ENGL 1F91: Assignments

Essay #1

Due date: October 7, 2010

Choose one of the following topics and write an essay of 4 to 5 pages with a clearly stated thesis on that topic. All papers must be double-spaced and accompanied by a works cited list. Secondary sources are welcome, but not required.

  1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins and ends with direct reference to the fall of Troy. What?s the significance of this?

  2. J. R. R. Tolkien has argued that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight presents an "intersection of two planes." That is, the poem's hero faces a distinction between two different value systems: "morals, on the one hand, and on the other a code of honour"; a spiritual ethics measured by sin and a worldly ethics measured by knightly courtesy. Consider how these two value systems are distinguished (or perhaps not distinguished!) in the poem.

  3. Discuss the relationship between the prologue and the tale spoken by one of the three of Chaucer's characters we have studied: the Miller, the Wife of Bath, and the Pardoner. How does the prologue affect our interpretation of the tale, and how does the tale affect our interpretation of the prologue?

  4. Chaucer's Wife of Bath might be seen as an anti-feminist stereotype or as a kind of feminist rejoinder to such stereotypes. How do you think she ought to be read? Why?

  5. Compare the depiction of Queen Guinevere in two of the following works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; The Wife of Bath?s Tale from The Canterbury Tales; and Morte Darthur.

All papers must be typed, double-spaced, and accompanied by a works cited list. Those without such a list automatically forfeit 5% of their mark. Please put your seminar number with your name on the front page.



Essay #2

Due date: November 16, 2010

Choose one of the following topics and write an essay of 4 to 5 pages with a clearly stated thesis on that topic. All papers must be titled ("Essay #2" is not sufficient, and "King Lear" is taken: try to convey the particular subject and perhaps give some hint at the argument?s direction). Secondary sources are welcome, but not required.

  1. What are we to make of the various clowns and comic scenes in Doctor Faustus? How do they affect the play as a whole?

  2. Choose one of the following quotations from King Lear and suggest how it may be used as a "key" with which to read Shakespeare's play.

    1. "'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself." (1.1.294-5)

    2. "The younger rises when the old doth fall." (3.3.24)

    3. "...the worst is not / So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'" (4.1.28-9)

    4. "In nothing am I changed / But in my garments." (4.6.8-9)

  3. Compare the relationships between the speaker and his mistress in Donne's "To His Mistress Going to Bed" and Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."

  4. Samuel Johnson criticized Paradise Lost because "it comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can be engaged, beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himself; he has, therefore, little natural curiosity or sympathy" (you can find this passage on page 2773 of your anthology). Discuss this view, with particular attention given to the question of how Milton engages the reader (or doesn't).

  5. Tragedy, as a genre, often represents a struggle between the concepts of destiny (or fate, or divine providence) and free will. Consider how this struggle manifests in one of the following works: Doctor Faustus, King Lear, Paradise Lost.

All papers must be typed, double-spaced, and accompanied by a works cited list. Those without such a list automatically forfeit 5% of their mark.




Essay #3

Due date: February 8, 2011

Choose one of the following topics and write an essay of 4 to 5 pages with a clearly stated thesis on that topic. All papers must be titled. Secondary sources are welcome, but not required.

  1. "Poetry," writes Shelley in A Defence of Poetry, "is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds" (847). Carefully studying the Defence (and, if you like, one of Shelley's poems studied this term), discuss whether and to what extent Shelley's Romantic conception of poetry and poets is democratic or elitist.

  2. To what extent does "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (the poem itself, not just the story that the Mariner tells to the Wedding-Guest) provide a moral lesson? If there is a moral to be discerned in the poem, is this moral clear and unambiguous? Be sure to look at Coleridge's comment about the poem in note 6 on page 446.

  3. Does Keats himself display "negative capability" in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn"? (Note that a simple yes or no answer isn't a full argument: you also have to consider why your answer matters!)

  4. Explore the relationship between Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax. If Emma is the heroine of Austen's novel, what is Jane? Why does Austen include Jane, and how does her part in the novel affect Emma's?

  5. Discuss the significance of the "gipsies" in Emma.

  6. To what extent does "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (the poem itself, not just the story that the Mariner tells to the Wedding-Guest) provide a moral lesson? If there is a moral to be discerned in the poem, is this moral clear and unambiguous? Be sure to look at Coleridge's comment about the poem in note 6 on page 446.

    7. A novel concerned with the intricacies of courtship, Emma also offers some satirical critique of both sexes – their different habits, customs, and ideas. In your view, is Austen even-handed and consistent in her criticisms of men and of women, or is she noticeably more stern or severe with one than the other?


All papers must be typed, double-spaced, and accompanied by a works cited list. Those without such a list automatically forfeit 5% of their mark.




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