This assignment requires you to choose two different works from the course syllabus and to write a comparison/contrast essay about these two works. The key to a successful comparison/contrast essay is to organize carefully and to pay close attention to similarities as well as differences between the two works.

You may choose from the following topics or choose one of your own (though, please, talk with me about the topic before you start writing the paper if you are choosing your own topic):

• Transcendentalism--What is this and how do the works that fit under this heading show signs of being transcendentalist?

• Gender--Gender relations have changed a great deal between the time of the works we are studying and the present day. Explain how gender has changed between the two works and also between an earlier time period and now (and how things have stayed the same).

• Empiricism--How do we know what we know? The concept of reality has changed dramatically over the past two hundred years. Explain what empiricism is, and compare and contrast works of two empiricist or post-empiricist writers. How do they verify the truth of their observations?

• American Identity--Analyze efforts to identify a single, unified American identity (or to create such an identity) in literature. How does this effort distinguish American from non-American identities?

• Fiction and Autobiography--Many of the works we have read are a mixture of fiction and biography or autobiography. In analyzing the depiction of an individual character, explain how fictional and historical claims mingle to create a literary work.

• Puritanism--Identify this religious and philosophical orientation and explain its influence in two different works of literature. What is the extent and limit to this influence in American literature?

• Abolitionism--The argument about slavery dominates many areas of literature leading up to the Civil War. Examine this debate in two different works.