Paper #2 and the Mid-Term Paper Assignments

Short Paper #2: Call and Response

INTRO: This short paper is designed to get you ‘into’ the Mid-Term paper by focusing on a brief close-reading exercise with The Sonnets. It’s very simple but will require you to really pay attention to the language so that you ANALYZE instead of just SUMMARIZE. This is the most important thing you can do when writing a literature paper.

THE PROMPT: Pick TWO Sonnets (no more) from anywhere in the sequence that you feel respond to one another almost literally. By this I mean that one Sonnet says something, and the other one responds to it, as if they are written by two different people. What makes you hear this ‘call and response’ in the poems? Who might be speaking in each one (it doesn’t just have to be Shakespeare and the Lover)? What ideas do they both share, and how does each one examine them? Does one question how the initial theme is presented? Is one more defensive and one more accusatory? Does the second one come to some sort of resolution or explanation about the first? Or does it end in an even greater mystery?

REQUIREMENTS: Try to CLOSE READ both poems, either by looking first at one and then the other, or by examining them together, examining shared themes or ideas. But don’t just say “this poem seems to say this, or makes me feel this” without showing us where and how. Remember how subjective literature is: what you see isn’t necessary what I see, or what someone else sees. So you have to show us where you see it and why you think it reads that way. Examine individual words, too, since words can be twisted and pulled in many directions. Don’t be afraid to use the word glossary on the left side of the Folder edition, too, to help you.

DUE: In-Class on Friday. the 14th (revised date). Obviously we haven’t read all The Sonnets yet, so just do what you can with the ones we’ve read by then. I want to discuss the connections you found in class since this could help everyone work on their Mid-Term papers. If you miss class, the paper is still due by class time.

 

Mid-Term Paper: He Said/He Said

For your more creative Mid-Term Paper, I want you to create a mini drama of connected poems for TWO ACTORS, each actor speaking FOUR Sonnets. The catch is that each Sonnet (except the very first) is a response to the one before it, as if they’re having an actual poetic conversation. So even though The Sonnets as we have them feature a single person speaking, imagine that these poems are actually a dialogue between two people, with one Sonnet by the Poet, and another Sonnet by the Lover, in response. You should decide WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE (they don’t have to be Shakespeare and the Lover, for example; they can be contemporary people, or characters in a movie or sitcom, and you can even swap their gender, age, etc.) and A STORY/BACKDROP for the Sonnets (such as—they work in an office together, or they’re a divorced couple, are two aging-movie stars, etc).

Your Paper should open with a Cast of Characters (explain who each character is) and a list of Four Acts, concluding with a One Sonnet Epilogue. Each Act Should have a general Title/Theme and should indicate which two Sonnets make up that Act. For example:

Actor 1: Jim from The Office

Actor 2: Pam from The Office

Act 1: The First Meeting: Sonnets 14 and 29

Act 2: Working Late at Night: Sonnets 53 and 74

Act 3: The Fatal First Kiss: Sonnets 28 and 92

Act 4: Going Our Separate Ways: Sonnets 124 and 134

Epilogue: Sonnet 145

 

The ‘writing’ part of your paper should briefly explain the conversation you see in each Act, and why you chose these Sonnets. Use a little close reading here to read AT LEAST ONE of the Sonnets to bring out the conversation between the two characters. Do this for all Four Acts and the Epilogue, explaining how this ‘winds up’ the entire drama. This doesn’t have to be too long or exhaustive, but I should get a sense that you didn’t just choose poems at random. I want to see the logic and the connection between the two sonnets that make them a dialogue. Feel free to use entire parts of your Short Paper #2 for this as well.

HAVE FUN with this, and try to imagine the Sonnets as a conversation (which in many ways they are) which goes back and forth, up and down, and sideways. Does anyone ‘win’ in this struggle, or do they both declare defeat? What do you want us to see about the characters through the Sonnets? Who is the betrayed and who the betrayer?

DUE MONDAY, MARCH 24^th BY 5pm (we do have class that day, but will be watching a film)