Choose one of the following topics. NOTE: Use as much or as little of this
information in the outlines as you find helpful. The only requirements are 1) develop the thesis statement in 2) 500 words, 3) using three secondary sources that are
4) cited according to the MLA method for parenthetical documentation.
Tentative Due Date: Two weeks before last class day (excluding day of
final exam)
ESSAY
ASSIGNMENT ONE
Topic: The theme of the "outcast" in Anglo-Saxon literature
Assignment: Compose a 500-word essay in which you develop this thesis
statement: One of the important themes in Anglo-Saxon literature is the peril
of being an outcast.
Sample
Outline of Essay One
Sample Title: The Theme of the Outcast in
Anglo-Saxon Literature
Paragraph 1: Introduction: Introduce the
topic and state the thesis
Paragraph 2: Social status of the outcast
Sample topic sentence: An outcast occupied
perhaps the lowest status in Anglo-Saxon society.
Supporting evidence:
A. "The Wanderer"
B. "The Dream of the Rood"
C. Beowulf
Paragraph 3: Personal condition of outcast
Sample topic sentence: An outcast experienced
personal, in addition to social, misery.
Supporting evidence:
A. "The Wanderer"
B. "The Dream of the Rood"
C. Beowulf
Paragraph 4. Comfort to outcast
Sample topic sentence: Such was the
Anglo-Saxon horror of becoming an outcast, that a primary theme in their
literature is the outcast being reintegrated into society.
Supporting evidence:
A. "The Wanderer"
B. "The Dream of the Rood"
C. Beowulf
Paragraph 5: Conclusion: Summary of main
points
ESSAY
ASSIGNMENT TWO
Topic: Individualism in Renaissance literature
Assignment: Compose a 500-word essay in which you develop this
thesis statement: Though the Renaissance is often seen as a time of glorifying individualism,
a repeated theme of the literature is the danger of individualism.
Sample
Outline of Essay Two
Sample Title: Dangers of Individualism in
Renaissance Literature
Paragraph 1: Introduction: Introduce the
topic and state the thesis
Paragraph 2: Renaissance social values
Sample topic sentence: Renaissance culture
highly valued hierarchy.
Supporting evidence:
A. Utopia
B. Dr. Faustus
C. King Lear
Paragraph 3: Dangers of violating social
hierarchy
Sample topic sentence: Many of the great
villains---and, significantly, comic "villains"---of Renaissance
literature are defined by their defiance of society.
Supporting evidence:
A. Faustus in Dr. Faustus
B. Malvolio in Twelfth
Night
C. Edmund in King Lear
Paragraph 4. Personal consequences of promoting individualism over
social order
Sample topic sentence: Causing social
catastrophe, individualists in Renaissance literature also make themselves
unhappy. Supporting evidence:
A. More in Utopia equates social order
with personal happiness.
B. Malvolio in Twelfth
Night because of his social climbing receives cruel---and perhaps
deserved---humiliations.
C. Goneril and
Regan in King Lear become more wretched the more they pursue personal
happiness by violating social obligations.
Paragraph 5: Conclusion: Summary of main
points
HINTS FOR WRITING AN ESSAY AND A SAMPLE ESSAY
I. Use of secondary sources
a). You must use at least three secondary/critical
sources for each paper. A secondary source (article or book) is one other than
the work itself. For example, a secondary source for The Canterbury Tales
would not be The Canterbury Tales. Instead, an example of a secondary
source would be Chaucer and the Medieval Church, a work about Chaucer.
b). Where do you find these sources?
i). Use the computer catalog to locate the call numbers
of most books by and about the author.
ii). Most of these books are grouped together
in the same area of the library. Go to this area and browse.
iii). The best places
to browse are the table of contents and, especially, the index in the back of
the book.
iv). Also consult handbooks, guidebooks, dictionaries,
and encyclopedias, on the second floor of the library.
v). Do not use the Norton textbook or the
class notes as a secondary source. Although, strictly speaking, these can
be cited as secondary sources (the introductions in the Norton text), you
should be able to locate other secondary sources.
AN EXAMPLE OF LOCATING AND USING SECONDARY
SOURCES:
Suppose I want to find material on Alexander
Pope's view of nature. I would follow these easy steps:
1. I go to the computer catalog and enter
ALEXANDER POPE under AUTHOR (or SUBJECT). Most of these books
have similar call letters, so I write down the exact call number of one of
these books and find its location on the second and third floors of the
library.
2. I find the book located among dozens of
other books by and about Pope. I browse through these books.
3. I go through several books about Pope
(e.g. Maynard Mack's Alexander Pope: A Life, The
Garden and the City). I look in the indexes of these books, under
"Nature." Most books have this entry, but some don't. Others have the
topic listed under "Pope: and nature." These entries tell me on which
pages the author discusses Pope and nature, so I don't have to read the entire
book to find the specific topic.
4. Although I obtain considerable information
from the books, I still want more information. Consequently, I stop on the
second floor of the library and consult some reference works, such as The
Oxford Companion to English Literature. I look under "Pope,
Alexander" for a little more on his views on nature.
5. I also use the on-line computer indexes to
locate essays on the subject. The library teaches classes on how to use these
indexes that probably would be well worth the time (an hour or two); my
internet site includes a link to these indexes, the most helpful, in regards to
literature, being the MLA Bibliography.
6). MOST FREQUENT PROLEM: "I can't
find a source on the specific topic" [nature in Shakespeare, prose in the
Renaissance, politics of modernism, whatever]. SOLUTION: You don't have to!
Find a quote on the general subject [Shakespeare, Renaissance, Modernism, or
even English Literature] and put the quote in the introduction or conclusion.
EXAMPLE ESSAY
Nature in the Eighteenth Century
Nature in the 18th century was more than
falling leaves, snowy mountains, rainstorms, or raging seas. Nature, in fact,
was everything. More particularly, though, nature denoted the laws that
generated nature, laws designed by an omnipotent and all-good Creator. This
belief was powerfully expressed in the literature of the period that addressed
the "nature" of society, of man, and of the physical landscape.
Nature was often viewed in the 18th century
as a model for society. The same laws that governed the harmonious working of
creation should be discovered and imitated to ensure a prosperous and
well-ordered state. Pope's advice to poets is equally applicable to statesmen: "First
follow Nature and your judgment frame / By her just
standard . . . One clear, unchanged, and universal light" (Essay on
Criticism 68-71) [NOTICE THAT I CITE THE POEM BY LINE NUMBER AND NOT
PAGE NUMBER]. Conversely, a repeated theme of Augustan literature is that
ignorance or perversion of nature's laws produces disaster. For example, the
"anarchic sprawl" of Pope's Dunciad
is the direct result of "the inverted norms expressive of the dunce
world" (Mack 461) [QUOTE FOUND BY USING INDEX: "DUNCIAD":
THERE WERE SEVERAL PAGES LISTED. I WENT TO SINGLE LARGEST CLUSTER OF PAGES:
457-82]. Similarly, Swift in Gulliver's Travels satirizes those who
refuse to conform to nature's laws. Such individuals are characterized as
unnatural yahoos, depraved humans who are contrasted with rational, civilized,
and "natural" horses.
The 18th century believed that people were
linked to nature by the intellect, rather than with the emotions. Consequently,
as Donald Greene points out about Dr. Johnson, neo-classicists thought that
"poetry should not surprise but . . . `should strike the reader as a
wording of his own highest thoughts' " (164) [QUOTE FOUND BY USING
INDEX: "COLLINS, WILLIAM"]. Such a "nature" often was
compared to an intricate, flawless, and perpetual watch. If man could, through
use of his intellect, conform to the pattern evident in this intricate device,
he would enjoy the greatest happiness, success, and prosperity. Consequently,
in Windsor Forest, "Pope's object was not to depict his individual
response to Nature, or, as the Romantic poets would do, record his own
perplexed emotions, but to portray a universe that enclosed and completed both
the aspiring thoughts and the triumphant works of Man" (Quennell 51) [QUOTE FOUND BY USING INDEX: "POPE,
ALEXANDER: WORKS: WINDSOR FOREST:" THERE WERE SEVERAL PAGES LISTED. I WENT
TO SINGLE LARGEST CLUSTER OF PAGES: 48-52 ]. Pope
would later explicitly formulate this view in Essay on Criticism,
arguing that Nature is "at once the source, and end, and test of art"
(Essay on Criticism 73). Other poets such as James Thomson in The
Seasons went a step further, insisting on nature as "culminating in
man" (Tillotson 218) [QUOTE FOUND BY USING
INDEX: "NATURE:" THERE WERE SEVERAL PAGES LISTED. I WENT TO SINGLE
LARGEST CLUSTER OF PAGES: 217ff].
The 18th century also had an intense interest
in the beauties of nature. In some ways these views were unique to the age, and
in other ways they anticipate the Romantic era. Pope describes
Clearly, the 18th century view of nature
tells us much about this age and its insistence on order, clarity, and reason.
However, this essay has explored only the surface of a very complex topic. In
order to obtain a more comprehensive view of this vast and difficult topic, a
much more extensive analysis would be required.
WORKS
CITED
Greene, Donald. The Age of Exuberance:
Backgrounds to Eighteenth-Century Literature.
Mack, Maynard. Alexander Pope: A Life.
Quennell, Peter. Alexander Pope: The Education of Genius
1688-1728.
Tillotson, Geoffrey. "Eighteenth-Century
Poetic Diction." In Eighteenth-Century Literature: Modern Essays
in Criticism. Ed. James Clifford.
NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
1. TILLOTSON'S ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN
1939. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INCLUDE THE ORIGINAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION OF
REPRINTED MATERIAL FOR THESE ESSAYS (ALTHOUGH YOU DO FOR SOME PAPERS).
2. I DID NOT INCLUDE THE SOURCE FOR POPE'S
POETRY AND NEITHER DO YOU. THE SOURCE IS A PRIMARY SOURCE THAT I DO NOT QUOTE
BECAUSE THE TEXT WOULD APPEAR THE SAME IN ALMOST ANY EDITION OF POPE'S POETRY.
3. USE A WORKS CITED (NOT A BIBLIOGRAPHY):
A BIBLIOGRAPHY LISTS ANY WORK THAT YOU EXTENSIVELY CONSULTED WHILE WRITING YOUR
ESSAY. A WORKS CITED LISTS ONLY THOSE WORKS CITED IN YOUR ESSAY.