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Twelfth Night Research Paper

Rhetorical Situation

It’s time for you take what you’ve learned from your smaller papers and class discussions and write a longer, more research-intensive paper. You have been asked to contribute to a collection of essays about the play, Twelfth Night. The essays offer interpretations that will make use of one of these five contexts: the play’s textual history, the play’s author, the play’s genre, the play’s reception, or the play’s cultural background. By consulting at least five approved sources—including the works of historians and literary scholars—and then incorporating them into your own argument about the play, you’ll help us understand the play better.

Purpose

Literary analysis is both explanatory and argumentative. You’re ultimately making an argument about the play—not Shakespeare’s biography or Elizabethan England—but you want to show something new to your readers by explaining key details about Shakespeare’s biography or Elizabethan England.

Audience

You’re writing for elite high-school students or smart undergraduates. In short, you’re writing for students like yourself. Everyone who reads the essay will have read the play. However, they will not have done all the research you’ve done. Your readers want to “go deeper” with the play, and they’ve chosen your essay to help them do that.

Genre

Literary analysis is a little more formal than an e-mail message, but you should consider us friends, not enemies. There are some other basic conventions to follow in a literary analysis:

· You need to analyze (not just evaluate or summarize) your passage.

· Remember that this isn’t a history report or biography. Your additional resources should lead to you analyzing the play.

· This paper requires that you use at least five other sources to help you get started. You must the properly cite the sources (showing how your analysis uses but does not simply repeat theirs).

· Good literary analysis admits how complicated interpretation can be. Show us that you recognize these intricacies by responding humbly but decisively to possible objections.

Stance

Be confident. Earn your readers’ trust by convincing them that you know what you’re talking about. You can do this by expressing yourself clearly and concisely. Imagine your best conversational self and then write with that voice.

Design

Your paper needs the following five items:

1. A well-defined thesis/claim (introduced early in your paper)

2. Clear organization

3. Solid evidence

4. Strong continuity

5. A persuasive closing appeal

Additional Design Considerations

· Type and Font: Use 12-point type and Times New Roman font.

· Spacing and Margins: Use double-spaced lines and 1-inch margins.

· Length: 1250 to 1500 words

· Title: Give your paper a catchy title that engages your reader and prepares them for your topic.

· Format Comment: Provide an MLA-compatible Work(s) Cited page; that’s part of writing a literary analysis. Incorrect formatting will cost you half a letter grade.

Getting Started

You must start by analyzing the play’s themes and characters. Develop your own interpretations before you start your research. If you don’t form your own interpretation first, it will be easy to accept the numerous interpretations you find. After you decide on a crucial theme or character, decide which context would best help give that theme and character meaning.

Here are some questions to help you get started:

· Which characters do you think Shakespeare most identified with? Why?

· How does Twelfth Night play with the conventions of theatrical comedy?

· How was the play initially received? Where was it first performed? What does that say about its purpose?

· How do the play’s representations of gender reflect or comment on Elizabethan ideas of gender?

Survey of English Literature I Research Paper Page 1 of 3 4/10/2016

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