English 252, British Literature II

Critical Essay Assignment

Summer 2009

Last updated May 15, 2008

Deadlines: see schedule.

Purpose and Instructions

This essay will give you the chance to explore in-depth a writer or topic of interest to you. Your essay should be a minimum of 5 double-spaced pages and must present an argument—some interesting, relevant, debatable, and original claim about the work of the writer or topic you choose. Take care that you don't produce a report or mere regurgitation of facts found in research. You want to analyze and interpret your material, then present the results of your analysis as a developed and supported argument.

As you narrow your focus and begin drafting, consider what kind of essay you are writing: Formalist? Feminist? Culturalist? Psychoanalytic? (We'll discuss these briefly in class.)

No matter what your focus may be, you'll need to do a little research. What have other writers said about the same subject and issues? Do you agree or disagree with those sources? Through what critical lenses has your topic been explored? Are there any issues or approaches which you believe have been neglected? What are some recent debates concerning your topic? How does early criticism on the topic differ from very recent criticism?

Author Approach

Your critical essay may be about work by any writer or topic listed below. It's a good idea to pick your writer and focus early. Also, be aware that a good many classic works are online these days, so you can save yourself time and money if you don't mind reading on a screen!

Not counting work we've read in class, any novel by:

• Mary Shelly
• Thomas Hardy
• Virginia Woolf
• D. H. Lawrence
• Charles Dickens
• Joseph Conrad
• Elizabeth Gaskell
• Graham Greene
• Doris Lessing
• Nadine Gordimer
• Salman Rushdie (can be difficult, but wonderful)
• V. S. Naipaul
• Chinua Achebe
• Emily Bronte
• Charlotte Bronte
• Jane Austen
• George Elliot
• J. G. Ballard (can be relatively "light"; essay must be a bit longer and more developed, depending)
• Roddy Doyle (relatively "light," so essay must be a bit longer and more developed)

Story collections by:

• Kathrine Mansfield
• Jean Rhys
• Alice Munro
• Elizabeth Gaskell

Full-length plays by:

• Tom Stoppard
• Harold Pinter
• Bernard Shaw
• Samuel Beckett

Poetry or essay collections by anyone in our Norton whom we haven't studied in class.

Note: yes, you may certainly propose your own author, though you'll need to discuss your choice with me and present an argument as to why the writer is worth examining.

Topic Approach

Rather than focusing on a particular writer, you may wish to tackle a particular topic in British literary studies. A good place to start would be the many relevant information sections of the Norton, as well as the Norton online with its good study topics. Lots of possibilities here—and a chance also to do something innovative as well. Some obvious, very broad examples include The Canon, Definitions of British Literature, Pop Culture and Literature; Literature and Film; Empire and National Identity; etc. We'll brainstorm some ideas in class, and break these broad examples down into their many possible subtopics. We'll also review general research strategies and specific research tips for this assignment. SEE BELOW FOR ONGOING CLASS LIST OF IDEAS.

Audience

Imagine that your essay will appear in a casebook on a particular writer, genre, and/or topic in British literature since 1785. Your reader is any undergraduate college student and instructor interested in learning more about your chosen subject. This reader wants new ways of interpreting the subject, but is critical of any argument. That is, this reader is a tough sell and will question your claims, expecting ample supporting evidence of several kinds.

Evaluation Criteria

• Your essay must be a minimum of 5 typed and double-spaced pages.
• It should include a helpful and engaging title.
• It must have a clear, debatable central point (thesis), supported and developed with plenty of detail, analysis, and research, as needed.
• Your essay should show awareness of its audience's expectations and needs.
• Your essay should be focused, unified, and well-organized, with appropriate paragraphing and transitions. Click here for helpful review.
• Your essay should show virtually no spelling or grammatical errors, vagueness, or awkward sentence constructions. Click here for helpful review.
• All sources should be documented and the manuscript formatted according to MLA guidelines. Click here for a helpful resource.

Explanation of Letter Grades

An "A" paper meets all of the stated criteria and follows all of the instructions above exceptionally well, with imagination, insight, clarity, polish, and detail. It is conspicuously better than most work turned in.

A "B" paper meets most of the stated criteria and instructions very well, or all of it moderately well. It may be excellent in many respects but unoriginal, or very original but only adequate in other key ways. It's terrific but does not especially stand out.

A "C" paper meets most of the stated criteria well enough, or a minor portion of it very well. It will likely be somewhat perfunctory, uninspired, or unoriginal, as well as insufficiently developed or convincing in spots. It will probably show no "stretch." Its flaws are noticeable and detracting, but not overwhelming.

A "D" paper meets few of the stated criteria, but performs minimally well in one or maybe two areas—enough to warrant passing. Glaring flaws make any strengths difficult to spot.

Grading Scale

Note: I first assign a letter grade based on the explanations above, then fine-tune that letter with points. You'll see both a letter grade and a score on your paper, though the points are the crucial thing, as they are tallied at semester's end to determine your final grade.

Essay A = 36-40 B = 31-35 C = 26-30 D = 21-25

Semester 90-100 = A 79-89 = B 68-78 = C 57-67 = D

A Note to English Majors

During their senior year, English majors generally enroll in the English Capstone course (Engl 467), during which they assemble a portfolio containing representative written work from NDSU English courses. The English Department evaluates these portfolios to assess its undergraduate programs, analyzing how student work meets departmental outcomes. In order to facilitate the preparation of senior portfolios, English majors are encouraged to save copies of their written work (in electronic and hard copy) each semester.

How and When to Turn in Your Work

Please do not use a folder for your essay, especially the plastic, slippery kind with a removable spine. They drive me nuts. (They don't stay together; they're more slippery than shower soap; they don't fit well in a stack of papers...) Simply staple your pages together.

You may hand your work in to my SE 318 mailbox, slip it under my 318F office door, or leave it on my desk if my office is open. If you want this work returned, enclose it in a self-addressed and self-stamped envelope. Essays without an envelope will be discarded.

You may also email the finished essay to me—but be sure to put very clear identifying info on the subject line and attach it as a Word document. Don't use Works, WordPerfect, or Word 2007, and don't paste the paper into the email message itself. I'll open the file, type feedback and a score, then simply email it back to you.

Deadline: see schedule.

POSSIBLE TOPICS/FOCI/APPROACHES

We will keep a running list here as the semester progresses. Whenever you have an idea, share it/run it by the class. (One or two items below are from sources, though my citations and notes for these have been lost.)

1. Neglected writers: make a case for their inclusion in the canon.
2. Pampered writers: make a case for their exclusion from the canon.
3. Early Norton selections vs. recent: how has the Norton changed and how would you assess those changes?
4. Who determines what goes into the Norton? How do canons form? How can canons be changed?
5. Contemporary assessments of Romanticism.
6. Critical reception of a particular writer over time.
7. The influence of a particular writer on other writers, old and new. Ways in which a writer has influenced contemporary culture.
8. Two poems or prose works: comparison and contrast.
9. A formalist, feminist, culturalist, Marxist, deconstructionist, psychoanalytical, or reader-response analysis of a particular work.
10. How Thomas Hardy or Joseph Conrad or Gerard Manley Hopkins is a Victorian writer. How Thomas Hardy or Joseph Conrad or Gerard Manley Hopkins is a Modernist writer.
11. An investigation of the Coleridge-Wordsworth relationship. How accurate was Pandaemonium in representing that relationship?
12. How accurate was Panaemonium in representing Romanticism?
13. 18th and early 19th century British bookmaking and publishing.
14. British understandings of either personal identity, gender, race, or nation—and representations of that understanding in particular Romantic, Victorian, Modernist or Postmodernist works.
15. Interactions between British and American Romantic writers.
16. Current trends in British Literary Studies.
17. What is "British Literature"?
18. What kinds of literature have come out of countries and regions which used to be under British imperial control? How have writers in former British colonies struggled with issues of personal and national identity, revolt and independence, cultural and literary hegemonies?
19. Postcolonial comparisons of Tarzan of the Apes and Heart of Darkness.

    How are these two novels similar and different in terms of formal qualities such as theme, point of view, language, and imagery? How are they different or similar in their representations of Africa, native Africans, women and men, upper and lower classes? To what extent is Heart of Darkness a critique of colonialism, and to what extent is it complicit? Do you agree or disagree with Achebe's lecture-essay in our Norton anthology about racism in Conrad's novel? How does an appreciation for Heart of Darkness, or even an understanding of its basic subject matter, change when you read "with" or "against" the text?

20. Romantic or Victorian or Modernist or Postmodernist literary challenges to British imperialism, industrialization, capitalism, national ideologies, or social inequalities.
21. Bipolar disease and Romantic writers.
22. Enlightenment feminism vs. second- and third-wave feminism in British literature.
23. Arguments for or against the "periods approach" to literary study.
24. A feminist reading of Gaskell’s ghost story.
25. A close reading of fire, light, or flight imagery in the poems of Hopkins.
26. A new historicist investigation of poet-ministers or poet-doctors or poet-insurance salesmen.
27. A Marxist reading of capitalist metaphors in Hopkins’ poems.
28. A culturalist reading of Hopkins, comparing his work to Rap.
29. A psychoanalytic reading of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.”
30. A comparison of Tennyson’s #88 in “In Memoriam” and Keat’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”
31. A comparison of Victorian social justice literature with contemporary models.
32. The dramatic monologue: what was done with this form after Robert Browning .
33. Modernist writers and Fascism.
34. The women behind canonized male writers.
35. How digital media are changing our study of British literature.
36. "In Memoriam" in hypertext.

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