Assignment for Paper
#1. Due Monday January 27. Approximately 1000 words
- Study the documents
on writing papers linked to the bottom of the syllabus page.
- Include several
short quotations from the texts you discuss, precisely citing the source
- If you use any
secondary sources, including sources on the web, be sure to cite them appropriately
- Select one of
the following topics. Feel free to discuss your ideas or a first draft of
your paper with me during office hours or by email.
- Select an emblem
or picture and relate both its content and its form of expression to passages
in one of the works we have read.
- e.g. http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/withe022.htm
in relation to the treatment of youth in Utopia and to the games they play
setting vices against virtues
- Relate one or
more elements of Shakespeare in Love to aspects of the texts we have
read
, for example
- the queen's
interest in romance
- The political,
economic and symbolic meanings of "the new world."
- The status
of women
- the place
of the stage in Elizabethan London
- the ironic
cynicism of Sidney and Ralegh
- Analyze the
wordplay in one of the poems we've read with extensive citation of 16th century
meanings and etymology from the OED
- Discuss the
process of colonization and attitudes toward the colonized in Utopia,
Raleigh's Discovery of the large, beautiful and rich Empire of Guiana
and the selections from Barlow and Harriot
- Compare and contrast
attitudes toward wealth, and specifically gold, in Utopia and the voyage literature
and Shakespeare in Love
-
Describe and defend or critique
the qualities of leadership displayed by Marlowe's Tamburlaine. What are the
values and attractions of power--the earthly crown--that he embodies? Why would
a theatrical audience in sixteenth century England find him appealing?
- Poem exercise
- Pick a poem
and copy it in longhand word for word--learning the rhythn and meter
- Write an imitation
of that poem in your own language about your own experience.
- Write an explication
of your own poem, discussing the intertextual references to the poem you
imitated.
writing tips
sample A papers