In this task, you will write an analysis (suggested length of 35 pages) of one work of literature. Choose one work from the list below:
Classical Period
Sappho, The Anactoria Poem ca. 7th century B.C.E. (poetry)
Aeschylus, Song of the Furies from The Eumenides, ca. 458 B.C.E. (poetry)
Sophocles, Antigone, ca. 442 B.C.E. (drama)
Aristotle, Book 1 from the Nichomachean Ethics, ca. 35 B.C.E. (philosophical text)
Augustus, The Deeds of the Divine Augustus, ca. 14 C.E. (funerary inscription)
Ovid, The Transformation of Daphne into a Laurel an excerpt from Book 1 of The Metamorphoses, ca. 2 C.E. (poetry)
Renaissance
Francesco Petrarch, The Ascent of Mount Ventoux 1350 (letter)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the first seven paragraphs of the Oration on the Dignity of Man ca. 1486 (essay excerpt)
Leonardo da Vinci, Chapter 28 Comparison of the Arts from The Notebooks ca. 1478-1518 (art text)
Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 30, My Love is like to Ice from Amoretti 1595 (poetry)
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day 1609 (poetry)
Francis Bacon, Of Studies from The Essays or Counsels 1625 (essay)
Anne Bradstreet, In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth 1643 (poetry)
Andrew Marvell, To his Coy Mistress 1681 (poetry)
Enlightenment
Ren Descartes, Part 4 from Discourse on Method, 1637 (philosophical text)
William Congreve, The Way of the World, 1700 (drama-comedy)
Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal 1729 (satirical essay)
Voltaire, Micromgas 1752 (short story, science fiction)
Phillis Wheatley, To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing his Works 1773 (poetry)
Thomas Paine, Common Sense 1776 (essay)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Fisherman 1779 (poetry)
Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? 1784 (essay)
Romanticism
Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty 1813 (poetry)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 1816 (poetry)
Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher 1839 (short story)
Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, 1844 (novel)
Emily Bront, Wuthering Heights, 1847 (novel)
Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street 1853 (short story)
Emily Dickinson, A Narrow Fellow in the Grass 1865 (poetry)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Book 4 from The Joyful Wisdom, 1882 (philosophical text)
Realism
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 (novella)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, The Communist Manifesto, 1848 (political pamphlet)
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market 1862 (poetry)
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach 1867 (poetry)
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886 (novella)
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour 1894 (short story)
Mark Twain, The Five Boons of Life 1902 (short story)
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, 1921 (novel)
Use the link near the bottom of this page to access direct links to the works listed above.
Once you have selected and read the work, you will create a paragraph of descriptive writing with your personal observations about the work. This paragraph must be written before you do research on the work, the author, and the period it comes from. You will need to be quite detailed in your description of the work.
The next step will be to research the work, the life of the artist, and the period. You will then be ready to create your analysis. This process of analysis will require you to discuss the historical context of the work, pertinent aspects of the authors biography, themes and/or stylistic characteristics of its historical period, and finally, the relevance of this work for audiences today.
The final requirement of the task will be to reflect on this process of analysis and describe how your perception of the work changed.
A. Record your initial reaction to the work (suggested length of 1 paragraph or half a page) by doing the following:
1. Describe your initial thoughts and/or feelings about the work.
2. Describe in detail at least one aspect of the work that most interests you.
B. Analyze the work (suggested length of 24 pages) by doing the following:
1. Describe the historical context of the period in which the work was written.
2. Discuss insights into the work that can be gained from the authors biography.
3. Analyze how this work explores a particular theme and/or stylistic characteristic from its period.
4. Explain the relevance of this work for todays audiences.
C. Discuss how the deeper knowledge you gained through your analysis has informed or altered your thoughts and/or feelings about the work (suggested length of 1 paragraph or half a page).
D. When you use sources to support ideas and elements in a paper or project, provide acknowledgement of source information for any content that is quoted, paraphrased or summarized. Acknowledgement of source information includes in-text citation noting specifically where in the submission the source is used and a corresponding reference, which includes the following:
author
date
title
location of information (e.g., publisher, journal, website URL)
