Literary Criticism and Theory
ENG BC3193, sec. 2
Fall 2005

Below are the options for your first essay of the semester. Though I am providing you fairly defined topics, you’ll need to choose one and define it further in accordance with your own ideas, and develop a clear, specific, and argumentative thesis. Your essay should draw closely on the texts (by Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, Longinus, and/or Owen) to support that thesis.

Your essay should be three to four pages long, double-spaced, in a standard font. You should follow MLA guidelines for format and acknowledgments; see Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference for details.

Feel free to consult with me as you carve out your topic, plan your essay, and begin to write. I’m happy to look at outlines and drafts. The farther in advance you get a draft to me, the more likely I am to be able to respond to it in a timely fashion.

1. Write a three-to-four-page essay in which you assess Aristotle’s consideration of Oedipus the King. What are his primary concerns? What issues seem less important to him? How concerned is he with the reader? The author? The text itself? The degree to which the text reflects reality or truth? You may wish to compare the terms of Aristotle’s discussion with those that Plato might use. Whose approach seems most productive or most appropriate to you? In other words, which approach helps you to understand the play better?
    
2. Choose two of the three classical critics we’ve read, and write a three-to-four-page essay comparing their views of reader and audience. How much emphasis does each writer place on audience and/or reader? How do these writers see the relationship between the writer and/or poet and his or her audience? You might also consider how each writer’s sense of audience seems to shape the form of his own critical text.
    
3. Write a three-to-four-page essay considering Owen’s "Dulce et Decorum Est" in light of Plato’s discussions of the role of poets and poetry. What might Plato particularly admire or find objectionable in Owen’s poem? If you choose this option, be careful not to rest in the realm of generality, but to draw on specific textual details in both Plato’s and Owen’s texts. For example, you might consider the techniques Owen uses to produce effects on his reader, and how Plato might assess both those techniques and their effects.

DUE: Monday September 26 by 5 pm in my mailbox in Barnard 417.