Works of literature are multi-faceted and serve various purposes. An especially prominent role of literature is to satisfy the double-urge to “instruct and delight,” to “educate and entertain.” For your essay, choose one or two of the texts we’ve read so far and show—by referring to relevant passages—how the work or works manage to balance the instructive and the delightful, how they are able to be both entertaining and educational. [Note: If you choose to write about a longer work, such as one of the epics, the passage or passages you discuss should be chosen from the excerpts I gave you to read.]
Perhaps the information that “instructs” pertains to community, culture, emotions, ethics, family, friendship, love, obligation, patience, psychology, relationships, or anything else worth learning about as a functioning human being. Perhaps the way the work “delights” has to do with compelling characters, engaging plots, intriguing forms, complex ideas, twinkling humour, twisted ironies, mellifluous sounds, verbal music, or anything else that grabs our attention, sparks our interest, brings us joy, and gives us pleasure.
So choose your one or two texts from the syllabus so far. Show your reader how what you’ve chosen both instructs and delights. Make sure that you make your case by using examples from the text. Write clearly and concisely and with a dash of personality. If you can do that, then you too will have instructed and delighted your reader!
This is a 2-3 page, double-spaced essay. We will assume that the versions of the texts you write about are the ones we provided, so there is no need to cite page numbers or other such information. (If you happen to be citing a secondary source, however, you will need to give bibliographic info about that. Use of such sources is not an obligation, but it’s an option if there’s something you think helps shore up your essay.) As for a rubric, we hold to the old verities: clarity and style of argument and writing, balance of various elements (form and content among them), careful copy editing, and attending closely to the diction and structure of the text or texts you are reading.
