DESCRIPTION: We are now at the end of our discussion of John Logan's second season of Penny Dreadful. Over the past three classes, we covered many topics. I am particularly interested in five:
- The Monstrous
- Fear and Anxiety
- Being Cursed
- The Heroic
- Power
Your first option for this essay is to analyze what Logan is doing with one of these topics. If you do, you will be working only within the context of the television show. You will be looking at the show as a contemporary version of a Penny Dreadful, as a text that makes a sensationalist appeal to the popular audience's interest in the supernatural and crime. You can use a version of one of the questions that we used to analyze the literary roots of the series:
- What is John Logan's definition of the monstrous in the first season of Penny Dreadful?
- What is the fear that preys upon the minds of the viewers of John Logan's Penny Dreadful?
Or, you can pursue new questions that have grown from our discussion of Logan's text:
- According to John Logan's first season of Penny Dreadful, what does it mean to be cursed?
- In Penny Dreadful's world of curses, demons, and monsters, what does it mean to be heroic?
Your second option is to compare Logan's treatment of one of these four topics to the treatment of Shelley, Stoker, or Wilde in their novels. If you do this, you must try to find a character, a conflict, or a scene that appears in both texts and allows you to discuss either the similarity or the difference in the interpretation of the topic in the Victorian original and the contemporary adaptation.
This essay is required. Everyone must hand me a response to this assignment.
PURPOSE: This essay assignment is designed to help you develop the ability to
- Solve a problem appropriate to the study of a specific topic whose context has been delineated to the point that several possible definitions can be inferred;
- Read texts closely and analytically;
- Write competently and to the standard of the discipline in the academic style; and
- Read texts as complex interactions of values.
These are four of the learning outcomes associated with this course on the syllabus; they are also going to be objectives for all of your essays.
REQUIREMENTS: To be completely successful, your final product must meet some essential criteria for content and form:
- The essay must have an introduction that responds directly to the writing situation of the assignment and that clearly and precisely defines the problem that the argument will address.
- The essay must have a thesis that precisely and concisely states your controlling idea and that responds directly to the problem stated in the introduction.
- The essay must have a title that clearly reflects the content of the thesis.
- The body of the essay must argue for the validity of that idea through a sequence of logical steps.
- Each of these steps must be focused on a secondary idea and on the coherent presentation and explanation of evidence that supports that idea.
- Quoted material should be clearly introduced, presented, explained, and documented using the MLA format.
- Summaries and paraphrases must be clear and precise and must be directly linked to the original source.
- The essay should be at least three typed pages of your original thinking, preferably in 12-pt. Times New Roman. The essay should not exceed five typed pages.
- It should be double-spaced and use indentations to establish new paragraphs, not the placement of additional space between the paragraphs.
- Sentences must be clear and precise.
- Word choice must be clear and precise.
- Punctuation must be effective.
- You cannot use research of any sort in this essay.
- If you choose, you may end the assignment with the University's Honor pledge.