Some
General Advice, Topics,
and
Sample
Papers for M. Crafton’s 2110 and 2120 Classes
GENERAL NOTES
The essay should be about 2-3 pages typed (double-spaced with one inch
margins). It does not need any research work; you need only the text and your own
intellect (of course, you may also use your class notes and the introductory
and glossary material in the textbook). The essay does not need any footnotes.
You simply need to cite in parentheses the page number(s) or line number(s) of
the text that you are writing about. For example, "That time of year thou
mayest in me behold" (line 1).
Every essay should include
short, relevant quotations from the primary material.
Every essay should have a
thesis, a clear organization, and be written in Standard English (grammar,
spelling, and mechanics count).
Some Old
Topics and Sample Essays
Topics on the Essay for English 2110
Some essay
topics for English 2110
Topics for Essay # 1 due around mid-quarter (check syllabus for exact dates)
1. Discuss dualism in the Homer.
2. In what ways is the Gilgamesh a tragic epic?
3. Compare Gilgamesh and Odysseus as epic heros.
4. Discuss the place of women in ancient literature.
5. What is the Aeneid's debt to Homer?
6. Discuss Sophocles' Oedipus as tragedy.
Topics for Essay #
2 due around the end of the quarter.
1. Discuss the Confessions as a spritual autobiography or theological
statement or statement about love.
2. How is Eliduc a medieval romance or as Gothic art or as a Christian
statement or elements of the fantastic.
3. Discuss structure and character in Dante.
4. Explain the symbolic imagery in Dante
5. Discuss Dante as a theological statement.
6. How can The Divine Comedy be regarded as epic romance?
7. Discuss the Tale of Genji as a psychological novel or a novel of
psychological realism or on the theme of love or quest for perfect love or as a
representation of Heian aristocratic society or as buddhist document on the
cause of suffering.
8. Discuss Basho's
9. Discuss The epic of San Jara as embodying some of the traditional epic
formulas or as oral literature or as a mixture of native and Muslim religions.
10. Renaissance literature and the themes of Renaissance humanism or effect of
the discovery of the
11. Discuss Tintern Abbey or poems by Blake as informed by the culture of
Romanticism in
[Sample Essay:
Should be double-spaced]
Jane Student
Professor M. Crafton
ENGL 2110
Guest / Host Code in The
Odyssey
Throughout
The Odyssey, Odysseus is the guest of a variety of people. In the ancient Greek world, civilized
hosts were marked by how well the treated their guests, if food, shelter, and
clothing were willingly dispersed, along with whatever else the guest
desired. In turn, civilized guests
were characterized by their graciousness towards their host. The convention of proper interactions
between the guest and host are gradually codified into an unwritten guest /
host code. The code comes from the
desire by the ancient peoples to appear civilized. During his travels, Odysseus encounters two groups, the
Phaiakians and the Cyclops, who reveal that they are polar opposite (one
civilized, the other barbarian) in the realm of the guest/ host code.
The
Phaiakians embody the qualities associated with superior hospitality and
civilization. When Odysseus washes
ashore, he wonders if the Phaiakians are savages or gentle people who fear the
gods – a sign of civility. He is
right to wonder, for he has had numerous horrific encounters over the past ten
years in which, even though he was a guest, he was not treated as one. To gauge if the Phaiakians are civil,
Odysseus observes Nausikaa, the daughter of King Alkinoos. Even though he look extremely rough
from his sea journey and she thinks him uncouth, Nausikaa assures Odysseus that
he “shall not lack for clothing, or any other / comfort dues to a poor man in
distress” (115).
As
Odysseus journeys to the
Odysseus’
fears are unrealized, for Alkinoos, upon hearing part of the story of Odysseus’
plight, immediately assures him that he will receive passage to his home the
next day. Alkinoos also treats
Odysseus with great honor, giving him the seat of Laodamas, the favorite son of
Alkinoos. Odysseus is also given
food, clothing, and a bed, all of which he accept with graciousness; Alkinoos
then commands that his still unnamed guest be honored with a feast and a
minstrel. The “glittering pile” of
gifts the Phaiakians give Odysseus before he leaves for Ithaka are the crowning
blessing of their civility as hosts.
The
land of the Cyclops is a land of savagery, where guests are despised and not
treated with honor. Unlike the
Phaiakians, the Cyclops “neither plow nor sow by hand, nor till the ground”
(141); their houses consist of brute caves instead of architectural wonders
like palaces. They are savages,
“without a law to bless them / … / dealing out rough justice to wife and child,
/ indifferent to what the others do” (141).
The
Cyclops that Odysseus and his men meet in Polyphemos. He is, like the others of his race, “a towering brute …
ignorant of civility” (143). When
he first notices Odysseus and his men, he does not welcomes them into his home,
nor offer them food and rest.
Instead, Polyphemos asks the men who they are. After Odysseus replies that he and his men are soldiers
beholden to Polyphemos’ help – or gifts, if he desires to honor the gods –
Polyphemos promptly insults them by calling Odysseus a “ninny” and saying that
he does not care for that gods (145).
As a further insult to his guests, Polyphemos eats two men for dinner,
two more for breakfast, then traps the men in his cave for the day while he
herds his sheep. Finally, the
culmination of Polyphemos’ barbaric hosting comes when as a parting gift he
curses Odysseus by calling on Poseidon to ensure that Odysseus will either
never reach home or that he arrives home many years later and under strange
sail.
The
Phaiakians demonstrate that they are civilized hosts when they welcome Odysseus
into their home, treat him as a guest of honor, and giving him valuable
gifts. When Alkinoos gives him a
ship so that he may finally reach Ithaka after ten long years of travel,
Odysseus realizes that he had finally met a people who fully embrace the guest
/ host code. The complete opposite
of the Phaiakians are the Cyclops, who eat their guests, trap them in caves,
and insult the gods. The Cyclops
do not even know the concept of the guest / host code and are rightfully called
savages by Odysseus.
Topics on the Essay for English 2120
Some essay
topics for English 2110
Topics for Essay # 1 due around mid-quarter (check syllabus for exact dates)
1. Discuss Dream
of the Rood as a dream vision and allegory.
2. Discuss the
above texts as representing certain aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture. For example, portraying Christ as a
warrior.
3. In what ways
might the above text counter some views of Anglos-Saxon culture?
4. Discuss Beowulf
as an epic-heroic poem; focus on some subtopics.
5. Discuss the role
of women (or one woman) in Beowulf.
6. Discuss the
mixed religions of the poem.
7. Write an
interpretation of the last line of the poem in light of the rest of the poem.
8, Discuss the
important of narrative of story telling and memory in Beowulf.
9. Discuss SGGK
as a medieval romance.
10. Discuss SGGK
in light of typological or allegorical considerations.
11. How if
Chaucer’s General Prologue representative of his culture and time.
12. How does the
above text fit or not fit the general understanding of this period’s culture?
13. How is romance
treated in Wife of Bath’s tale?
14. How does is her
narrative influenced by her persona as created by the Prologue?
15. The Wife of
Bath has been read as both modern and anti-modern. Discuss one of the transhistorical readings.
16. How does the
General Prologue reflect changes in attitudes toward religion during the
period?
17. In what ways is
the Miller’s Tale a fabliau?
18. Discuss the
limited realism of the fabliau as opposed to the idealizing of romance in SGGK
or of Chevrefoil.
19. Explain how one
or more sonnets of the early modern period reflect the ideas of courtly love or
of Petrarchanism.
20. Discuss 1
Henry IV as Elizabethan or Tudor propaganda.
21. Discuss the
difference between the representations in the major and minor plots of the
play.
22. Analyze the
play in light of one of the following concepts: honor, courtesy, language.
23. Analyze one or
more poems as Metaphysical or Cavalier or compare and contrast.
24. Discuss
Milton’s PL as an Puritan epic.
Topics for Essay #
2 due around the end of the quarter.
Topics on the
Renaissance, Shakespeare, 17th-century poetry, Donne; Milton and
epic and protestantisim; neoclassical literature, romantic literature, later 19th-century
literature, and modern literature.
[Sample Essay]
Student Name
Professor Crafton
English 2120
February 28, 2001
Beowulf’s Depiction of Anglo-Saxon
Society
The
Old-English or Anglo-Saxon era extends from about 450 to 1066. The Germanic tribes from the Continent
who overran England in the fifth century, after the Roman withdrawal, brought
with them a language that is the basis of modern English, a specific poetic
tradition, and a relatively advanced society. All of these qualities and spirit are exemplified in the
eighth-century epic poem Beowulf.
To begin with,
much of the Old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted, with harp
accompaniment, by the Anglo-Saxon scop. In Beowulf,
the scop entertains warriors at Heorot, also known as The Hall of Hart. Often masculine and strong, but also
mournful in spirit, the stories emphasize the sorrow and ultimate futility of
man's lot and his helplessness before the power of fate. Beowulf,
composed in 750 A.D., was originally handed down in the same oral
tradition. In 1000 A.D. the epic
poem was preserved by monastic copyists in a written manuscript.
In addition, Beowulf reflects Anglo-Saxon poetic
traits. The poetry is composed
without rhyme, in a characteristic line, or verse, of four stressed syllables
alternating with an indeterminate number of unstressed ones. This line strikes strangely on ears
habituated to the usual modern pattern, in which the rhythmical unity,
theoretically consists of a constant number of unaccented syllables that always
precede or follow any stressed syllable.
Another unfamiliar but equally striking feature in the formal character
of Old English poetry is structural alliteration, or the use of syllables
beginning with similar sounds in two or three of the stresses in each
line. The first eleven lines of Beowulf illustrated the language and
versification of Old English. Only
a stable civilization could put together such a long, complicated, and
difficult poem.
Furthermore, Beowulf reflects a society with an
advanced understanding in the value of a good king and queen. One way this respect is displayed is
through intriguing burial ceremonies.
Thus, Beowulf begins and ends
with the funeral of a great king.
The Scylding King is laid to rest "With a battle-treasure/ As the
ship put out on the unknown deep" (lines 39-40). This pattern of burial represented in Beowulf depicts the 660 A.D. burial at Sutton Hoo. Likewise, Beowulf is burned among
"the greatest of funeral fires" (line 2941). It was the ceremonial tradition of the
Anglo-Saxons to either cremate or return their warriors along with their
worldly treasures to the sea.
The Anglo-Saxon
tribal social system was founded on the concept of loyalty and personal
indebtedness. The individual
needed the strength, determination, and courage to overcome impending disaster. The epic poem describes the exploits of
a Scandinavian culture hero, Beowulf, in destroying the monster Grendel,
Grendel's mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. In these sequences Beowulf is shown not only as a glorious
hero but also as a savior of the people.
Beowulf "was the kindest of worldly kings,/ Mildest, most gentle,
most eager for fame" (lines 2973-4).
Yet the individual was not alone; he could depend upon the fortitude and
loyalty of fellow tribesmen. The
Old Germanic virtue of mutual loyalty between the leader and his followers is
evoked effectively and touchingly in the aged Beowulf's sacrifice of his life
against the dragon and in the reproaches heaped on the retainers who desert him
in his climactic battle.
Finally, Beowulf characterizes an Anglo-Saxon
society recently converted to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons, while living on the continent in Europe,
based their beliefs and ideals on greater and lesser deities. These deities could be personifications
of forces of nature or of the supernatural which they understood in terms of
animal or human superior strength.
In Britain they came in contact with Christianity for the first
time. A mixture of pagan or
idolatry worshipping and Christianity are evident in Beowulf. For example,
Christianity is displayed in a paraphrase of Genesis in which "A skillful
bard sang the ancient story/ Of man's creation" (lines 88-89). On the other hand, pagan beliefs are
obvious in the description of the Geats as "Boar-heads glittered on
glistening helmets" (line 298).
Although the Anglo-Saxons were leaning toward Christianity, they still
had skeletons in the closet.
Beowulf
functions as a historical document to depict a collage of Germanic
societies. It represents a
relatively advanced eighth-century Anglo-Saxon nation recently converted to Christianity
that looks on its Scandinavian past with pride. Beowulf also reflects a society with an elevated
understanding of the values of civilization.