Research Paper – English 103

Research Paper – English 103

Here is an opportunity to do some original research and produce a paper in an area that interests you.

Topic: Select from our text an author (poet or fiction writer or dramatist). Read as widely as possible about something that interests you in your selected author’s life, work, and/or critical reception. From your research formulate a thesis about his/her work (selected from the collection in our text) that you would like to develop into a 5 to 7-page (minimum) research paper that follows the MLA guidelines.
Choose the critical approach you intend to use from the following list (the following questions will help you to formulate a thesis):
REQUIRED TEXT
Required text: The Norton Introduction to Literature: Shorter 12th Edition (e-book also
available) ISBN 978-0-393-91339-2

FORMALIST/NEW CRITICISM (1908-10)

1. How do the elements of the poem or story or drama (e.g. style, structure, imagery, tone, characterization, setting, point of view, or symbolism) work together to create the reader’s total experience?

2. What do we discover about the poem or story or drama when we focus on the words of the text rather than facts about the author’s life or the historical milieu in which the text was written?

BIOGRAPHICAL (1914-16)

1. How much has the author’s experience shaped – both directly and indirectly – what he or she has created?

2. How does reading biography change and deepen our response to the work?

3. What is suggested about the author’s life – preoccupations, fears, motives, memories – in the text itself?

PSYCHOLOGICAL (1916-19)

1. How does a particular work register its impact on the reader’s mental and sensory faculties?

2. From a close study of the text what understanding do we gain of the author’s motivations and behavior as an artist?

3. What are some of the memories, motives, and fears within the characters themselves that shape the work?

READER-RESPONSE (1919-20)

1. What happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text?

2. How do different individuals see the text differently?

3. How do religious, cultural, and social values affect the reading of the text?

4. With what different assumptions to men and women read the same text?

Minimum number of sources required: six.