English 3906
Assignment One
Passage Analysis
| Due Dates: | Requirements: |
| Working Draft—September 30, 2009 Final Draft—October 14, 2009 |
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Objective
To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a brief passage from a selected work of literary criticism. The argument should be based on a close reading of the text in question and your application of the critical work to literature.
Passage Choices
| It is right to think then, gentlemen, that if the soul is immortal, it requires our care not only for the time we call our life, but for the sake of all time, and that one is in terrible danger if one does not give it that care. If death were escape from everything, it would be a great boon to the wicked to get rid of the body and of their wickedness together with their soul. But now that the soul to be immortal, there is no escape from evil or salvation for it except by becoming as good and wise as possible, for the soul goes to the underworld possessing nothing but its education and upbringing, which are said to bring the greatest benefit or harm to the dead right at the beginning of the journey yonder. (Plato, Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1977, p. 58) | For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic versesÑand he who is good at one is not good at any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. (Plato, ÒIon,Ó trans. Benjamin Jowett, Critical Theory since Plato, Third Edition, Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 10)/td> |
| And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or storyteller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education or our soldiers. (Plato, Republic, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Critical Theory since Plato, Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 26) | Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation. The truth of this second point is shown by experience: though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art, the forms for example of the lowest animals and of dead bodies. (Aristotle, Poetics, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, Critical Theory since Plato. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 53) |
Procedure
Choose one of the above passages.
Take notes including specific details in the passage that explain its meaning and significance. Such details include word choice, comparison/contrast, punctuation, context in the larger work, and anything else the author has used in order to make his or her meaning clear to an audience. (It may not be possible to find an example of each of these elements.) Focus on those that are the most useful in explaining the meaning of the passage.
Formulate a thesis statement summing up the meaning and importance of the chosen passage and whether you find it to be a persuasive account of the function of literature. This thesis will undoubtedly change as you write your paper, but at least it will give you a starting point. A good thesis is arguable rather than obvious.
Write a draft of your argument about the passage in question. Refer to specific words and phrases in the selected passage in order to support the points in your argument. You may also refer to other quotations in the larger work, as long as you maintain your focus on the passage in question.
Bring a word-processed, correctly formatted draft of this paper to class on September 30, 2009, for peer editing. Include the entire chosen quotation at the top of the first page.
After considering feedback you received from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper.
Proofread your draft to identify and correct spelling and grammatical errors.
Turn in the completed final draft along with a peer-edited working draft in class on October 14, 2009.
Close Reading
Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. Since you will be looking more closely at this passage than most people who read it, your paper can offer perspectives on its meaning that will engage your audience challenging its expectations. In analyzing a brief passage, you might ask yourself the following questions:
What, literally, does the passage attempt to argue?
Where in the larger work does the passage occur?
How is this passage different from any other passage in the text?
Does the author use any terms that will be unfamiliar to 21st-century readers? What do these terms mean? How have these terms changed since the author first wrote the passage?
How does the argument in this passage apply to works of literature that you have read? How does it apply to what you experienced while studying literature at various levels of your education?
What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something newÑthat would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading this passage.
Writing Tips
I have based the following writing tips on common difficulties that students encounter when writing papers for this class.
Develop an arguable and interesting thesis statement that applies directly to the passage (i. e., that you could not write about any other poem).
Example:
Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men and making them over to women (not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. (Plato, Republic, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Critical Theory since Plato, Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 21)
ARGUABLE THESIS: This passage that Plato's insistence on moral absolutism leads to a focus on the educational aspects to literature and a disregard for all other functions of literature.
NOT AN ARGUABLE THESIS: In the above passage, Plato argues by way of Socrates that the ideal society will not tolerate depictions of men grieving for the loss of loved ones.
The second of these two thesis statements offers summary of the passage without any analysis.
Organize your argument around an arguable thesis statement. Think of between two and four sub-points and structure your argument around them.
Sample Outline (for the above thesis):
Plato's argument in the Republic leads to the excision of large portions Homer's epic poetry for the sake of improving morals of the children.
His argument makes sense if literature exists to accomplish one narrow purpose.
His argument hinges on a link the act of reading literature and one's subsequent behavior that never faces real scrutiny.
MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:
Plato. Republic. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Critical Theory since Plato. Eds. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. 16-36.
Please note differences between this bibliographic format and the parenthetical citation format of the above passage selections on page 1. They are not the same.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Since this is a web-page, the indentation of the above bibliographic entry is propbably incorrect.
Some grammatical tips:
Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.
Example:
ACTIVE VOICE: Socrates scorns Ion's pretention to greatness.
(Note structure: subject/verb/object)PASSIVE VOICE: Ion's pretention to greatness is scorned by Socrates.
(Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)ACTIVE VOICE: Socrates scorned Ion's pretention to greatness.
PASSIVE VOICE: Ion's pretention to greatness was scorned by Socrates.
(Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)
Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace "they're" with "they are" and replace "don't" with "do not" (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions out there.
Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "d". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like Bildungsroman or sine qua non.
The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Its and whose both deviate from the above rule about possessives.
24 September 2009