part 1

1. Abstract for the Paper

Technically this assignment is actually a proposal, so I put it as abstract in the title to match the syllabus but will call it a proposal throughout the description.

project proposal

The research proposal should imagine how you would pursue a larger study about one of our texts or topic combining. I’m willing to listen to proposals for other 18th studies topics. The proposal should include the following parts and should be about 300-500 words:

1. the research topic briefly outline the area and topic of your research

2. the research context how will the study fit into some larger contexts in English studies. You should not be repeating their studies but rather showing how your study builds on these ideas or applies larger ideas to your specific topic. Give examples of the sort of evidence you might consider, and of the questions it might help you to raise.

3. the specific analytical question you’d like to pursue this should indicate a movement from the research to your own idea. You need not have the answer but instead should have a question

example proposal

I intend to study the use of the split speaker in Rita Dove’s “Parsley.” My research will consider how the dramatic monologue and villanelle forms contribute to the poem’s contrast of communal and individual perspectives. My work will then consider how Dove uses these perspectives to comment on the politics of subjugation that drive the poem.

[I haven’t actually done this research, so this section is obviously all placeholder for real ideas. I’ve put in XYZ scholars but you might give more general “gender studies has established” type sentences.] X scholar has noted how the dramatic monologue does this thing. Y scholar has added another idea about what dramatic monologues can accomplish. Together, these things create a sense that a dramatic monologue has this political idea. That idea is particularly interesting when we consider Dove’s second movement in the poem; here are a few questions that I now ask about the poem. However, this monologue becomes even more intriguing when coupled with a villanelle. Dove seems to connect this villanelle to a communal voice. Scholar Z notes that Dove’s use of the villanelle does this thing. That thing, if expanded to a communal context, creates more questions: like these ones listed here. Ultimately, I seek to understand how these two forms work in concert.

Ultimately, my project sets out to understand how the communal and individual form interacts with the political message of the poem. These forms alternately create distance and draw in the reader; how do they implicate the reader in the violence of authority? In what ways do they draw sympathies for the people involved in both sides of the power dynamic? [ If you have a specific answer, put it here.]