Assignment task:
European settlers in America who practice some form of Christianity: Catholicism, the Church of England, the Puritans/Calvinists, and the Quakers. In your answer, you should define the author's religion and how it shapes the author's worldview and provides comfort, structure, and hope (or fear, anxiety, uncertainty, or any other feeling) to the author.
You should provide clear examples from your chosen text. I encourage you also to address the formal aspects of the text. The tone, diction, imagery, and syntax may reveal the significance of religion and the actual "content."
Please choose ONE of the following authors assigned
- John Winthrop
- Roger Williams
- Anne Bradstreet
- Mary Rowlandson
As long as you are answering the question, you are welcome to write an informal analysis of its subject matter, themes, and formal/technical aspects (such as tone, diction, syntax, imagery, and conventions of the genre). It is meant to be an "exploration" of the work (poem, speech, lecture, etc.), and you don't have to control the paper with a specific thesis.
If you choose a poem (such as Bradstreet's works), it will be important not to spend too much time on the "plot summary," as if it were a work of fiction. You may describe its subject matter or define its major theme. I am more interested in how you trace patterns in the imagery or interpret the images. I encourage you to consult the assigned "author introductions" so that you know that the images might be an allusion (a reference) to a historical event or another work of art or literature.
Please don't spend much time on biographical details. It's a long-standing controversy in literary study whether "author intent" or "the life of the author" holds much influence or credibility in interpreting a work. It IS more appropriate to mention an author's life story if you're analyzing a biographical text, especially if there are doubts about the integrity of the biography or if the biography misrepresented the author's life. Pointing out the differences between "book life" and "real life" would make for a compelling analysis.
This should NOT be a research-based paper. Use outside sources to give you a clearer idea of the period, but it is entirely possible to write a successful
(I also encourage you to limit quotes and focus on your interpretation/analysis.)
It goes without saying that while the paper is an informal study of an author's work, your paper itself should be relatively free of sentence-level errors, misspellings, and typos.
By the way...you ARE welcome to share your feelings, reactions, and responses to the text. You may use the first-person voice (the "I").
1. Describe the defining characteristics of a major American literary period.
2. Explain the relationship between the general philosophical and cultural assumptions underlying an American literary period and individual literary texts produced during the era.?
It should contain multiple paragraphs, even though it does not have to be organized precisely as a "five-paragraph essay."