ENGLISH 2310 SHORT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

GRADY FALL 2011

Essays should be typed, double-spaced with one-inch margins, and 750 to 1000 words long on one of the topics below. Be sure to refer as helpfully and specifically as possible to the texts upon which you're basing your argument—that is, quote the text--and be sure to have an argument or thesis in the first place. Fancy binders or covers are not necessary; a staple or paper clip will do fine. Your essay should have an original title, and it should definitely not confuse "it's" and "its", even once. Essays are due to my email inbox by 5PM on Friday, September 9.

1. Discuss the importance of the hall (as a meaningful setting, or as a sign of social stability, or as the thing that marks the difference between the natural world and the human, or something else) in the Anglo-Saxon poetry you've read.

2. Discuss the way (in terms of setting, or the representation of character and motivation, or something else) that the Anglo-Saxon literature we’ve read deals with themes of isolation. (You might look at the mysterious poem that follows The Wanderer in your anthology,“The Wife's Lament“ [ANA 114]).

3. The Dream of the Rood is an explicitly religious poem which nevertheless clearly borrows the language of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry—the language of Beowulf and Maldon--to characterize the crucifixion. What effect does the poem achieve with this borrowing? (Is it using heroic language to make an unfamiliar subject appealing to a particular audience? Is it trying to take advantage of heroic poetry’s abiding emphasis on loyalty? Is it trying to give a new context to the theme of isolation and exile familiar from the heroic and elegiac poems? Is it doing something else entirely?)

4. Discuss the theme of consolation in The Wanderer and The Dream of the Rood.