Posted: September 17th, 2017

literature

literature

The textbook is Literature and Society. Fourth edition. Annas and Rosen. The requirement of the paper will be uploaded
the readings have done in the course are:
Elements of Poetry.
Whitman, “We Two Boys” (151), Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” (154), Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” (193), Updike, “Ex-Basketball Player” (166), Harjo, “Remember” (186), Brooks, “We Real Cool” (194), Eliot, “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (168), Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” (173).

Elements of Fiction: the Short Story.
Kinkaid, “Girl” (67), Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing” (588), Alexie, “Jesus Christ’ Half Brother . . .” (128), Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” (93).

Elements of Drama .
Shakespeare, Othello (450+)

Short Stories:
Chopin, “Story of an Hour” (358), Hemmingway “Hills like White Elephants” (320). Updike, “A & P” (346).

Poetry:
Donne, “The Flea” (380), Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” (416), Shakur, “Keep Ya Head Up” (408), Gallagher, “I Stop Writing . . .” (401), Villanueva, “Crazy Courage” (403), Yeats, “Leda and the Swan” (421), Rukeyser , “Waiting for Icarus”(426).

Non-Fiction :
Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister” (565) and Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” (568).

Drama:

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (730+)

Short Story:
Walker, “Everyday Use” (654), Harvey Pekar, “Hypothetical Quandary” (654).

Poetry:
Brecht, “A Worker Reads History” (667), Sandburg, “Chicago”(674), Hughes, “Ballad of the Landlord” (685), Piercy, “The Market Economy” (717), Blake, “The Chimney Sweep” (699), William Carlos Williams, “The Young Housewife” (702), Day Lewis, “Come with me . . .” (708)

Drama:
Sophocles, Antigone (1302+)

Poetry:
Owen, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” (989), Yeats, “An Irish Airman Foresees his Death” (1025), Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”(1018), (1028), Mcgrath, “Reading the Names of the Vietnam War Dead” (1040), “Picture” (1045), Herdi, “God’s Freedom Lovers” (1046), Ginsberg, “America” (1247)

Prose:
Terkel, “Mike Lefevre . . .” (929),
Kanafani “Letter from Gaza” (984), Morrison “1919” (960).
Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1423).

E 280: Approaches to Literature                Dr. Barua
Third (Final) Paper                        Summer 2015

For this paper you are to select any literary work or a group of works we have read, and develop a topic supported by research.

•    The paper should be approximately 5 to 6 pages long (double-spaced), not counting the Works Cited page.
•    You should have a minimum of 3 secondary sources, at least one of which should be an article from a scholarly or refereed journal (The UD Library Homepage is in your menu on the left of your main page. You can go directly to it by clicking on it. You can find academic articles by going to Databases).
•    You will use MLA Style to cite and document your sources (The Owl at Purdue is in your Resources. Go to that to look up MLA style for citations and documentation etc.).
•    General web information pages, Wikipedia, and Encyclopedias do not count as research sources (they can be used to get background information as needed before one begins research).
•    The primary work itself does not count as a research source. For example, if you are comparing the play Othello to the movie O, they are your primary sources, the works under discussion, and do not count as secondary sources. Using works that comment on how relevant Othello remains, or how drama transfers to movies, etc. will be considered research sources.

Suggestions for Paper Topics

1)    Consider an adaptation of a piece of literature into a more contemporary play or movie, and compare the two by noting what ideas, values, characteristics etc. have remained universal and relevant (for example, Othello was recently adapted for the movie O. How similar or dissimilar are they? What elements still remain relevant regardless of the time period? etc.)

2)    Consider a literary theme (for example, protest against war and injustice, father-son relationships, or mother-daughter relationships, or love/romance etc.), or archetype (dutiful daughter or wife, rebellious youth, the hero, etc.) found today – in media, life, TV shows, etc. – and compare its use in literature with its current use.

3)    Consider the universal truth of some issue we dealt with in literature, and show how it is revealed in our public, or private, or social, political, lives and/or events (for example, we still value marital fidelity, as indicated in our recent national discussions; or like Antigone, we believe certain unjust laws cannot be tolerated and must be broken – the idea of civil disobedience; or, young men will always do and say things to impress and move the opposite sex).
4)    Consider a group of works by one writer or one poet or dramatist (in this case perhaps two plays will do) we have read. You will find other poems or short stories by the poet or writer of your choice, some in our text, or even online or in other texts (for example, Hemmingway’s collection of short stories such as Men Without Women). Then you can develop a theme that this particular writer or poet focuses on; or perhaps even look at how the writer’s own life is reflected in the works. You would need to look at biography here.

5)    Consider the importance of literature (in general or specifically), in commenting on history, or politics, or human struggles, or desires, etc. Here you could look at poems on war, or works dealing with work and struggle, or alcoholism and family problems, etc. and how they work as commentary on real life. You could even tie it in with recent works and events.

6)    Consider the use of literature to speak for a particular group of people, to address their concerns, examine their views – for example, women, African Americans, Native Americans, homosexuals, workers, soldiers, etc.

These are just some ideas; it’s up to you – choose something you are interested in.

You can email me your topic ideas if you are in doubt, or need clarification.

After you have chosen your topic, put it in the form of a brief proposal and post it on Wiki. The proposal can simply state: “The issue of war and piece is something that is in the news and people’s minds even today. I would like to evaluate the works ____________________ by __________________ and analyze how they are relevant even today. I will connect the literature with current and historical events to show what messages can be derived from them.”
•    Though you can use the subjective “I  . . .” in the proposal, don’t do so in the paper itself.
•    If you can actually find some selection of works for a bibliography early on, include that with the proposal (though it is not necessary at this point).