CL122/EN 222 FINAL PAPER

The questions:

1. Formulate a definition of “Greek Tragedy.”

2. Show how this definition is applicable to five different tragedies.

The details:

a. Your definition should be sufficiently nuanced to get to the heart of Greek tragedy, what it’s all about, and how it does what it does. Obviously this is not going to be a one-sentence definition.

b. I’d suggest you stay away from dictionary definitions of “tragedy” and trust your own ideas as they have developed in the course of the semester.

c. You are, however, allowed – indeed, encouraged – to discuss the questions above with other members of the class. In the end, of course, your replies in the paper must be your own.

d. Be sure that your definition is sufficiently broad to cover all Greek tragedies. To help you with this, no two tragedies that you discuss in part 2 can come from the same day’s reading assignment.

e. Realistically speaking , you probably cannot answer the two parts of the exam adequately in less that six pages. On the other hand, don’t pad just to fill up additional space (remember, I’ll be reading a lot of papers from this and my other papers in a fairly short period, and I can really get cranky). On the third hand, ten pages is the maximum (cf. above on teacher’s crankiness).

f. This paper is due on Wednesday, May 6, at 9 am, the day and time scheduled by the Registrar for this course, but may be sent to me anytime after 12:01 am on the first Reading Day. Except for illness or similar emergency there will be no extensions. Late papers will be penalized a letter grade for day.

g. Send you paper in the form of a Word document attached to an e-mail addressed to rosivach@mail.fairfield.edu. Please put your name and preferred e-mail address at the top of the first page of your paper. I will return all papers within the first week after the final exams are finished.

h. Please include the following statement at the end of your paper:

“In this paper all information, language and ideas not specifically attributed to another source are either my own, taken from class notes, or developed in discussion with the other members of the class.”