MLA citation
late for the papers, obvs, but this might help in the future: a really clear FAQ on MLA
YOU ARE THE REASON
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MLA citation
late for the papers, obvs, but this might help in the future: a really clear FAQ on MLA
Structuring your paper
At this point in your academic careers, you are probably familiar with the standard 5 paragraph essay format - there’s even a Wikipedia page outlining the process.
As your papers will be between 6-8 pages in length, and will be incorporating two texts, you will certainly go beyond the 5 paragraph frame.
In tutorial, we looked at the very basic HATMAT key: think of this more as a cue, or a ‘checker’ - a way to ensure that all of your information is present, not necessarily a ‘recipe’ for an introduction or paper.
GENERATING CONTENT:
Class notes: Because this is a close reading essay, and not a research essay, all of the content really does come from the poems or texts you are working with. Your knowledge of the historical backdrop that contextualizes each piece of writing should be coming from your class notes. If you have been absent, or if you are looking at your notes and not finding the information you need then come and speak to me. I’ve been taking detailed notes and can potentially fill in the blanks.
Free writing // annotation: much like the exercises we have been doing all semester, you should be reading through your selected texts with *pen in hand*, ready to scribble an observation or circle a word or image that stands out to you. Annotate your text (or a photocopy of the text if you’d like to sell the book) freely, record your impressions as you move through the piece.
When you have finished reading the poem, or even as you go through, take notes - write openly, explore ideas and make connections. Not all of this material will go into your final paper, or even lead you to a thesis topic, but it is the first step in organizing your thoughts.
Try a Reverse Outline:
From the University of Toronto’s Writing Centre:
When you have completed your first draft, and you think your paper can be better organized, consider using a reverse outline. Reverse outlines are simple to create. Just read through your essay, and every time you make a new point, summarize it in the margin. If the essay is reasonably well-organized, you should have one point in the margin for each paragraph, and your points read out in order should form a coherent argument. You might, however, discover that some of your points are repeated at various places in your essay. Other points may be out of place, and still other key points may not appear at all. Think of all these points as the ingredients of an improved outline which you now must create. Use this new outline to cut and paste the sentences into a revised version of your essay, consolidating points that appear in several parts of your essay while eliminating repetition and creating smooth transitions where necessary.
You can improve even the most carefully planned essay by creating a reverse outline after completing your first draft. The process of revision should be as much about organization as it is about style
MLA:
You will find the resources in the email I sent to the group, but here is the link to OWL Purdue just in case.
Happy writing!
La Bataille d’Hernanie. (The Hernanie Battle), Albert Besnard.
In 1830, Victor Hugo introduces his play: Hernanie. For the first time, a writer of the romantic period decides to question and reject every rule of the Classical Tragedy. This “romantic revolution” doesn’t please everyone, leading to a physical battle between romantics and classics.
(Eleonor Michel)
Close Reading
The OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab is a solid resource for students: this page details close reading, giving direct examples by laying out a close read of a Shakespeare sonnet:
“The first phrase (in this case a full sentence) of the poem flows into the next line of the poem. This is called enjambment, and though it is often made necessary by the form of the verse, it also serves to break up the reader’s expectations. In this case, the word “impediments” is placed directly before the bleak and confusing phrase “love is not love,” itself an enjambment. How does this disconnection between phrase and line affect the reader? How does it emphasize or change the lines around it?”
The University of Guelph also offers a good overview: pay attention to their suggestions on how to select a passage from a text, as well as the section on identifying diction and language in the original poem and (crucially) what to do with those observations:
“Transform your descriptive thesis into an argument by asking yourself WHY language is used in this way:
What kinds of words are used (intellectual, elaborate, plain, or vulgar)? Why are words being used in this way?
Why are sentences long or short?
Why might the author be using complicated or simple sentences? What might this type of sentence structure suggest about what the passage is trying to convey?
Who is the narrator?
What is the narrative voice providing these particular descriptions?
Why are we given access to the consciousness of these particular characters? Why not others?
What images do you see in the passage? What might they represent?
Is there a common theme?
Why might the tone of the passage be emotional (or detached)?
To what purpose might the text employ irony?
What effect/impact is the author trying to create?”
Here is a lecture that professor Jarrell D. Wright from the University of Pittsburgh gives on the subject of close reading, and an accompanying text discussing the practice. While the page itself is geared more towards the practice of teaching close reading, I think there is a good amount of frank and refreshing material here that may help direct you in your work.
If you follow the download link given on his page, you will receive a complete slideshow and lecture in which he takes his class through an attentive close reading of Ozymandias.
WORD OF WARNING: As this is one of your options for the upcoming essay, I expect you to be applying *your own thought* and *your own words* - this lecture is indeed a secondary source, meaning that you may not quote it or use this material in your papers. If the professor makes an observation that you have also made, I trust that you are able to express that thought originally (as it came to you). Please read over the Academic Integrity / Plagiarism statement that Concordia expects you to understand and uphold if you are unclear in any way.
“There is nothing mystical about what critics do when they analyze texts—rather than being issued magic goggles that enable them to see things in a text that are invisible to others, critics actually engage in a process that anyone can learn.
This is an important point to convey because students often approach close reading as if it were a kind of hocus-pocus, leading them into other common mistakes, like making things up that merely sound good rather than actually observing and explaining textual details.
Close reading is not speculation. Students can make two mistakes when they attempt to perform close readings without sufficient preliminary guidance. First, they may try to discern characters’ motives: for example, asking why Caroline Compson is such an inadequate mother in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Short of some expertise in psychoanalytical criticism, which of course our beginning students lack, this type of question is not one that a text can answer for us. Second, students may try to discern an author’s intentions. As we know, authorial intent is forever hidden from us (or can be unreliable when it is available), and therefore such questions lead in an unproductive direction. By addressing these potential mistakes very explicitly, we can encourage students to avoid them and to instead focus on tangible textual details to analyze and explain.
Close reading is not BSing or fancy, pretentious, abstract theorizing. Under the rubric of “making things up,” all too many of our students were rewarded in high school for producing deep-sounding but virtually empty or contentless accounts of the texts that they studied. Students will duplicate this error in their early college-level work unless they are explicitly instructed that the object of literary analysis is not merely to sound smart but rather to generate coherent arguments, based on objective textual facts, that any reasonably sensitive reader of a text can understand.”
I suspect that the above source might be of the greatest use to many of you, and encourage you to read it through. Wright breaks close reading down into three steps: Understanding, Noticing, and Observing. The professor explains the process thoroughly, and demystifies it as well.
Loreena McKennitt sings The Lady Of Shalott - A poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Cavalière (Ode assignment)
They say Cavalière is old, hopeless, When it seems to me that where the wind is warm, Where our united family haunts, There is nothing to do, nothing to say, just love to confess.
In Cavalière, I left my small room facing a tree, For a blue suite, coveting the sea.
In Cavalière, the waves are wild, Sometimes gentle and paradisiacal They once came like a wrecking ball, Fissuring with our memories, the wall.
This house use to know the youth of the seniors, The mistakes and the laugh of our mentors. Cavalière was an institution, a creek, And now has begun a fight to forget it quick.
In Cavalière, between the foam and the ramshackle walls, I learnt how to befriend my sister, To be a niece, a cousin, a daughter,
And somewhere, sitting on the rocks, looking at the sea; We learnt how to be alone, but not lonely.
(Eleonor Michel)
The Raft of the Medusa,Théodore Géricault (1818–1819)
(Eleonor Michel)
Hogarth’s wood engraving of an 18th century street scene entitled ‘The enraged musician’
Look at ‘im in the window. he’s so enraged.
Interpretation of Dover Beach. Portrays it's serenity, melancholy and mystery.
Background and poem text here.
Ode to the Forlorn Lair
O’ Falco’s trill, and a quill so esprit
Daybreak chirrups foretell the nearing fate,
Trepidations no more, no more await;
Thy parts thy wings beyond the Hardy Tree
Tears of Jocosta becloud the chasm haunt,
Give heed to Eyas rouse past longing sighs;
Lest sorrow unfrocked: Anemoi dies,
Concede upon thy Art’mis debutante
Burrow, hale and profuse, chirrups evermore;
Unbeknownst to Benu, tenebrous leaves
-A.F. Brancatella (2015)
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"Sketch for ‘The Rape of the Lock’" By Charles Robert Leslie, 1854
Tomorrow, At Dawn
Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens, I will set out. You see, I know that you wait for me. I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain. I can no longer remain far from you. I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts, Seeing nothing of outdoors, hearing no noise Alone, unknown, my back curved, my hands crossed, Sorrowed, and the day for me will be as the night. I will not look at the gold of evening which falls, Nor the distant sails going down towards Harfleur, And when I arrive, I will place on your tomb A bouquet of green holly and of flowering heather. Victor Hugo. (Victor Hugo wrote this poem about his Daughter who died at an early age. Hugo is a very famous French poet of the romantic period.) (Eléonor)
... And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concentered recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.
-1816 George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Prometheus”
Painting by Theodoor Rombouts
Ode to a nightingale by John Keats. Original manuscript.
Helena Pinto.
Lyrical Ballad first edition, 1798 (with Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth)
Portrait of John Keats as he listens to the nightingale (1845). By Joseph Severn. "In the spring of 1819 a nightingale built her nest near my house, Keats felt tranquil and continual joy in her song..." -Charles Armitage Brown (Keats' friend and housemate)