Paper Assignment: Literary Analysis
For this assignment you will write a 6-8 page literary analysis paper. Johnson-Sheehan and Paine explain that “literary analysis poses an interpretive question about a literary text and then uses that question to explain the text, its author, or the historical context in which it was written.” Your task is to provide your own “angle” of insight into the texts you chose by bringing together your research on historical contexts and insights from other literary scholars with your own insights and interpretations. You may approach this paper in one of three ways:
- Analyze how a specific author, poet, or playwright uses a particular literary device (symbol, setting, characterization, style, narration, etc.) in his/her work in a similar or distinctive way
- This will require choosing more than one primary text, only one of which should come from our course content. For example, say you really enjoyed Hemingway’s use of minimalism and wanted to learn more about how he uses the style- you should begin with ‘A Clean and Well-lighted Place’; however you will also need to bring in at least one or two other Hemingway stories we did not read to use as a comparison
- In addition to these primary sources, you will also need to utilize three secondary sources. These sources might help you understand Hemingway‘s historical context, his biography, or understand how other critics have read his works.
2. Analyze how the specific theme of a story, poem or play is developed within a specific work and how that theme is related to a similar theme in a contemporary text.
- This will require you use a text from the class alongside a contemporary text of your choosing that you find relevant (novel, movie, T.V. show, song etc.). Compare and contrast both how the themes are developed and to what extent the contemporary text modifies or changes the theme slightly (How are they about the same thing and how are they different? Apply that type of comparison). What do these changes suggest about the culture/audience?
- In addition to the two texts you will compare as your primary sources you must also bring in three secondary sources to help understand historical similarities and differences between when the two texts were written, differences in genre or form if the two texts are not the same, and relevant criticism of both texts that helps you formulate your own ideas. (You may agree or disagree with any interpretation you read- what’s important is that you say WHY.)
3. Analyze the affordances and limitations of specific literary forms (short story, novel, play poem) and the generic conventions a reader might expect in that context by comparing and contrasting two texts composed in different forms. What can the one do that the other cannot and vice versa? How does the author capitalize on these affordances? To what extent is he/she limited by the form?
- This will require you to pick two texts of differing forms ( at least one of which must be from the course, though this is the only option where I will allow both texts to come from the class – provided you are adding something new to what has already been discussed). Though the forms are different, you should find some way to relate the two texts that you pick via theme, style, imagery etc.
- Use your secondary research ( 3 sources) to understand the history of the generic forms and conventions the authors utilize, as well as their own backgrounds and previous insights form literary critics about both the specific works and the generic forms.
For secondary resources, I recommend trying the online database JStor if you’re not used to using print journals in the library. JStor will offer you a variety of full-text articles that are easily to search through. These sorts of essays will give you some critical analyses that will help support and add to your own arguments.
Please write about something that you are interested in. Remember, the study of literature is an inherently personal matter, as it should reflect in some way upon our identities, lifestyles, cultures, values, etc. So do your best to find something in the writing that you respond to or feel is personally relevant in some way.
Your Essay Should:
- Explain clearly the topic that you’ll be examining/ Pose a clear interpretative question
- Suggest the value of your discussion
- Provide a brief summary of the text.
- Use concrete examples for your support
- Include quotes from the text that are relevant, interesting, and illustrative of a point
- Use at least 3 secondary sources
- Properly cite the sources you use according to the MLA format.
- Be relatively free of mechanical errors (spelling, grammar, etc.)
- Be in the proper format (outline in syllabus)
- Be 6-8 pages, double- spacedSubmitted to SafeAssign on Blackboard by the start of the final exam.
Get involved with this! Do not merely summarize. Remember to analyze as well. Work to understand the value of developing your own unique interpretation.