Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to expand your
understanding of literature and of literary analysis.
Assignment
Using one of the methods in Appendix A of Literature,
write a thesis driven essay regarding one of the stories, plays, or poems that we have
read during the course of the semester. You must use at least two
secondary sources in your examination of this work.
Ways to Proceed
Choose a story that you find interesting and apply one of the
critical methodologies from Appendix A to this story.
Perhaps you wish to learn more about a given author or to delve into the
author’s mind. If this is so, you
may wish to try a biographical or a psychological approach to interpreting the
story. Maybe history, sociology, or
cultural studies interest you. From
these perspectives, you must examine how history, society, or the overall
culture could have affected the text—as opposed to how the author alone
influences the text. In other
words, no text exists in a vacuum, so any piece of writing can be viewed as a
product of a given culture. Perhaps
you like symbolism in the text. If
this applies to you, you may want to examine the story from an
archetypal/mythological position. Finally, make sure that you examine
chapter 42 if you want to write about a play,
and read chapter 41 if you want to write about a poem. Whatever
your method of examination, you should have a cohesive essay that argues from a
specific viewpoint of the text from within a certain critical framework.
Criteria
for Evaluation
Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, one-inch margins
(top, bottom, left, right), twelve point font (Courier New, Arial, Times New
Roman, Antique Olive, Bookman Old Style). Your
essay should be at least six (6) pages in length.
Proper MLA citation and
documentation—including parenthetical citations in the text of the paper and
an “Annotated Works Cited” page—is an absolute necessity for this paper.
You must provide at least two secondary sources to bolster your argument.
Good Luck on this assignment.
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