Paper Topics English 372 • Spring 2011 Dr. Terry Lee Paper is due two weeks after the work that you are writing about comes up on the assignment list... or earlier. (If your poems come up on a Monday, your paper is due the following Monday, at the beginning of class.) One exception: the paper for Week 13 is due by the end of finals week. • Follow the appropriate topic below, being sure to respond fully to it. You will, however, be developing and asserting your own thesis, based on your own close reading of the text, as aided and informed by class discussion. (That is to say, you are responsible for the material covered in class about your topic, and you must be responsive to that material. For example, if millinarianism comes up in class lecture about your poems on the theme of "redemption," you'll undoubtedly want to make mention of it.) • The prompts below give you a topic; you will supply the thesis. Be sure to pay attention to the writer's use of rhetorical figures (metaphor, metonymy, and so on) and the relevant context (e.g., informed discussion of metaphysical poetry, Puritanism, and so on) as you develop your paper. Have a definition of the figure, say metaphor, in front of you as you draft your paper. • Remember: Your essay will be thesis-driven. This means that your discussion of metaphor in a poem, for instance, will always be in the service of developing support for your thesis. You need to discuss the details of your close reading of a work—your observations of a metaphor, epic simile, irony, hyperbole, and so on—but always connect that discussion to your thesis, which will be discussing the poems' theme. If you're writing about a poet's use of gold as a metaphor, for instance, "unpack" the metaphor, but do it in a way that clearly connects the gold metaphor to the theme of the poem, redemption, for example, and, hence, to your thesis.   Week 2 Religious Consciousness Discuss "redemption" as it appears in Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," and Donne's "Meditation 17." Closely examine the poets' metaphorical and/or allusive treatment of redemption. or Compare Done's "Batter My Heart" to Herbert's "Denial." Closely examine the poets' use of metaphor in their relationships with their god. Pay careful attention to specific metaphors in the works, interpreting and analyzing them in detail. Week 3 Read the unabridged section on "Vanity Fair"in Pilgrim's Progress and compare it to the abridged version in our text. Focus on how differently we may perceive the allegorical figures of Christian and Faithful when we've read the entire text. Make use of the Luxon and/or Moorhead articles on the syllabus, under "Further reading," as you find helpful. (Find the episode in the link to the full text of Vanity Fair on the online syllabus or click here for the episode.) Matrimony & Love Compare Herbert's "The Flower" to Wroth's "When Night's Black Mantle" and "Am I Thus Conquered." In your analysis, pay attention to the use of metaphor and the shift from the metaphysical frame to the more social, "cavalier" frame. Pay careful attention to specific metaphors in the works, interpreting and analyzing them in detail. Week 4 Matrimony & Love Compare the treatment of marriage in Milton's "Methought I Saw," Astell's "Some Reflections," and Philips's "A Married State." Pay attention to the use of allusion and to each poet's style, as well as each poet's direct and/or indirect message about marriage. Time & Come-Ons Compare the treatment of "time" in Herbert's "Easter Wings" and "Time" to Herrick's "Corinna's Going A-Maying" and "To The Virgins." Notice the use of metaphor and tone in each work. Pay careful attention to specific metaphors in the works, interpreting and analyzing them in detail. Week 5 Compare Herbert's "The Collar" and "Virtue" to Marvell's "Dialogue Between the Body and Soul." Take a close look at the use of "paradox" and structure in each poem, being sure to consider "closure" and its effects in each. Week 6 Transcendence Compare Donne's use of metaphor in "A Valediction" and "The Sun Rising" to Marvell's use of metaphor in "The Garden" and "To His Coy Mistress." Pay careful attention to specific metaphors in the works, interpreting and analyzing them in detail. The Social World & the Cavalier Compare the use of hyperbole and panegyric in Herrick's "The Hock Cart," in Jonson's "Inviting a Friend to Supper," in "Philips's "To Mrs. M.A." and in Jonson's "The Ode on Cary & Morison." Pay careful attention to of hyperbole and panegyric in the works, interpreting and analyzing them in detail. Week 7 The Nature of Man Compare Donne's "Meditation 4" to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, focusing on irony. or Both Milton's "L'Allegro" and Pope's "Arbuthnot" could be said to appeal to or to picture idyllic states. Compare the poets' use of the idyl, making sense of its use within each poem. Week 8 Spring break Week 9 One could say that Johnson's "Vanity of Human Wishes" comments upon Pepys as a character in his work "The Diary." Carefullyconsider the Johnson poem, imagining how Johnson might have written in "Vanity" about Pepys's experience, as represented in "The Diary." Note: "Vanity" [2666] is not an assigned reading. Weeks 10 & 11 Critic Margaret Doody has observed that daughters in Burney's lifetime were expected to, and very often did, “feel the oozy luxury of obedience” to their fathers in what was known as an Eighteenth-century cult of filial piety. Explore the role of filial piety to fathers, and to their surrogates (i.e., other men), in Evelina. or Identity and reputation, one could say, lie behind the drama of relationships in Evelina. Consider the nature of identity and reputation in the novel, focusing on what we can learn about the role(s) of the individual in society and what that role, or roles, tell us about the society itself. Develop your examination by tracing and analyzing the development of a key character or two throughout the novel. Week 12 Consider how well Boswell's "A Life" embodies and puts to good use the precepts about human nature and biography as outlined in "Rambler 60.. Week 13 Consider the satiric effects in Gulliver's Travels and The Rivals. Although the play was published some fifty years after the novel, the play looks back to the Restoration (1660-1710), a very different period than the time in which Sheridan wrote the play. Are Swift and Sheridan satirizing similar human foibles? Select a few, key satiric elements from each work, analyzing them for their effects, and be sure to be clear about just what "satire" and "satiric effects" are.