Critical Essay

Critical Essay Assignment

we’ve read together all or portions of four epics—Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Ramayana—with selections from one more to come, Dante’s Inferno. You all have read at least two Greek dramas. Now is a good time to take a step or two back and reflect on our experience of literature, both oral and written, this semester. This critical essay assignment should give you a chance to do that.

for this assignment, I would like you to write an essay of about 1,000 words (about four double-spaced pages), in which you talk about how your understanding of literature—or, if you prefer, stories and plays.

That should leave you a lot of room to explore and try out ideas, but here are a few additional things to do or think about as you write.

· In describing how your understanding of literature has changed, you should comment specifically about at least two of the texts we’ve read together . When you discuss these texts, make sure you include specific references to the texts, as you did in your short reports, and make sure you list fully each of the texts as sources at the end of your paper, in MLA style.

· Try to think of overarching themes or issues that the texts you choose have brought out for you. This is an opportunity to compare or contrast texts that we have discussed pretty much separately, in sequence. What themes or issues do the texts you choose to write about share?

· You might also want to write about how you now see the place and role of imaginative narratives—again, those may be either stories or plays—in culture, especially the roles they may play in culture today, when literary works exist alongside the films, television, video games, apps and websites that we often turn to for entertainment or enlightenment.

· What was your favorite or least favorite of the texts we read? Why? What was it specifically about the text that resonated or didn’t resonate with you?

As you can see, this critical essay will be a combination of subjective reflection and argument. It may end up sounding informal, and that’s fine, but it is formal in the sense that it should be based on clear, thoughtful and accurate reading and referring to the texts you discuss, along with expressing your own views.