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ENGL 603 – Application Essay 3

In this 750-1,000 word application essay, you will select a poem from the following list and analyze it using New Historical, Cultural Studies, Reader Response, or Postcolonial principles. This paper requires no outside sources, only your use of critical methods drawn from your reading; you may find the questions listed below of some help as you develop your paper.

Poem Options:

· “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44885/annabel-lee)

· “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” by James Wright (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47733/autumn-begins-in-martins-ferry-ohio)

· “Dreams” by Langston Hughes (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dreams)

· “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur)

· “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan)

· “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” by William Shakespeare (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-sun-sonnet-130)

· “Not Waving But Drowning” by Stevie Smith (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46479/not-waving-but-drowning)

· “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken)

· “The Tyger” by William Blake (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger)

· “Ulysses” by Alfred Lloyd Tennyson (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses)

Developing a New Historical or Cultural Studies Reading of a Poem:

A New Historical or Cultural Studies reading of a poem emphasize the relationship between a text and its historical and cultural contexts; so to write this interpretation, focus on the ways in which the poem represents, critiques, affirms, questions, promotes (or something else) the time period in which it was written.

Some questions to consider during the prewriting phase: are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time of the writing? What historical events does this poem allude to or directly address? How are such events interpreted and presented? What aspects of the author’s culture come through the poem’s presentation?

Thesis statements for a cultural critique can touch on any number of issues: how the text participates with other texts, how the literary work “maps” the dominant and subversive discourses of its day, how the text interprets its time period, or really anything that presents an argument about the relationship of the text to its historical moment.

Developing a Postcolonial Reading of a Poem:

Postcolonial readings are looking for places in which the dominant culture asserts itself at the expense of the marginalized; or, conversely, it can look for places in the text that the marginalized culture pushes back.

Questions to consider in developing a postcolonial interpretation: are there aspects of colonial oppression at work in the text? What notions of postcolonial identity (or dominant cultural identity) promoted or presented in the work? Are there characters presented as “other”; if so, how? What does their representation say about the workings of power in that culture? Do you see any of Bhabha’s notions of double consciousness or hybridity represented in the characters’ actions or beliefs and values? What cultural differences are revealed or highlighted? How is identity shown to be formed—through religion, class, gender, dress, customs, or something else?

Basically, a postcolonialist reading focuses on representations, identity, and cultural power.

Developing a Reader Response Analysis of a Poem:

· How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning?

· What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary text, or a key portion of a longer text, tell us about the reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text?

· Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the page or how they are spoken by the reader enhance or change the meaning of the word/work?

· How might we interpret a literary text to show that the reader's response is, or is analogous to, the topic of the poem?