Essay 2 topics

In case you were unable to attend discussion on Friday (ahem), here are the essay assignments:

• Word .doc
• RTF
• PDF

I'm always eager to hear your questions! Shoot me an email if there's anything you want to ask about or talk about. In a couple days I'll post a conference sign-up sheet and other notes and instructions.

Two practice midterms

In section tomorrow we will be working through not only key points on the Chart o' Poets, but also a few entries on a poetry-only practice midterm. For the last fifteen minutes of discussion tomorrow, I am going to ask you to name two poems you would like to discuss -- poems that baffle you, or that we haven't had a chance to discuss yet, or just poems you'd like a chance to talk about some more.

I have also put together a second practice midterm involving a mix of poetry and Middlemarch. This might be a useful tool to spur studying over the weekend. There are a couple different ways you might use it:

1. To figure out areas where you are weak -- if it turns out you can't identify any of the second-generation Romantics, then that tells you to spend more time with Keats and Shelley
2. As fodder for discussion with a study group or a study partner, to talk through all the nuances of the texts we've encountered over the last month and a half; chances are that if you didn't understand what was going on in "Elgin Marbles" someone else did and would be willing to talk it through
   
3. To practice answering those devilishly picky prompts in Part I: once you've written out explanations of the thematic significance of six Middlemarch passages, you'll probably have gotten the hang of it
   

Hebdomadal topics (week 7)

Yesterday, Prof. Ortiz-Robles gave an example of the sort of question he will be asking for Part II of the midterm: "Discuss the relationship between history and memory with reference to textual details from one of the passages in Part I." (At least, that what I had copied down in my notes.)

For this hebdomadal, develop a similarly open thematic question that you think could be asked of almost any text we've read this semester. This means looking back through your notes and pulling out the conceptual problems Prof. Ortiz-Robles has returned to several times in his lectures.

When you craft the question, you might want to be more specific than asking about "the relationship" between Concept 1 and Concept 2, but don't feel that you have to be two too specific -- asking how Concept 1 shapes Concept 2 might be enough detail to get you going. (Other good verbs: reveals, limits, creates.)

After you've done this, quote a short passage from the poem about which you feel least comfortable and use this passage to answer the essay question you've created. (Poems only this week.)

If I don't drown in grading next week, I'll post the essay topics you guys come up with so you have some likely essay prompts with which to study.

[Thank you, anonymous commenter!]

Charting the Romantics and Victorians

As promised, here is a link to a Word .doc of the chart I handed out in class:

• The Romantics and the Victorians: a chart

Try to fill out columns for two poets, one Romantic and one Victorian. (Recommendation: tackle the two poets about whom you feel least knowledgeable.)

Spend the most time answering the thematic questions posed by the chart: the poets' thematic interests in the individual, society, nature, and poetry itself. If you go in to the midterm with for solid thematic questions that apply to each poet, you'll pretty much have the IDs nailed.

Hebdomadal (week 5)

There is some logic to writing an extra one or two pages of literary analysis the same week you have a high-stakes essay due: you can think of these prompts as intellectual appetizers to the meatier course of your first essays. You can continue to test the limits of your analytical prowess in a low-stakes hebdomadal, taking risks in your argument here to practice ways of taking risks in the longer argument of your essay. A tantalizing, crisp response paper should serve to whet your appetite for more substantial work.

Topic 1: Structuring Middlemarch

In discussion this week we dissected Book III of Middlemarch to see how its chapters suggest a larger argument; however, we didn't get around to looking at how the Books of Middlemarch themselves serve as the building blocks of the larger novel. (Stephen suggested this avenue of analysis in 305.)

In this essay, look at how the structure of the first four Books in Middlemarch suggest connections and affinities in the larger novel.

Alternatively, repeat the structural dissection we did in class for Books I, II and IV of the novel. What symmetries and affinities do you see within and between Books? What is the significance of these connections?

Topic 2: Quotation and allusion

We also looked a little bit at the sorts of narrative entanglement practiced by George Eliot and Percy Shelley as they interrupt their texts with quotation. We did not treat with allusion very much, although it would have been more proper to have characterized the relationship between "Mont Blanc" and "Tintern Abbey" as one of allusion.

Pick one text (a poem or a paragraph of Middlemarch) and work out how allusion functions. Is it, too, interruptive? Does it unravel textual webs? Or does it add another level of entanglement to the text? What is its structural significance?

If you want a specific set of allusions to work through, you might consider the Ariadne theme in Middlemarch. So far, I have noted four appearances of the Ariadne / Theseus / labyrinth myth:

• p. 16: the Key to All Mythologies as "labyrinthine"
• p. 121: Dorothea compared to Ariadne (or Cleopatra)
• p. 141: Dorothea as virgin sacrifice (of the sort made to the minotaur)
• p. 188: Rosamond as Ariadne

I'm sure I'm missing dozens more. How does this specific allusion connect to the structural concerns of the text? In what way(s) is it significant?