English 271 Short Critical Essay Assignment (25 pts. or 25% of final grade)

Early in the semester you will complete a 3-5 page Formalist literary analysis or your choice of literature. Everyone will hand in drafts for instructor and peer feedback.

MLA guidelines for manuscript style and documentation of any sources can be found at the Owl at Purdue site. Click here. (Manuscript guidelines are spelled out on that page, and links are included at the bottom of the page to information on how to document sources.)



Instructions, Audience, and Purpose

 

Write a 3-5 page literary analysis, using the Formalist/New Critical lens, to any literary work. Imagine you are writing this essay for an undergraduate and graduate-level casebook (critical anthology) on the work in question, OR for a contemporary literary journal which features articles on contemporary fiction and poetry.

 

Your purpose is to illuminate the work in question, help a college-level reader get more out it, and convince such a reader that your analysis of the work in question is valid.  The purpose of the assignment itself is to give you practice applying basic terms and to understand the New Critical approach, which, while no longer favored in its strictest form, still plays a role in literary studies.

 

Be sure to:

 

  1. Include a title which identifies the critical approach you are taking.
  2. Review carefully the relevant chapter in Tyson.
  3. Review carefully any applicable class notes and materials.
  4. Provide a clear central point.
  5. Develop your argument fully, with focused paragraphs and good supporting evidence (reasons, examples, details, quotations, paraphrases) for your claims.
  6. Acknowledge and refute counter-views.
  7. Keep your audience clearly in mind.
  8. Document any sources using MLA format.
  9. Format your manuscript according to MLA guidelines.
  10. Carefully edit and proofread your work for lapses in clarity, stylistic problems, and mechanical errors.
  11. Include your conference draft with the final product, and staple all hardcopy materials.

 

 

 

Suggestions

 

  1. An easy way to come up with a topic and approach is to review Tyson's statement of the primary question asked about a text by the Formalist critic: "[H]ow do the text's formal elements, and the multiple meanings those elements produce, all work together to support the theme, or overall meaning, of the work?"

    You can simply ask that very question about a text of your choice, and your answer to the question becomes your thesis statement.

    For example, how does image (or plot structure, or characterization, or symbol, or point of view, or use of metaphor, or setting, etc.) lead us to understand "the overall meaning" or primary theme of The Great Gatsby? Possible answer and thesis statement: "An examination of the recurring light imagery in The Great Gatsby—beams and sparkles of light both distant and near—can help us to see Gatsby's most important theme: the alluring but forever frustrated human quest for freedom and wholeness."
  2. Also helpful would be to research essays which others have written about your particular topic or idea. Your own essay can react and respond to these other pieces, either using them to help support your thesis, or to provide positions you'd like to argue against. Either way, they can add complexity, scope, and interest to your essay.
  3. And, finally, keep in mind that you are analyzing and discussing a work's formal elements, so always speak about the work explicitly in terms of those elements.

Ask this question about whatever piece of literature you are examining: what is the author doing to lead me to the work's theme? What formal elements is she applying?"

Look at these two statements:

  • Ai's poem, "The Anniversary," has to do with the paradox of love, the violence and danger underlying feelings of intense affection and surrender to always-imperfect commitments. We see this when the speaker of the poem freely invites a difficult (if not abusive) spouse into her bed. It appears that she both does and doesn't love her spouse. In the meantime their son dances around like a clown, which of course is odd and paradoxical, because his parents are so unhappy and/or smoldering with tension.
  • The theme of Ai's poem, "The Anniversary," is the paradox of love, the violence and danger underlying feelings of intense affection and surrender to always-imperfect commitments. This is revealed through the author's use of irony, image, and tone.

For instance, the title, "The Anniversary," implies celebration, but the images which predominate in the poem suggest tension and antagonism. Two such images are the blade "pointed at my head," and the harsh aural "crackling" of cooking corn. Such images undercut the title, or show us the bad side of the couple's love at the same time that we are told that such love is being celebrated. Love, in other words, is paradoxical. Again, it is the poem's strong images which lead us to this theme.

Ai further points us toward her poem's interesting theme through use of irony; in particular the fact that the little son happily dances and plays like a clown, even while his parents are smoldering and barely containing their antagonism toward one another. His playing isn't what is seems to be—it is a child's mistaken or intentional denial of the tension permeating the setting. And the speaker's tone of voice, of course, is terrifically ironic—fairly bristling with alternate meanings—when she says, "Come in, sheets are clean..." Clean sheets are trivial compared to the difficulties facing this couple, and only magnify what is not "clean" in the relationship. The sense of that word is therefore not straightforward, but ironic; it doesn't mean what it seems to on the surface.

The first statement above is not wrong; it just doesn't examine the work in question in formal terms. The second statement does, making it more properly New Critical or Formalist. As you can see, it's important to understand the elements of literature; they are the very vocabulary of the Formalist analysis.


Evaluation Criteria

Your essay should be focused, organized, and well-developed, with clear, explicit, accurate application of Formalist criticism. Any sources must be documented properly and your essay manuscript formatted according to MLA guidelines. Please staple all work, and include your peer critiques and draft with instructor comments. Essays are due in class Thurs., Sept. 20th.

 

Grading scale:

 

23-25 = A

20-22 = B

17-19 = C

14-16 = D

Below 14 = F

 

 

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