast one of Donne's love poems to one of Shakespeare's sonnets,
demonstrating both their similarities and their most significant differences.
-
Compare
and contrast two poems by Donne that offer differing views on women, men,
sex, and love. You might choose two of the numerous poems that dramatize
both the love and the tensions between men and women through a scene of
lovers parting or resisting parting: "The Sun Rising"; "Song:
Sweetest love, I do not go"; "Break of Day"; "A Valediction:
Forbidding Mourning." You might focus on the rhetoric of sex and seduction
in "The Flea" or "Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed."
You might look for similarities as well as differences between one of Donne's
poems in praise of romantic love ("The Good Morrow," "The
Sun Rising," "The Canonization," "A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning") and one of his cynical rejections of idealized love ("Song:
Go and catch a falling star," "The Indifferent," "Love's
Alchemy," "The Apparition").
-
Many
of Donne's love poems use religious images and metaphors; many of his religious
poems use erotic metaphors and language. Compare and contrast one of his
poems about romantic love or sex to one of his "Holy Sonnets."
What do the similarities and the differences reveal about Donne's conceptions
of sex or spirituality?
THESIS:
Nothing
is more important to your essay than that you clearly state a precise thesis.
The thesis is the single, central idea that the essay means to convey to the
reader. A good thesis is one that can be proven (that is,
it can be demonstrated with evidence from the texts) and that needs
to be proven (that is, it is not self-evident). Avoid
vagueness! Make your thesis as precise and as specific as
possible.
FORMAT:
All
submitted papers should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines
for formatting a paper. These guidelines can be found in the MLA Handbook
for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed., which is available in the Reference
Section of the library and in the Writing Center, but they are also summarized
on pp. 119-150 of Diana Hacker’s Pocket Style Manual, with
sample pages on pp. 151-154. When commenting on your essays, I will refer
to Hacker on matters of format and style.
Following
the MLA style, all papers should cite their sources on every occasion that
they are used, and all paper should include a complete list of works cited.
When
quoting passages from poems, you should cite line numbers,
not page numbers. And be sure to maintain line breaks, using slash marks when
necessary.