Literature Foundation 2010
Essay and exam practice
1. The second formative essay (instructions in WebCT) should be emailed to me as usual. You can do this at any time up to Friday April 16th. I will mark this essay, as before, according to the criteria laid out in my Essay Checklist. The relevant instructions in WebCT are given below, under (4).
2. There will be a practice examination for my students at the beginning of next term. Because of a clash with a first year revision lecture, the time and place has been changed:
Please come to lecture room 4 (room 110: by the lifts on the first floor (English Department) landing) at 1.00 pm on Tuesday April 27th. You will be given two passages from the set texts and asked to write an essay on one of them. Total time: one hour. You will write under approximately exam conditions. Anyone found surreptitiously looking something up on their magic iphone will be severely penalised.
3. Those who choose to do so can participate in an experiment. If you wish, I will post copies of your practice exam answer, together with my feedback, on the Web at a secret address. I will only do that for those that agree to take part; and I will only reve al the secret address (so that you can see all of the uploaded scripts and feedback) to those that agree to have their work shared.
4. The second formative essay instructions (from WebCT):
Assignment 2:
Write a 1500-word critical essay on one of the focal texts. Credit will be given for appropriate breadth of reference. This assignment is practice for Paper 2.
Essay titles:
- The Parlement of Foulys attempts to define and analyse love through the use of opposites. Discuss.
- Discuss the significance of location in The Parlement of Foulys.
- What use do Shakespeare and/or Jonson make of disguise? Focus your answer on Twelfth Night and/or Volpone.
- To what extent does attention to historical context inform your readings of early modern drama? You should focus your answer on Volpone and/or Twelfth Night.
- Discuss the vision of the poet’s role and significance presented by Pope and/or Swift. You should focus your response on To Arbuthnot and/or Verses on the Death of Dr Swift.
- ‘Why did I write?’ (Pope). In the light of your study of the text(s) and their context(s), discuss the motivations for writing To Arbuthnot and/or Verses on the Death of Dr Swift.
- ‘I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience’ (Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey [1818]). Assess the moral message of one or more novel by Jane Austen in the light of this statement. You should focus your answer on Persuasion.
- ‘Jane Austen was fascinated with the sickness of her social world, especially its effect on people excluded from a life of active exertion’ (Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar). Discuss this statement in relation to the literature of the early nineteenth century. You should focus your answer on Austen’s Persuasion.
- Discuss the ways in which Woolf deals with female isolation. You should focus your answer on To the Lighthouse and/or A Room of One’s Own.
- ‘On Margate sands / I can connect / Nothing with nothing’ (T. S. Eliot). Discuss some of the ways in which writers in the first half of the twentieth century evoked the fragmentation of social and psychological life. You should focus your essay on Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and/or A Room of One’s Own.
