Assignments

Reading-Response Essay

Choose a textual moment/character/term on which to construct a brief reading response (700-800 words, double-spaced, 12 point font, Times New Roman). What you should aim for here are some exploratory thoughts and questions that look forward to a more sophisticated reading beyond the surface level of the text. For example, I might look at Grendel's severed hand in Beowulf, displayed high above the floor at Heorot, as a kind of paradoxical statement on friendship, kinship, and hostility as these themes are parsed over the course of the poem. What does the hand, standing alone and divorced of body (of heart and mind), really signify in its gruesome ooze? Does this hand point towards the failure of kinship that the various characters in the poem repeatedly wait for and prophesy? What are the connections here between animal and man, between man and monster, and what role does the hand (an appendage shared by each species) play in that relationship/non-relationship? E-mail your reading response in a document (docx, .doc, or rtf file) to me.

Close-Reading Essay

Choose a textual scene/object/action/character/term on which to construct a more developed reading than you performed in the reading response essay (1500-1700) words, double-spaced, 12 point font, Times New Roman). You may want to expand on what you already began in the Reading Response Paper or you may want to move to another text. What you should aim for here is a tight close-reading/critical analysis of that scene/object/action/character/term. For example, you might analyze the scene of the testing of the Eucharistic Host in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. In one particularly moment, the Jew Jonathas and his companions attempt to wrestle the Host-bread from Jonathas' hand, to which it clings. They nail both hand and bread to a nearby post. When Jonathas attempts to free his hand, it detaches from his arm completely. In horror, the Jews throw the hand and the host into boiling oil and continue their inquisition of the transubstantiation miracle (the turning of the bread into the literal body of Christ). While the scene bears visual effects that might have been comedic for a medieval street audience, and while the scene also clearly replays the Passion of Christ through the Jew's torture of the "cake," Jonathas' crucified, boiled, and baked hand compellingly calls to mind Jewish persecutions that were well-known to the East Anglia locale for the play's performance. The play's explicit anti-semitism, then, gives way to an implicit empathy for the neighboring Jew. The religious zeal driving Christians to persecute Jews is reflected in Jonathas' own emphatic quest for religious faith, in his desire to test the reality of the Eucharist that will ultimately lead to his conversion. Thinking out from this moment, then, we can consider the play's physical setting, two scaffolds separated by a plateau, as furthering the tension between Christianity and Judaism, a confrontation of neighbors. The poem's rhetoric of law ("your law," "our law," "their law") and, through the very dismemberment of Jonathas's body, the poem's view of the Jew as an incomplete Christian rather than a criminal soul beg the question: do we see the poem's empathy as merely a different form of Christian ideology--the Jew must still convert--or as a call to religious pluralism (toleration or acceptance). As in this example, the close reading of the particular scene/object/action/character should gesture towards some of the larger implications of reading this specific scene/character/action/object/term in a few introductory and conclusion sentences. This assignment aims for you to hone your close-readings skills and also to anticipate your seminar essay topic, which I hope will develop/emerge from your early work on this close-reading essay. For this essay, you should incorporate two scholarly sources (book chapters, journal articles, introductions to editions) exclusive of material in your course texts; for example, you could use but not count as a source the introductory material in the editions of the literary texts. E-mail your close-reading essay in a document (docx, .doc, or rtf file) to me.

Argument Abstract

Begin your abstract with the title of your proposed paper. In writing the abstract itself, be as succinct as possible. Abstracts come in various forms, but like any short yet very important document, you want to begin with a catchy opening that will interest the reader, offer a middle section that demonstrates your competence and gestures towards interesting, new information on or reading of the text/topic, and close with a quick summary of what you offer with your forthcoming paper, or where the paper fits in a larger interpretive network of literary criticism.

For your opening, you might offer a catchy sentence on your topic and a thesis, or at least a phrase suggesting what you will offer in your paper, why the paper matters—for instance, a new reading of a literary work or literary character. In the body or middle-part of the abstract, you will want to put together a small amount of support information that intrigues the organizer without giving away too much. Offering quotes from other relevant critics on your topic is not necessary, but some demonstration of your competency on the topic will go a long way (again, a quick reference to a scene or textual moment, a quote from one character relevant to your topic, etc.). For your conclusion you may offer some notion of the relevance or importance your paper holds for the topic or relative field: why is it important for critics to take notice of your new reading?

The following formula is a good way to think about putting an argument abstract together, though organization may differ from one author (that’s you) to the next:

1) The Text Introduction: In Text A, scene X happens…

OR

In Text A, Character X claims, “…”

OR

The Critical Introduction: Critics have for years puzzled over the peculiar words/actions of

Character X…

OR

Text A (or Character X) is most often read by critics as…

2) BUT what such readings fail to take into account is …

3) In this paper I will address this failure by examining …

4) This paper, then, argues that …

5) Such a reading allows us to see this new thing …

OR

Such a reading helps us to rethink this old thing …

Seminar Essay

Write a short article-length paper (3000-3500 words) that makes a critical argument concerning one or more of the text we've covered this semester in class. You may also examine other related texts that we did not read as well, but your focus needs to be on a course text. You may build upon the Close-Reading Essay you wrote earlier in the semester. As with any scholarly article, I expect the typical components: A clearly stated thesis; an overview of extant criticism on the topic/text; an engagement with extant criticism on the text(s); a thorough demonstration of close-reading and analysis of one or more literary texts; and an explanation of the payoff that your new reading of the text(s) offers. Your essay should be accompanied by a works cited page and, if you find them necessary, discursive footnotes or endnotes (not included in the word count). You may use MLA citation style for your in-text parenthetical citations, endnotes, and works cited. Or you may use Chicago-Manual Style for your footnotes (both citations and discursive notes) and your works cited page. E-mail your critical essay in a document (docx, .doc, or rtf file) to me.