Seventeenth-Century Lit: Paper 1, Responding to Elizabeth's Court

The Basics:

• One-paragraph argument due in class, Wednesday, Feb 10 (see the “sample introduction, below”)
• Due in class Wednesday, Feb 24.  
• Length: 4-5 pages (4 pages minimum). 
• Citation: MLA format.  Poems will be cited by line numbers parenthetically in your text, and you will list the poems in a “Works Cited” list at the end.  You do not need any additional sources; any you do use should also be included in your “Works” list. 
• Please do not write your paper on the poem you wrote about in Reading Assignment #1.

Subject:

Your task is to present an argument about how 1 of the poems we have read by Donne or Jonson responds to one (1) of the values asserted in the Elizabethan court poetry I assigned (Davies, Greville, or Ralegh).  That is, you will use one of the Elizabethan poems to pose a problem in the way court poets positioned themselves relative to a “beloved,” and then show the Donne or Jonson poem addressing that problem, either by clarifying it, proposing a solution, posing an over-reaction, asserting the stakes of the problem, or some other response. 

Your paper should draw not only on what the poems say but how they say it—symbols, images, allusions and other elements of structure that allow you to present the “problem” in a complicated form and show the response to be nuanced and complex.

To begin, you’ll need to find an issue to work with in the Elizabethan poems.  We’ve explored issues of power, distance, dependency, the role of the poet, artistic autonomy, expression (as opposed to persuasion), and literary form.  The problem may be a straightforward one (“the poet feels powerless”) or may be, in your reading, more wrinkled: “the only form of power the poet feels he has, speech, is cheapened by apparent self-interest; the speaker is asking for something.”

Now, you can show how a speaker in one of Donne or Jonson’s lyrics tries to assert power, or develop autonomy, or attempts to persuade to a public virtue or act—or, unsuccessfully does one of these, which might point both to the problem and a continued search to find or negotiate a successful approach.

Sample Introduction:

In the 17^th sonnet of his sequence Caelica, Fulke Greville writes in praise of Queen Elizabeth as “Cynthia,” the goddess of the moon.  Comparing himself to Hippolytus, the sonnet’s speaker effectively acknowledges that his adoration need not be requited, as Hippolytus continued to love the moon devotedly even though the moon never returned his affection.  What the lyric doesn’t acknowledge, however, is that in Greek myth Hippolytus suffered a grievous personal and political retribution for his love.  Beneath the surface of the poem lies a deep anxiety about a poet-lover’s vulnerability in a public world that demands shifting allegiances and flexibility.  “The Indifferent,” by John Donne, seems to respond directly to the Elizabethan court’s demand for steadfast allegiance and the anxiety of real-world politics.  Donne’s speaker wants no firm commitments, no permanent entanglements, even in love.  In fact, the one who remains true is the chump; rather than a virtue, fixed devotion seems naïve, even old-fashioned, in the world rapidly replacing the certainties of the Elizabethan court.

Now What? The introduction should do much of the work of structuring the paper for you.  That is, even though I’d like this mainly to be a close reading of the Donne or Jonson poem, you’re going to have to do some close reading of the Elizabethan poem(s) to lay out the problem.  For the argument above, I imagine two paragraphs on Greville’s poem following the intro: the first giving evidence of the speaker’s devotion, the second spending some time on Hippolytus and the costs of devotion.

My next paragraphs will take up Donne’s poem, looking at such evidence as the many “types” of women the speaker can love, the speaker’s outraged tone at “constancy,” the little slanders he makes of women, and the poetic “justice” of the end.  I’ll also look at Aphrodite, who figures in the Hippolytus story.  I’ll make reference to “The Flea” and “Love’s Alchemy” to discuss Donne’s strategy of distancing his speaker from the stakes of encounters with lovers: rejection, entanglement, a commitment to unreal beliefs.

Additional Requirements

• Your paper must have an argument, of course, and that argument must be stated clearly early on.  In a paper of this length, your thesis should be clear by the end of the first or second paragraph.
• As a rule, when you are “done” with your paper you should go back and refine your thesis statement, then move through the paper making sure that everything you say is in some way related to it.
• Your paper should not begin with bland, general statements about history, literature, themes, authors, poetry, or any other vast subject.  There’s nothing wrong with starting off by saying, “In ‘Poem Title,’ the lyrical speaker….” 
• Please use the simple present tense throughout: “Jonson suggests…,” “Donne presents...,” etc.
• All paragraphs should begin with (or at the very least offer early on) topic sentences.  A good topic sentence will be a claim related to your main argument.  By definition, then, topic sentences cannot be facts or introductions of quotations, since neither is a claim about meaning.
• Your claims about the meaning of the texts must be supported by reference to specific language or passages, and any quotations should be sufficiently analyzed for your reader.  Explain, in other words, what quotations mean.
• The places in the text you refer to in support of your claims must be cited, whether you quote the actual language of the text or not.  Use parentheses and indicate line numbers as appropriate.
• Your paper will include a “Works Cited” list.
• Your paper will include a title and page numbers.
• Be certain your paper is proofread carefully; titles of complete works are underlined or italicized (titles of short works, such as our poems, should be put in quotation marks); citations use correct punctuation; all paragraphs are sufficiently developed and address only one topic.
• Your paper has a conclusion, and the conclusion does not simply repeat points you have made two or three times over the course of your paper.  The conclusion should also not “finally” offer your argument.  That should be in the first or second paragraph.
• As a rule, conclusions should not begin “In conclusion.”  It should be obvious by the content of the conclusion that it is a conclusion.  We don’t say, “To begin,” or, “To offer a thesis.”  Similarly, there’s no need to announce an ending.

Works Cited

Jonson, Ben.  “Inviting a Friend to Supper.”  Norton Anthology of English Literature.  9th ed. Vol. b.  Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al.  New York: Norton, 20012. 1544-45.