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Final Exam:

Take-Home Essays

Two take-home essays will be due at the start of the final exam. Each of these essays should be 3-4 pages in length. Both should follow the same format as the other submitted essays, with full documentation of sources in the MLA style. (See Diana Hacker's Pocket Style Manual, pp. 113-154.) Each essay should have a precise and clearly stated thesis.

ESSAY ONE:

Select any one or two poems (but no more than two!) by Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Herrick, Carew, Lovelace, Philips, Marvell, or Milton. If you select two poems, they may be by one poet or by two different poets. Analyze how the poem or poems reflect or respond to a particular religious or political controversy of the seventeenth century. Use the historical and biographical material in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and be sure to cite your source on every occasion that you make use of its words or ideas.

ESSAY TWO:

Compare and contrast any two of the following poems or poetic passages:

John Donne, "Elegy 19: On His Mistress Going to Bed"

Richard Crashaw, "To the Noblest & Best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh"

Robert Herrick, "Corinna's Going A-Maying"

Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"

Thomas Carew, "A Rapture"

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock," Canto 1, lines 121-148 (Belinda's dressing table)

Jonathan Swift, "The Lady's Dressing Room"

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: "The Reasons that Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem Called the Lady's Dressing Room"

(Do not choose a poem if it is also the subject of your other take-home essay.)

Be sure to have a precise thesis. Consider some of the following topics:

the depiction of love, sex, or beauty;

the representation of women or of men;

the rhetoric of seduction;

the carpe diem theme;

the use of political concepts or the representation of the material world.