Writing Assignments

Several short responses (2 pages), a website project (to be determined in consultation with me), and a final research paper (minimum 10 pages).

Short Responses —these are designed to explore a particular theme or literary feature that characterizes the writer's work. You can rely on your own close reading of the material or incorporate perspectives from class discussion and secondary reading. You can also develop these shorter papers into your longer research paper.

Website Project— as a newcomer to the web world, I am open to learning from you what might be a productive and stimulating assignment. I did not design the site alone, but I worked many months updating the bibliography of primary and secondary sources and writing the introductory paragraphs before each of the 21 sections. Familiarize yourselves with these paragraphs, using them to find and generate topics for both your web project and research paper.

Final Paper —the research essay is the culmination of your work in the course. It should include at least five different sources, including a Works Cited and/or an Endnotes page. Follow guidelines set out in the MLA Handbook.

The topic should be generated in consultation with me, although feel free to explore any of the writers and texts we cover or other works by the same writers that we don't cover but that you find intriguing. Choose enough material for an in-depth essay but not so much as to make your argument too broad or unwieldy. Focus closely on language and themes but seek to develop concepts we have explored in class.

All of your essays must be well-organized, carefully thought-out, and proof-read. I know from many years of experience that one or two drafts will not result in good grades. Take the time to rewrite your papers before you hand them in. This is crucial to your success. If you are asked to revise an essay, hand in both the graded draft or drafts and the revised draft together. Feel free to visit during office hours to talk about improving your writing.

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1. First Short Essay (due 2/23)

Write a two-page essay discussing any poem or set of poems from Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Focus on the various literary and/or pictorial elements--such as speakers or figures, verbal or visual imagery, versification, points-of-view, irony, allusions to the Bible and the like-which Blake employs to convey his ideas or themes.

In general, explore what Blake means by the "contrary states" of innocence and experience, drawing on your own well as Blake's understanding, but in particular seek to show how Blake conveys his thinking about any theme or combination of the themes we've explored: childhood, protection, suffering, creation, divine humanity, sexuality, spirituality, encroachment, slavery, social inequality, solidarity, authority, Christianity. You may also develop your own theme but, again, focus on how literary and/or pictorial elements support your claims.

2. Longer Essay (due 3/16)

1. You can expand your shorter paper, developing your discussion of the themes and literary elements in the poem or poems you selected: add a poem from the other volume (either Innocence or Experience) or another set of poems; for example, if you analyzed the "Chimney Sweeper" poems, then add the two "Holy Thursday" poems. There are many combinations to explore, but think about why Blake wrote in pairs or sets: do the poems from either set critique or satirize the other set, or do they reinforce and clarify what is lacking in the other?

2. You may also explore Blake's development of the concepts of innocence and experience, or the movement of the "contrary states" from the Songs to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Define your concepts, noting how they translate into poetic imagery and pictorial design. Does the Marriage provide a different viewpoint than the Songs on the issue of contraries?

3. Analyze the drama of contraries in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. How does the contrary structure serve as a formative principle of the text? Choose a few plates for explicit treatment. How do they carry the movement of the contraries? Does the movement result in a synthesis or do the contraries remain polarized? Pay attention to voices and positions when you explicate.

4. Choose one of the "Proverbs of Hell" and argue for its aptness as a key to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The proverbs are aphoristic in style: how does such condensed thinking expand in the work as a whole? You may want to argue that the work does not cohere into a "whole." Either way, substantiate your claims with ample references to the text itself.

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[Under Construction]

Assignment 1
Length: 2 pages
Due: Wednesday October 15

Assignment 2
Length: 2 pages

Building on the first response paper, extend your discussion of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience to include at least 3 songs from each set of poems. You may continue with your present thesis, and include "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," or embark on a new thesis and pick other sets of songs.

The assignment asks that you make sense of Blake's poems in terms of the poetic concepts of Innocence and Experience. Define these terms and consider relations between Blake's imagery, style, themes, or general philosophy. You need not consider all of these elements. You can focus on point of view or perspectives of the speaker and their relation to characters. In terms of style, many elements can be used: poetic devices such as rhyme, structure, or symbolism; the use of irony; or the relations of design and text.

Make sure that you explicitly state your essay's purpose; key your paper's title to your thesis; make clear transitions between paragraphs; punctuate poem titles and quotes correctly.

I am looking mainly to see that you state your argument clearly and that you demonstrate your thesis with details from Blake's poems.

Choose one of the following and write a coherent, carefully organized, interesting essay on it. The assignment calls for three to five pages, typed and double spaced.

1. Examine three sets of poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience in the light of the volume as a whole. What does Blake mean by the concepts of innocence and experience? How does the poetic imagery support your analysis? Do the poems from either set undercut or satirize poems from the other set? (Be careful with speakers).

2. Explore Blake's development of the concepts of innocence and experience, focussing on the movement of the "contrary states" from the Songs to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . Define your concepts, noting what relation each bears to the other. How do the concepts translate into poetic imagery? Does the Marriage provide a different viewpoint than the Songs on the issue of contraries?

3. Explicate the action of contraries in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . How does the contrary structure serve as a formative principle of the text? Choose a few plates for explicit treatment. How do they carry the movement of the contraries? Does the movement result in a synthesis or do the contraries remain polarized? Pay attention to voices and positions when you explicate.

4. Choose one of the "Proverbs of Hell" and argue for its aptness as a key to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . The proverbs are aphoristic in style: how does such condensed thinking expand in the work as a whole? You may want to argue that the work does not cohere into a "whole." Either way, substantiate your claims with ample reference to the text itself.

Write a three-to-five page essay on any number of songs from Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience . The basic purpose of the assignment is to present a well-organized and detailed analysis of the poems, focusing on the dynamic relationship between the "contrary states" of innocence of experience.

Write about what interests you. You may choose themes such as the divinity of childhood, ideas of protection or encroachment, issues of race or social class, justice or sexuality, and the like. But also consider the roles that the speakers play in Blake's presentation of these themes and how they relate to the contrary states. Speakers bring particular perspectives or viewpoints into the songs: how do these perspectives influence your understanding of the ideas or issues you are interested in? How do they influence the dynamic relationship of innocence and experience in the poems?

Consider also the speakers' use of imagery or figurative language: how does a speaker's language or tone of voice influence your understanding of the contrary states? How does language reveal the speaker's perspective or attitude toward what he describes? Imagery also appears visually on the plates. How might you incorporate this dimension?

When considering these questions, you may want to explore Blake's use of irony. This is a complex issue, but one not easily avoided when studying Blake. Try to say whether you think that Blake agrees with his speaker, fully or partly, or whether he uses that speaker's words ironically, in a way that the individual speaker does not fully understand or intend. The designs may assist you also in determining the degree of irony.

English Romantic Writers
Fall 1991/Rosso
Essay Assignment: Wordsworth and Coleridge
Due: November 5 (T) or November 7 (Th)

This assignment calls for comparison and contrast of Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" and Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode." The essay should be five pages in length (five to seven for graduate students), typed, double spaced, with correct grammar and punctuation. You are not required to do research, but if you do please cite your secondary reading.

Consider how the poems constitute a dialogue or comment upon one another. Establish first general features that the poems share in terms of genre (odes), subject matter, personal or historical context, and the like. Then move to examine specific differences in language, voice, imagery, narrative stance, poetic structure, thought, or theme. You may want to bring in other poems from either writer to support or substantiate claims you make. But in whatever direction you choose to go, establish early on the grounds for comparing the poems and how and why you differentiate between them. Ultimately, strive to elucidate or clarify the reasons for holding your positions.

Make sure to enumerate clearly and forcefully the key elements of your analysis in the beginning; write cogent and helpful topic-transition sentences to paragraphs; quote accurately and sparely; rely on your own sense of what the poems mean. Once again, remember that you are handling a supple and powerful medium of expression (written language), which requires precision in the use of syntax, diction, and semantics.

English 557
Fall 1995/Rosso
Essay Assignment
Due: November 28, 1995

Choose one of the following and write a concise, well-supported, and interesting essay on it.

1. Compare and contrast Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode" with Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence ." You may bring in the biographical context of 1802, but focus your thesis on the two poems: what is the basis of comparison; how do they resemble each other; what distinguishes them.

2. Compare and contrast Coleridge's "Letter to Sara" and "Dejection: An Ode." The same caveats apply here as in 1.

3. Trace the image of the aeolian harp in Coleridge's poetry: analyze the poet's different uses and meanings of this image, commenting on what the image may mean in each poem, in terms of the different contexts of each poem, and in general to Coleridge.

4. Explore the structure and meaning of Coleridge's "crisis odes," which Richard Holmes argues celebrate the paradox apparent in his letters: "that the subject of failure, of lost imaginative power, could itself produce great poetry." Choose your own poems.

5. Give a close reading of "Kubla Khan." Explicate the poem's structure, imagery, symbolism, and meanings. What, ultimately, do you think this poem is "about"?

6. Compare and contrast "Kubla Khan" with Mary Robinson and/or Anna Barbauld's poems to Coleridge. What is the basis of comparison and how do the poems differ in imagery, structure, poetic stance, and meaning?

7. What are Coleridge's "conversation poems"? How do they earn this name? Examine "Eolian Harp," "Frost at Midnite" and, if you choose, another poem in the book ("This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" for example). Discuss what the poems share in terms of structure, style, imagery, theme, or meaning: choose which of these categories will be relevant to your analysis.

BEWARE: the Grim Reaper is watching. Please construct a paper with title-thesis-topic sentence coherence; develop an interesting and well-defended perspective; craft sentences that carry your meaning clearly and forcefully. Punctuate correctly (both titles of poems and quotations); cite outside sources.