Writing Assignment (WA) 1.
The Writing Assignments for this class are not full, traditional papers – instead, they emphasize your grasp of a theoretical concept and showcase your ability to make a clear and specific argument about (a) how that concept affects your reading of a chosen literary work, and/or (b) how reading the literary work that way affects our understanding of the concept. In other words, the focus is on your thinking and argumentation rather than your prose.
Please follow the WA Model (below) to format your paper in the uniform way.
You must write on literary works we have read for this class. You may also cite the PDF’d introductory material but only to supplement your citations of the literary text.
Topics:
Pick ONE of the Theories of Poetry (from Section 1 below) and apply it to ONE poem (from Section 2 below) that we have not already paired with that theory.
Examples of Possible Approaches:
• Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a Greater Romantic Lyric (except in this one important way).
• Browning’s “My Last Duchess” exemplifies the idea of Negative Capability.
• Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” commits the Pathetic Fallacy.
If the poem does something really different from what the Theory of Poetry values, why is that difference significant?
Section 1 (Theory of Poetry): CHOOSE ONE
To learn more about each one, click here:
Theories of Poetry – Source Texts for WA1
Section 2: CHOOSE ONE
• “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (avoid poems a, b)
• “Making the familiar strange” (avoid poems a, b, c)
• “Making the strange familiar” (avoid poem a, b, c)
• The Greater Romantic Lyric (avoid poems b, c)
• Negative Capability (avoid poems d, e, f)
• The Dramatic Monologue (avoid poems g, h)
• The Pathetic Fallacy
(a) Wordsworth’s “We are Seven”
(b) Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed… Above Tintern Abbey”
(c) Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight”
(d) Keats’s “Bright Star”
(e) Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
(f) Keats’s “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”
(g) Tennyson’s “Ulysses”
(h) Browning’s “My Last Duchess”
Assignment Purpose and Objectives
• To demonstrate understanding of the chosen Theory of Poetry
• To think critically and make a claim about whether the chosen poem DOES or DOES NOT effectively do what the theory proposes.
• To provide specific evidence from the poem to support the claim.
• To suggest how the analysis affects our understanding of the specific poem, and Romantic or Victorian poetry more broadly.
MODEL FOR PAPER FORMAT
For your paper please follow the model below. Include the bolded subheadings you see in this model so that we can see how you are shaping your argument.
Name
Class
Due Date
Your Own Title Here
Choices from Section 1 and Section 2:
Make explicit which Theory of Poetry and which Poem you have chosen.
[Length: short and direct, just tell us what you’ve picked.]
Debatable claim/Thesis statement:
You will write your thesis statement here, at the top of your essay, making a debatable claim. (Review the video and/or this link on debatable claims.) (Read below to see what exactly your debatable claim will be proving!)
[Length: one or two sentences]
Context:
Explain how you understand your chosen Theory of Poetry (what you selected from Section 1). Be sure to explain how this theory of poetry works, especially what it values or seems to emphasize most. For example, if you chose “Negative Capability” you would explain what the idea means in its original context, and try to put Keats’s ideas in your own words. You’d also describe what makes a poem or poet “good” by the standards of this theory of poetry. How would the proponents of this theory of poetry judge a poem? What is “success” in this theory?
Additionally, explain your poem (the text you’ve picked from Section 2) – briefly summarize in your own words what happens in the poem, and how the poem is usually read or understood. What is it most people would say this poem is about? This is a sort of “surface” reading of the poem – your own thesis statement goes against this in some way and makes its own debatable claim.
[Length: one paragraph for the theory, one paragraph for the poem]
Telling Details:
Here is where you present details – specific language from the poem – that supports your debatable claim or thesis statement, which is of course a different reading of that poem from the obvious “surface” idea above. Choose several short quotations (at least 5, though more can be even better) that exemplify what you are saying. Explain all you can learn or infer from these passages. Each should show something slightly different, and all of them should add up to a solid support of your claim.
Embed each quotation into your own sentence. (help on this is available on Canvas) Cite each quotation in MLA format. (help on this is available on Canvas)
[Length: This is the place for noticing small details and talking about why you see them as important to proving YOUR debatable claim. Since we say a minimum of 5 textual details, this should be at least 10 sentences. You want to explain all the wonderful detailed things you have noticed in your poem, and why they prove your point. More is better, here. Not fluff or filler, but good support for your argument, well explained.]
Impact:
This is the part of your paper where you get to prove your debatable claim – though the Theory of Poetry is commonly read as x, when read with this poem it reveals y. Or, though the poem is commonly understood on x terms, reading it as an example of this Theory of Poetry, reveals y about the poem (something unexpected).
This is a place where you can take your examples from the “Telling Details” section of the paper and your knowledge of the Theory and the Poem (from the “Context” section) and put them together to really prove and support your own debatable claim.
[Length: This is the other place where more detail is usually a good thing. Prove your point thoroughly. Explain why it’s important.]
Concluding Statement:
This one- or two-sentence statement should convey why your overall argument matters in terms of understanding the original text, the time period it represents, or the world within which it was written. Why is it useful to read this poem in your new way? What can we learn from this or take away from it?
[Length: one or two sentences, but make them good]
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