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-One short essay (750-1000 words each). These should be more
formal essays, with an introductory paragraph that clearly states the thesis you will be arguing, a body of several paragraphs with passages that support the thesis, and a short conclusion. Feel free to use your discussion answers as a basis for these papers if you wish.
-Make sure that when you quote passages, you give page numbers or (if poems) line numbers. Because these papers are intended to give you a chance to show how you can construct an argument from analyzing a written text and prove it by referring to passages within that text, you do not need to use outside sources (although the introductions in the textbook or in the course website may be useful). If you find yourself using any sources besides the texts themselves, you must cite those sources appropriately using MLA style.
*Reading Assignments:
Boccaccio, Day 10 Story 10 (Vol. B pp. 649-56)
Chaucer, “Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” (Vol. B pp. 682-709)
“Humanism and the Rediscovery of the Classical Past” (Vol. C pp. 135-63)
Machiavelli (Vol. C pp. 183-91)
Ariosto (Vol. C pp. 193-204)
More, Book I (Vol. C pp. 207-28)
Weekly Essays – Some Help on Choosing a Topic to Write About
In this section I will give some pointers and advice about the Weekly Essays. I do not like assigning topics because I would rather read something on a topic that you are interested in writing about rather than a topic you have been forced to write about. Being able to read a text and ask certain questions about it is one of the main goals of this course. However, sometimes it is difficult to come up with topics, especially if writing about literature is something entirely new to you. I hope that what I say here will help you learn how to do that.
The first thing to do, even before you start reading, is to think about what kinds of topics interest you. Many of you are planning to go into law, medicine, politics, teaching, hospitality, science, psychology, etc. These are the areas then that you should find especially interesting or at least relevant to your own life, and each of these areas will be covered in some way in many of the texts we will be reading. Let me give some examples.
Say you are a hospitality major. The way we treat guests is a crucial aspect of our culture—this could be guests to our own home, guests to our regional area, guests from other countries, and so on. How do we receive these visitors, or how do you think we should receive them? Once you think you have your own ideas on the subject, read the texts assigned for the week. In Gilgamesh, how does the king receive Enkidu? In the Odyssey hospitality is one of the most crucial aspects of the entire poem. How is Odysseus received by the various people he meets while he is trying to get home, how is he received in his own home, and how then does he treat the suitors who had taken over his home. Similar questions could be asked about any of these texts. In your paper you could examine a single one of these texts to see what the ideal of hospitality is and what that says about the culture as a whole. What happens when this ideal is not followed? Are the gods angered? Do bad things happen? Is the text trying to enforce a particular view of hospitality upon its readers or simply reflecting the standard norms of its culture?
We can substitute any other topic in the discussion above. Perhaps you are interested in how society as a whole is governed. Is there a king, and if so, what gives the king the right to have power over his society? What happens if the king is bad? How is succession treated and who gets to decide who is the next king? Or is society governed by a group of people? Who put them in power? What rights do the lowest members of society have? Should they have any? How are slaves treated? Are there any reasons why slavery is bad or are slaves and integral and important part of society? What about women? Do they have any rights? Do they have any power and if so, over what aspects of society? Can a woman be a queen on her own, i.e., without a king? Any essay can ask any one of these questions of a particular text, or perhaps compare the answers to one of these questions as given in two texts.
You might be interested in what it takes to be a good person. You will read many texts this summer about various “heroes.” What makes a hero in today’s society? We often give the label hero quite unthinkingly to large groups of our society, police, soldiers, and so on, but how do we make this determination? Is it based on morality? Courage? Physical Strength? Intelligence? Adherence to certain religious duties? Is being a hero the same as being a good person? Can a woman be a hero, and if so, are the qualifications different?
I hope these are enough examples to show you just how wide open the types of topics you can choose to write on are. What’s most important is that you have a specific question that you are asking, so that your paper is focused and not just rambling around. You do not need to summarize the plot of the text, or try to cover every single aspect. Just think of a question, find some passages that are related to that question, and talk about the text. You can compare it with another text or your own ideas, as long as your main focus is on how the text itself answers that question. If you are uncertain about whether or not you are asking a “good” question, or you need more guidance, feel free to email me at any time.
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