Due Monday, February 12 at the start of
class.4 full pages (no more than 5 full), double-spaced typed/printed
text.Standard margins (top &
bottom 1" margins; right and left 1.25" margins).If
you have any other format questions, ask me
:
Choose any of the poems from the start of the
syllabus through Feb.7 (
Rape of the Lock).
Select no more than one stanza or verse paragraph from a poem, or
paragraph or short section from prose whose lines you judge most
essential
to understanding and appreciating the whole work, and do a close
reading of those selected lines.
Consider
the nuances of language, prosody, allusions, metaphors, metre, rhyme,
anything
that you feel is most relevant to discuss and necessary to interpret to
read your chosen lines in relation to the whole work well.
This assignment calls upon you to practice your
skills
in close-reading, but you may bring in other opinions from the reserve
list or beyond as long as you footnote any sources,explicate
the passage or poem sufficiently in your own terms, and keep other
opinions
subordinate to your own.You do not,
however, need to consult any text beyond your chosen paragraph or part
of a literary text. You will no doubt make sense of the selection you choose in
relation to the whole work from which it comes, but stay as focused as
possible on the
details of language within, not beyond, your chosen lines.
Even though close-reading
skills arose with the New Criticism, they need not endorse its attitudes: you are
not
obliged to find some ideal of harmony or unity between your passage as
microcosm and the whole text, or author’s oeuvre, as macrocosm. You may
wish to work out a passage that instead reveals some interesting
disruption
of structure, complication of apparent theme or moral, or contradiction
between apparent authorial intent and textual meaning as you understand
it. Pay particular attention to the
sentence-level details and verbal nuance whether you are analyzing
poetry or prose.
Choice of passage and issue is completely up to
you,
but it needs to be small enough and significant enough to warrant 4
pages
of discussion.If you pick a passage
or poem that we have discussed in some detail in class you are obliged
to try to bring out something personal and original in your reading.
Feel free to discuss your developing ideas with
me
return to syllabus