ENGLISH 4270 MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE FALL 2006

GRADY THIRD ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

Essays are due by Friday, November 17; they should be typed, double-spaced, and four to six pages long in a 12-point font. In considering these topics, bear in mind that they are starting points, and that simply answering in sequence the questions below will not produce a good or even coherent essay. Develop your own particular thesis, and be sure to support your argument through frequent and specific reference to the text. Please let at least one human being—one who knows the difference between “its” and “it’s”—proofread your essay before you hand it in.

1. Design your own topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that interests you in Piers Plowman or Pearl. Provide me with a one-paragraph description of your topic no later than Monday, November 13. Feel free to consult with me in developing this topic; discussing it with your classmates is highly recommended, too.

2. Write an estates satire in the manner of the Prologue to Piers Plowman. Your poem must be at least 24 lines long and must be in the aa/ax alliterative style of Langland, Gawain, and St. Erkenwald. You may --and probably should--satirize modern rather than medieval social estates; be sure to reread Langland's prologue carefully and to attend to his style—both the style of his verse, and his attitude towards his subject.

[Note: if you wrote a Mandeville imitation for a previous assignment, you are not eligible to select this topic.]

3. Discuss how the authors of Pearl and Piers Plowman characterize, define, represent, employ, or otherwise make meaningful their poems' narrators. What do we learn from and about them? What do they learn? How do they interact with other characters? What, if anything, do they have in common?

4. Mandeville's Travels, Piers Plowman, and St. Erkenwald all devote attention to the topic of virtuous pagans and their place in the Christian universe (even Margery Kempe will share a few thoughts about the Saracens). Discuss the way in which these texts define and decide about the "righteous heathen" question. Do they show a consistent point of view? Is there a spectrum of opinions? Do different writers use the issue to explore different themes?

5. Write an essay about one of the following topics in Piers Plowman, referring to its importance in at least two different places in the poem.

(a) poverty (d) the Seven Deadly Sins

(b) Clergy (i.e., learning) (e) money

(c) clergy (i.e., clerics) (f) labor

6. The author of Pearl, like the writer of Mandeville's Travels, uses strategies of defamiliarization in pursuing his literary and rhetorical ends: that is, the author has his dreamer confront a familiar figure who turns out to be not at all what he expects. Write an essay about how this strategy works in the poem.