Best Writer

Discuss the function of guides, mentors, and/or teachers in two of the course texts that we’ve read this semester.identify the context of the passage—i.e., indicate the occasion or situation in which the passage occurs; 2) discuss the particular ideas, themes, structure, images, and language of the passage; and 3) state the significance of the passage within the work as a whole. 1. The Holy Inn awaits you. Will your heart not have mercy on me? The pain filled me, overwhelmed me. Queen, lady! For you, I have given birth to it: what I sang to you at dead of night, let a lamenter repeat at midday. For your captive spouse and your captive child, your fury grows ever greater, your heart can find no rest. (Enheduana, “The Exaltation of Inana,” lines 138-43) 2. At that, he wound a piece of sailor’s rope round the rotunda and round the mighty pillar, stretched up so high no foot could touch the ground. As doves or thrushes spread their wings to fly home to their nests, but someone sets a trap— they crash into a net, a bitter bedtime; just so the girls, their heads all in a row, were strung up with the noose around their necks to make their death an agony. (Homer, Odyssey 22.465-73) 3. You have a hot mind over chilly things. (Sophocles, Antigone, line 88) 4. If anyone desires to know all my fortunes he seeks more than the circumstances permit. I have endured woes as many as the stars that shine in heaven, or the grains that the dry dust holds; many have I borne too great to be believed and not destined to find credence, although they have really befallen me. A part, too, might well perish with me, and I wish that, since I would veil them, they might be hidden. If I had a tireless voice, lungs stronger than brass, and many mouths with many tongues, not even so could I embrace them all in words, for the theme surpasses my strength. Ye learned poets, write of my evils instead of the Neritian hero’s! for I have borne more than the Neritian. (Ovid, Tristia 1.5.45-58) 5. Faced with that truth which seems a lie, a man should always close his lips as long as he canto tell it shames him, even though he’s blameless; but here I can’t be still; and by the lines of this my Comedy, reader, I swear-and may my verse find favor for long years-that through the dense and darkened air I saw a figure swimming, rising up, enough to bring amazement to the firmest heart, like one returning from the waves where he went down to loose an anchor snagged upon a reef or something else hid in the sea, who stretches upward and draws in his feet. (Dante, Inferno 16.124-36) 6. O what mean I to have such foolish thoughts! Foolish is love, a toy. O sacred love, If there be any heaven in earth, ’tis love, Especially in women of our years. Blush, blush for shame, why shouldst thou think of love? A grave and not a lover fits thy age. A grave? Why? I may live a hundred years: Fourscore is but a girl’s age, love is sweet. My veins are withered and my sinews dry, Why do I think of love, now I should die? (Marlowe, Dido, Queen of Carthage 4.5.25-34) 7. Now my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have’s mine own, Which is most faint. Now, ’tis true I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardoned the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free. (Shakespeare, epilogue to The Tempest) 8. Dead or alive, she is my mother, and I won’t deny her! Besides, you only think she’s dead because you think the earth itself is dead … It’s so much more convenient! Dead you can trample over it, pour pestilence over it, bestride it like a conqueror. I respect the earth because I know that it is alive, and I know that Sycorax is alive. Sycorax my mother! Serpent! Rain! Lightning. And I find you everywhere! In the eye of the pond which stares at me, unblinking, through the rushes/ In the gesture of the twisted root with coiled spring. In the blinded all-seeing night, the nostril-less all-smelling night! (Césaire, A Tempest, 1.2.151-64) PART 2: ESSAY (55 points-suggested time limit: 60 minutes) Choose ONE of the following questions for your essay response. Your essay should include a clear statement of your argument/thesis, follow a logical organization of ideas, and give textual examples to support your argument. You should remember to adequately contextualize your textual examples. When quoting from texts, remember to include relevant citations (page numbers or line numbers). There is no need to incorporate outside research, and you are not required to provide a Works Cited page. An effective essay will involve not only an analytical discussion of texts at a global level (e.g., “The Odyssey repeatedly thematizes the limits of hospitality”), but will also reference specific details, instances, or passages from the texts in the process of your discussion (eg., “The Odyssey repeatedly thematizes the limits of hospitality. The crisis of hospitality reaches a high point of tension in the Cyclops episode in Book 9 of the poem, when Odysseus narrates the episode as a failure of hospitality on Polyphemus’ part. But within his narrative, it becomes clear that Odysseus was the one to initially put hospitality under severe constraint by stealing from Polyphemus’ stores and ambushing the Cyclops in his own home. To Polyphemus, Odysseus has the audacity to say…”). A. Discuss the function of guides, mentors, and/or teachers in two of the course texts that we’ve read this semester. How do their suggestions, lessons, examples, rebukes, and warnings direct the developments of their listeners or followers? B. Several of the texts that we have read this semester represent poetry as a technology for changing the world. Choose two texts to compare/contrast, and construct an argument about the representation of poetry or the act of poetic production in them. What do each of your chosen texts say poetry can do in the world and to the world? C. Conflicts that have taken place before the start of the narrative action often tend to shape events, relationships, and characters’ choices in the texts we have read together. These conflicts could be war, individual power struggles, political strife, or social discord. Choose two texts and discuss how the lingering effects of those earlier conflicts shape and haunt the narrative of the poem/play.