Yeats's poem

English 147 (A02): Essay 2

Imagine an essay contest being co-sponsored by the Yeats Society and a scholarship donor with a passion for poetry. They have put together some prizes and an opportunity for publication for the best first-year essays on the following topic:

“On learning to read poetry today” (with one or two poems by Yeats exemplifying poetry)

Imagine the adjudicating committee comprised of the donor (not an academic), a member of the Yeats society, a first-year English professor, last year’s two top English 147 students, and two current English 12 students.

Criteria for evaluation:

-Reflects your sincere engagement with the poem(s), so that there is some detailed argument about the poem you are treating;

-Includes some reflection on your reading and discovery process in light of your previous experience with poetry, the assumptions about poetry you bring to the reading process, and what you have learned by spending more time with the poetry (even if you still find it difficult or cannot fully enjoy it);

-some engagement with recent public discourse* about Yeats’s poetry and about the state of poetry in the high school curriculum, so that you are contributing to a broader conversation about poetry as part of one’s education;

-the essay is well written: there is a thesis; it is well organized from introduction to conclusion in logically sequential paragraphs with clear transitions; your sentences are grammatically correct and stylistically engaging.

NB: you can write in the first-person if you wish, but you should be trying to make a relatively objective argument about your reading experience and your learning.

*Recent public discourse is represented by one or two of the following essays from periodical literature (any of which you may agree or disagree with):

--“Why Teaching Poetry is So Important” by Andrew Simmons (Atlantic Monthly, 2014)

--Marcus Gee, “100 Years Later, Yeats’s Easter 1916 still stirs debate about its meaning” (Globe and Mail, 2016)

--“Coming to Stay – W. B. Yeats’s most famous poem turns 100” by Newton Emerson (Irish Times, 2019)

--“Reading Yeats in the Age of Trump” by Stephanie Burt (Boston Review, 2016)

The essay should be 1000-1200 words, or 3 ½ to 4 pages. You should quote from the text selectively: essays closer to the 1000-word length will use less quoted text, essays closer to the 1200-word may use more, but at either end some quotations will be necessary to support the argument. In any case, most of the essay should be in your own words: don’t “pad” the essay with quotations, don’t drop block quotations into your paper without offering any analysis of them. The poem(s) can be cited by lines, but make it clear what edition you are using in a Works Cited page. The Works Cited page should also include any of the above articles you cite, following the format for Web citations, which your TAs will go over with you.

A draft of at least a couple of pages, including an opening paragraph or outline, with a poem or poems chosen as your examples, should be brought to your tutorial the week before the essay is due (Friday, November 22nd) so as to share ideas and discuss challenges with your peers and your tutor. Since there will now be no assignment due for your Friday, November 15th tutorial, this should be a good occasion for discussing Yeats’s poetry and this assignment.

The final version of the essay is due in your Friday tutorial on Friday, November 29th .