English 4: World Literature

Spring 2006

Enlightenment and Romanticism

Out-of-Class Essay Assignment Sheet

Swift, Wollstonecraft, Keats, Wordsworth and Pushkin

 

Due Dates

January 31: Thesis and topic sentences due for teacher review at 8AM

February 4 : New version of thesis and topic sentences due for teacher review (This is a time-sensitive grade: this grade will not be recorded until the process is complete. Until you receive check marks on all three or four sentences, you should keep resubmitting them daily. If you don't complete this process by the Friday before before the first draft is due, you will begin to receive late penalties on your Writing Workshop grade. If you still haven't completed the process by the time the second draft is due, your Writing Workshop grade for this component will be a zero).

February 11: First Draft due for Writing Workshop (graded assignment: at least two full pages typed, double spaced) (This is a time sensitive grade:  If you're absent or don't have your paper for this workshop grade, you must get the draft edited according to the first edit sheet and show it to me. Upon your return to school, your late penalties begin. If you were in class but didn't have the draft, your late penalties begin that day. If you haven't shown me the draft—in person—by the time of the Friday before the second draft is due, this Writing Workshop grade will convert to a zero).

February 12: By 8 AM a revised body paragraph of the one you turned in on the draft day.

February 19: Second Draft due (graded assignment: at least three full pages typed double spaced). (This is a time sensitive grade:  If you're absent or don't have your paper for this workshop grade, you must get the draft edited according to the first edit sheet and show it to me. Upon your return to school, your late penalties begin. If you were in class but didn't have the draft, your late penalties begin that day. If you haven't shown me the draft—in person—by the time of the Friday before the final draft is due, this Writing Workshop grade will convert to a zero).

February 20: By 8 AM a second body paragraph with at least three quotes properly incorporated and followed by analysis.

February 21 : Bring the final draft of the essay and/on your computer to class for a final draft check from the checklist.

February 25: Final draft due (the final okayed version of the thesis/topic sentences sheet, both earlier workshop drafts (second draft, then first draft), and both of the edited body paragraphs attached to the back by staple or clip).

Plagiarism
If your paper plagiarizes any writer's work--no matter to what degree--it will receive a zero and you will be referred to the Dean of Students. Plagiarism means that you have taken an idea from another writer without showing attribution, even if you have paraphrased it in your own words. Any words or ideas taken from other writers must be attributed with a citation.

Grading Criteria

Note: I'm giving you the criteria in order to signal to you what I'll look for as I grade the essays. Look at the elements on the Writing Review page on the website for guidelines on formatting and writing. You should refer to the Writing Review, accessible through the website navigation bar, to review writing requirements for this essay.

How to respond to the options:
These options provide a starting place, a prompt toward the writing. You don't have to write an answer to any of the questions. They are only there to help you get started in your thinking.

Choose one of the options below and write a 3-4 page paper on it. Follow the criteria listed below and watch for the schedule of deadlines. You may only use one work of literature for your paper. Email me your choice of a topic and I'll put your initials beside it. I want a range of paper topics, so sign up quickly for what you want.

 

Option 1: The interplay between Swift's voice and his persona: Swift masterfully creates a persona that is something of the Enlightenment man gone mad. He's fully rational, and that is the problem; he isn't moral at all. Swift's own voice, implied in some of the critiques of British imperialism in the essay, is also that of an Enlightenment man, but his voice implies the outrage against British injustices that is lacking in his audience. How do the voice and persona operate together to create the conditions to change the readers' minds? (E.O., J.L.)

 

Option 2: Swift's ironic tone in "A Modest Proposal" is subtle enough to be missed, but once understood, strong enough to launch a devastating critique. Trance the development of Swift's tone from the beginning, when he is in the voice of the persona, bemoaning the condition of Ireland's poor, to the end, when he shows his own voice as he mentions England as a country that would like to eat all of Ireland. How do the fluctuations of tone from ironic to earnest operate on the readers to make them open to the ideas Swift conveys? (C.M., G.A., A.N.)

 

Option 3: Wollstonecraft must take on a solid establishment of Enlightenment thinkers, most of whom were men, as she questions the exclusion of girls and women from education. Wollstonecraft gains credibility as a speaker when women were considered to be unthinking and emotional? How does she use gender norms in her creation of ethos? (K.J.)

 

Option 4: Wollstonecraft has something of a dilemma in how to address her readers--as men or as women. She moves between these two very differently constructed reader groups throughout Vindication. Compare and contrast her rhetoric as she addresses these two different reader groups. What are her primary rhetorical appeals? How does she envision each reader group? Does she align with either of the groups? (A.K., K.R.)

 

Option 5: Wordsworth contrasts his present older self with his past, younger self and he also contrasts himself and his younger sister Dorothy. In both cases, he shows the youthful experience of nature as exuberant but thoughtless and the more mature view of nature as deeper and more lasting. Choose one of these oppositional pairs and compare and contrast them. Is Wordsworth convincing in his privileging of age over youth? How does the vision of nature change in each depiction? (A.H., S.P., M.R., C.S.)

 

Option 6: Wordsworth argues for the beneficial influence of nature on the moral life of a person. Trace the places in "Tintern Abbey" which show the restorative uses of nature as well as its moral force. How does nature make people better? How is it to be envisioned in an industrialized society? (K.R., L.N., D.C., S.W.)

 

Option 7: Pushkin plays on the romantic narrative in his "Queen of Spades." Almost every character has some kind of romance plot giving force to their actions and ambitions. What is the problem with the romance narrative? How does it function in a society that is devoid of moral grounding? (L.H., K.K., M.C., M.K., S.S., A.B., S.B., R.D., L.T., C.F., L.A.) NO more openings here!

 

Option 8: Pushkin structures his story on several key threshold moments. These moments are both canny and uncanny in their reality or dreamlike essence. Choose a few of these significant threshold moments and speculate on how they function to reveal the nature of life for Pushkin. (D.D., A.B., M.S., E.O., H.K., L.R., E.F.) Three left.

 

Option 9: Keats' "Ode on Melancholy" addresses the question of how suffering deepens the experience of life. He urges his reader to embrace rather than deny suffering. What is the true nature of suffering for Keats and how does it function in the full emotional life of a person? (T.S.)

 

Option 10: Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode on a Nightingale" are poems about the writing of poetry. In "Grecian Urn," Keats privileges the plastic arts over the verbal arts because they are caught in time and therefore are timeless. In "Nightingale," Keats privileges the nightingale, a bird and its song, because they are in the moment at the same time that they are eternal (as the song of nightingales return year after year). Even though Keats seems to devalue his own art form, he certainly writes powerful and beautiful poems. Speculate on what Keats gains for his poem in creating the impression that he is devaluing it as an art form.