ANALYTICAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
For successful completion of this class, you will compose a 5-page analytical essay based upon a
text that we have read for the course.
As with any college-level essay, the paper must have a clear and well-defined thesis statement;
that is, your paper should forward some sort of argument that comes from your own
interpretation of the text. A good thesis or argument must prove profound enough to sustain a
paper of five pages in length, while simultaneously being narrow enough in focus such that you
can adequately address your argument in the space permitted. This means that you may want to
focus on a single narrative for your paper, though you may wish to compare and contrast a single
theme from one work of literature as it appears in another. I would NOT suggest dealing with
more than two works as it will doubtlessly dilute your argument and any thorough treatment of
the evidence.
Though you will necessarily have to contextualize your argument within the narrative/narratives
you have chosen to analyze, this paper is NOT a “book report” and should NOT rely on
summary to pad or otherwise dominate your paper. Thus, you can assume that your audience is
an informed one, familiar with the work of literature at hand, but may need a few refreshers on
the finer points of the narrative necessary to make your argument.
Be sure to draw adequate evidence from your text in order to prove your point. In other words,
the text/texts you have chosen to analyze are your primary source of evidence and should be used
accordingly. You will want to cite frequently (though not overly long) from your text/texts,
taking care to perform a “close reading” and fully expound upon the quotations you have
excised. Per standard procedure you will want to provide citations for your quotes. In this
instance, you will likely want to provide a bibliographical entry at the end of the paper noting the
original author (if known) and the identity of the translation or edition used. Then within the
body of the paper you will want to use either internal citations or footnotes to identify specific
page numbers and/or line numbers from which you have drawn your evidence. For verse texts,
usually line numbers are appropriate, where the page range is provided in the bibliographical
citation. For dramas, you may wish to cite according to act number (Large Roman numerals),
scene number (Lower case Roman numerals or Arabic numerals) and line numbers (Arabic
numerals). For example, if you are citing Iago’s famous words about jealousy as a “green-eyed”
monster appearing in lines 167 through 169 of Act III, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Othello, your
internal citation would look something like: (III.iii.167-69) or (III.3.167-69). For prose texts,
page number will be sufficient with the edition you used appearing in your Works Cited list. I
will give you an example of how an MLA citation in the Works Cited List should look. If you
are writing on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and using the Norton Anthology, your
bibliographical reference would look something like:
Anonymous. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Translated by Simon Armitage. In The Norton
Anthology of English Literature, Vol. A: The Middle Ages. 10th ed., edited by Stephen
Greenblatt, et al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 201-56.You are not required to use any secondary sources for this paper. After all, this exercise is about
your ability to offer a “close reading” of a text, not your ability to analyze others’ thoughts on a
given subject. That said, if you feel that you need certain outside authorities to help set up your
argument or elucidate any problematic terms or textual cruces, then, by all means, draw upon
secondary sources. If you choose to do so, you must acknowledge your sources via standard
MLA format.
The paper must have a title, clearly identify the author’s name (i.e. your name), be doublespaced, use 12 pt Times New Roman font and incorporate 1-inch margins.
I will give you several prompts, but I highly encourage you to find your own, especially if you
fail to find any of the following suggestions adequately compelling. Please bear in mind that the
prompts do not themselves constitute an argument. Rather, they are simply meant to help get
your thought process working. You will develop your own argument/thesis statement in relation
to the prompts or develop your own independently.
• Discuss the tension between pagan and Christian elements in Beowulf, demonstrating
how the poem takes on a certain composite character while remaining unified by its
overarching religious message.
• Discuss Beowulf as social commentary, especially in light of its possible criticisms of
Anglo-Saxon culture and society.
• Discuss the ideals of kingship in Beowulf, taking care to note both positive and negative
examples of rulership.
• Offer a comparison between the poem Beowulf and one of its film adaptations, taking
care to note how certain characters or themes have been reworked to adhere to a more
modern aesthetic principle.
• Discuss the marriage of the Germanic heroic ethos and Christian doctrine in a poem like
“The Dream of the Rood.”
• Discuss the role of the female characters in Sir Lanval.
• Discuss the complexity of Gawain’s character, especially with respect to his potential as
the chivalric hero, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
• Discuss the contrasting spheres of the court and the wilderness in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight as they relate to the conflict between the Christian and pagan worlds.
• Discuss Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as a form of estates satire, perhaps focusing on his
views about a particular estate.
• Discuss Chaucer’s Wife of Bath as either a proto-feminist character or negative female
stereotype.
• Compare and contrast the role of female “sovereignty” in Lanval and “The Wife of
Bath’s Tale.”
• Discuss Sir Thomas More’s Utopia in light of its humanist background.
• Provide a close reading of a poem by either John Donne or George Herbert that we have
NOT read for class in light of the ideals informing the “Metaphysical School” of poets.
• Discuss any one of the following themes in Othello:
racism /miscegenation
animalism / bestiality
logic vs. emotion seeming vs. being
reputation
• Discuss Othello with respect to Aristotelian notions of tragedy.
• Discuss Milton’s depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost with respect to its theological
underpinnings.
• Discuss the role of allegory in depicting Milton’s understanding of salvation history in
Paradise Lost.
• Discuss the genre of satire as it appears in Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock.”
• Discuss how Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” plays with epic conventions in order achieve
it satirical aims as a mock epic.
• Discuss Part I of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels with respect to religious satire.
• Discuss Part I of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels with respect to social satire.
Due by Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 11:59 PM. You will submit a digital copy of your paper to
Turnitin. The document must be submitted in one of the following file formats: .doc, .docx,
.pdf. I prefer .doc or .docx files as they are easier to comment upon. Those of you using Macs
and/or Pages, be sure to export you document into one of these fo
