Research Papers/Presentation

You are writing a 5-7 page research paper on any text of your choice from our anthology, as long as we haven't previously covered the work in class. This is not a biography of an author or a summary of their work. Rather, it is an argument about a text from a particular point of view. For this post, please include the following information:
1. Thesis Statement (3-4 sentences)

Ask yourself the following questions: From what perspective am I approaching the text? What information does my audience need to know in order to understand the text? What particular moments in the text am I going to highlight in order to prove my thesis?

2. List of Resources (5-7, plus the primary text)

Most of your sources are going to come from scholarly journals. Internet sources are acceptable if they are credible (no .com sites, no tertiary sources). Be specific in your list.

3. Presentation Information (1-2 sentences)

How are you going to present your findings to class? Keep in mind, your audience will not have read the text, so a small amount of summary will be necessary. You may use all of the multi-media resources available in the room, but you may not read your paper verbatim.

Hemingway and Modernism

Ernest Hemingway, writing about his creative process in his autobiographical novel A Moveable Feast, says, “I was learning something from the painting of Cézanne that made writing simple true sentences far from enough to make the stories have the dimensions that I was trying to put in them” (13). I find this a rather astonishing statement, considering that Hemingway, as an ambulance driver, had just witnessed the horrors of trench warfare and yet was turning to Impressionist painting to find something missing in the act of simple observation, but there must have been something in Cézanne's work that hinted at more than simple “representation.”

Consider this Cezanne work. Obviously it isn't realistic in the purely representational sense. You could take a much more "accurate" photograph of a plate of apples and oranges. So if "Realism" is not the goal, then what is? And considering "Hills Like White Elephants" and "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," which are almost painfully realistic, in what ways are these texts similar to the Cezanne? If Hemingway had viewed these Henry Moore sculptures, which are contemporary with the Modernist period Hemingway was writing in, I think he would have found a great affinity with these works, and a closer aesthetic to his own. How so?

Moliere and Candide

Post a 5-6 paragraph analysis comparing any character in Candide and any character in Tartuffe. You must utilize at least three quotes from each work. For the play, quote Act, Scene, and Line number (e.g. Act II, Scene 3, Line 1-5). For Candide, quote chapter and paragraph (e.g. Chapter 12, Paragraph 4).

Moliere

Tartuffe is all about class, religion, hypocrisy, and politics. As a comedy, it ends on a positive note, but the issues it tackles are serious and in fact landed the playwright in trouble. Tartuffe had to fight in order to be seen, having been censured by Louis XIV after its original debut in 1664. Read these petitions to find out more about what Moliere had to go through to get his play onto the stage. Can you imagine any contemporary analogs in terms of the play's themes or in terms of the issue of censorship?

The version that we are reading by Richard Wilbur utilizes rhyming couplets and a ten-syllable line or pentameter. The original French is a rhyming couplet in a twelve-syllable line or alexandrine. It's of course extremely difficult to translate rhyme out of another language, and not every translator of Tartuffe has made the attempt. Some have chosen other forms. Consider this translation by Curtis Hidden Page from 1907. Which do you prefer?

Rilke

I've given you three versions of the Rilke poem in English, all of which have been translated out of the German by three different translators. It's amazing how different they are! I have a favorite, but what is your's? And why do you think it ends with the line, "You must change your life." Consider this bust at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before you answer.

Camus and "The Guest"

Look up absurdism. What choice is he faced with? What decision does he make and what is the consequence. How is Daru's position absurd?

Moliere Part Deux

Act 1, Scene 5 contains an important exchange. Orgon criticizes what he calls "free-thinking" because it challenges "faith," while Cleante delivers his long monologue about Nature (read "human nature") and "Reason's laws." This is the heart of the Enlightenment argument. But note as you read further that Cleante, for all his wise words, is relatively powerless. For that matter, power itself is an important issue here. Who wields it, or who thinks they do when perhaps they really do not?

Les Miserables

Hi everyone. You should watch the film Les Miserables in the next few days. (I really like the 1998 version with Liam Neeson, available for viewing instantly at Netflix.) The author of the novel upon which the movie is based, Victor Hugo, is one of our authors in the Literary Paris book. It's a very modern story in a sense about the conflict between the law, government, and the individual. In particular, I find Javert's "solution" to the quandry that he finds himself in at the very end of the movie to be especially interesting.

Verlaine

Verlaine is also one of the writers in our Literary Paris book. Read his description. What do you think is the tone of the poem? There is one line that I think is espcially poignant, and it comes in the final stanza. Which do you think it is? Why is it interesting? You can find more information about Verlaine on Poets.org

Buttering the Bagel and French Theory

1. Under what conditions is buttering my bagel an artistic act?

2. As you read the essay on French theory, don't get bogged down in all the names. What I want you to understand is the author's description of the Enlightenment period and the problems that arose as a result of the movement toward rationalism and away from the faith-based arguments of the church. There are direct applications here to Voltaire, but also to all of the rest of the readings. The readings in the packet could not be possible without the Enlightenment and the problems/solutions that it proposed.