ENGLISH 201 H: MAJOR BRITISH AUTHORS

As of July 2003

6.I.05. WARNING. This class is taxing. Studies show that college students are studying less than they ever have. So, if you expect to study only as much as your peers, then you will be disappointed. There is a lot of reading, and it is difficult reading. You will need to read each piece at least twice. You will need to memorize, recite, and summarize. Expect to devote a minimum of 2 hours per class (min. 6 hours per week) to E201.

PAPER . To be 2500 words, due Dec.19, 4pm. Secondary sources are not necessary, but always welcome. Choose from one of the following options or invent your own topic. If you invent your own topic, you must let me know what it is BEFOREHAND. Unapproved topics will not be accepted.

Also, please note that these topics are merely suggestions. If you would like to concentrate on one or another aspect of the question, enlarge on it, or refine it, please feel welcome to do so.

1. Style versus Substance. Medieval poetry. In Book Two, Milton says that Belial's speech is "cloth'd in reason's garb" (226). Milton employs a number of metaphors of covering or clothing, and even has one devil claim that God's glory can be clothed in darkness. Milton is distinguishing between appearance and substance, between the style of a speech and its truth claims. With their rhetorical tricks (their style, as it were), the demons can make darkness appear to be light, baseness appear to be loftiness, and Hell appear to be Heaven.

In your paper, find ways that the metaphor of covering, false appearances, or outside/inside explores the relationship between truth and fiction. Use as your texts either Chaucer or Old English poems. (You may mention The Owl and the Nightingale, but since we discussed this topic in class, please be circumspect.) Please distinguish between simile, metaphor, and metonymy. You need come to no conclusion.

Another option is to limit your paper to Paradise Lost. Thins especially about the serpent-demons and the fruit of Sodom, Raphael's admonition of Adam, and so forth.

2. The Substance of Style. Rhyme, verse form, and meter contribute to the overall effect of a poem. In Herbert's "The Pulley," a lack of feet in the first stanza, an abundance of feet in the second stanza, and a balance of feet in the fourth contribute to the poem's larger claims about balance and rest. Assonance and the choice of conjunctions to open each stanza imply syntactic dependence, which in turn speaks to the dependence of the reader on divine rest.

In your paper, describe how the form of a poem (verse form, meter, rhyme, phonology, etc.) contributes to one of its themes. Choose specific examples. Concentrate on one poem only (not "The Pulley").

3. War. Many of the poems we have read, especially Chaucer's Knight's Tale, depict men and women at war. Whether it is Beowulf at war with mostrous forces, the English at war with vikings, Milton's demons at war with angels, or a war between opposing forces in the mind of a character--conflict is at the heart of much English poetry. In your paper, explore how conflict works thematically in Medieval or Renaissance poetry. Does a resolution ever come of it? What kind of resolution is possible? Concentrate on one work only.

4. Character.Some characters in medieval poetry seem flat (like Beowulf or Chauntecleer), and some multi-dimensional (like the Wife of Bath). But few seem actually to change significantly during a work.

In your paper, explore how character works in Medieval or Renaissance poetry. What are the minimum requirements for a character (how little do we have to know of a character to imagine him/her)? How do we know what a character is meant to invoke (e.g., heroism, evil, envy, confusion, doubt)? Be specific and use evidence to back up each claim. Try to establish what words and phrases tell you about a particular character. Concentrate on one work only.

5. Our recent discussion on Paradise Lost concerned Adam's relationship to Eve before and after the Fall. You are welcome to write on this relationship in light of some of the other texts in our Milton text, especially the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Consider as you do so, why we seem compelled to read Adam and Eve as symbols of all men and all women. What does this tell us about our trust in origins (the First Man and Woman), antiquity, and symbol? And what does this tell us about our urge to generalize specific characters into larger, metaphysical themes?