ENGL 2323 - Summer 2010 - Riske  

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Welcome to the guide for ENGL 2323 Summer 2010 Riske.  Please use the tabs above to find information for research or personal interest. 

Contact the librarians if you need more help with your project. 

 Essay One Handout

Please choose one of the prompts below to write an essay 3-5 pages in length (not including the Works Cited Page).

1.      Discuss causes of melancholy or dejection in poems by Wordsworth (“Tintern Abbey”), Coleridge (“Kubla Khan”), and Keats (“La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Ode to a Nightingale).

2.      Discuss “Tintern Abbey” and “Frost at Midnight” as “conversation poems.” When drafting your response you might consider some of the following subjects:

a.      Structure- how the poem is organized and whether this organization “holds together” or changes through the course of the poem

b.      Nature description (and the relation of the description to the ideas of the poem)

c.       Philosophical/religious content

3.      What arguments and rhetorical strategies do Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Women share? Given the concerns of the former text, is it surprising that two years later Wollstonecraft compared the situation of women to the situation of the poor, brought up in ignorance? Why does Wollstonecraft assert that women should become more masculine?

NOTE: If there is another topic you’d like to cover or approach you’d like to take, let me know by Monday so that I can approve your topic. If you don’t choose one of the assigned topics, you are required to get my approval for your topic.

Be sure to use quotations from the poems and/or essays to support your argument. In addition, you will need to use between one and three secondary sources from the library databases.

 This essay, along with all notes and rough drafts, will be due at the beginning of class on Thursday, 29 July. Be sure to submit an electronic copy of your essay to turnitin.com as well.