First Essay Assignment

Write an essay based on one of the subjects below. The essay should be about four full pages in length. Essays that are shorter than three pages or longer than five pages might be returned unread or with a failing grade. The page count does not include the Works Cited page. The essay is due on May 17th. See the course outline for lateness penalties.

All essays must be submitted to Turnitin.com and also submitted (in hard copy) to the instructor. No essay will be graded until it has been submitted to the web site and the instructor. Contact the instructor for the class ID and password.

It is strongly recommended that you stay away from the Internet to write this essay. It is your own analysis that is important: I do not want to grade someone else’s ideas other than your own. As always, plagiarism will not be tolerated. Document all sources (of ideas and of quotations), including all web sources (whether an author is identifiable or not).

Essays should conform to MLA guidelines. Essays should have double-spaced lineation. Printed essays should use a 12-point, serif font (such as Times New Roman) and should not have a justified right margin. Please use one-inch margins on all sides. Please do not submit the essay in a binder or folder. I am not fond of title pages.

Your essay should have a clear thesis. The essay should be an argumentative essay: all paragraphs of the essay contribute to the support of the thesis. Your audience is the course instructor, who knows the poems well: spend no time summarizing or introducing the poems unless absolutely necessary for the support of your thesis.

1. Closely analyze the first two stanzas of the fourth part of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (lines 1998-2046). Pay particular attention to language and imagery. Your thesis statement should say something about what/how these stanzas contribute to the poem as a whole.
2. By examining the language (and imagery) used to describe Beowulf (in the third part) and Sir Gawain, show that these heroes are portrayed differently. Focus on the language the narratives use to describe them, but you may also look at the language used by the heroes themselves or that of other characters.
3. Compare the importance of the sea (and sea imagery) in the third part of Beowulf and “The Wanderer.” How are references to the sea being used differently in the two poems? To what extent are the heroes of the poems characterized by the sea imagery?
4. Compare the intersection of Christianity and warrior culture in “Judith” and “Dream of the Rood.” How are the two reconciled? In which poem is the tension more prominent?