Essay on "Elizabethan Love Poetry Is Laden With Themes"

Quoted Instructions for "Elizabethan Love Poetry Is Laden With Themes" Assignment:

Write a 2 *****“ 2 ½ page essay (40 to 50 sentences minimum) that defends a theme or idea from one or more of the poems we have read this week (Poetry Readings from Mary Herbert (The Countess of Pembroke, Sidney*****s *****Psalms,***** Christopher Marlowe*****s *****The Passionate Shepherd to his Love,***** Sir Walter Raleigh*****s *****The Nymph*****s Reply to the Shepherd,***** and William Shakespeare*****s Sonnets #18, 29, 55, 73, 116, and 130).

You are welcome to relate the theme and the poem(s) from this week to other interconnected themes from other works we have read during this class (if you would like to). Here are some thematic threads to consider:

Virtue and Vice, MORALITY, indiscretions, Women*****s issues, Religious issues, Ideal courtier in 16th century/Ideal knight in 15th century/Chivalry, Ovidian and/or Petrarchan discourse, Power, sex, money, the pastoral ethic (rustic vs city life), choose something you would like to discuss.

The emphasis in an argumentation/position or response paper is your response to one or more readings from this class that we have read and discussed. You take a stance in your essay by defending a theme or issue or interpretation of one or more of the readings from this week keeping in mind that you may discuss other works we have read this semester that fit the theme as well (Sir Philip Sidney*****s "The Countess of Pembroke*****s Arcadia, Edmund Spenser*****s The Faerie Queene, Julian of Norwich*****s "Showings," The Book of Margery Kempe, or "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight").

You must narrow your thesis to one line or one theme/emotional attitude or one issue in one or two of the texts we have read. The emphasis is on the primary text, not on secondary texts/research materials nor on materials from outside this class. Therefore, this paper is a close read of the literature we are reading.

You must cite (quote) from the primary text, 2 citations per page minimum and maximum in your essay to back up your ideas. Here is what a poetry citation would look like:

In Sir Thomas Wyatt*****s "Sonnet 8," he observes, "I love another, and thus I hate myself" (l 11). l means line; ll means lines. The number is the line number; in the 14-line sonnet; the quote above is from line 11.

A citation from a prose piece would look like this:

"Well, well, sweet Philoclea, my whole confidence must be builded in thy divine *****, which cannot be ignorant of the cruel would I have received by you" (Sidney 916). (Author*****s last name page number where you found quote).

A works cited page must be at the end of this essay. There will be only one source on your works cited; the source is your textbook. It should look like this (you fill in the correct information from your textbook):

Works Cited

Last name, first name of editor of book, ed. Title of book. 8th ed. City of

publication: publication company, publication date.

*****s Precepts/Ingredients of a Successful Argument

You will need to know what ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos mean to apply these terms to this week*****s essay. Successful position papers in expository form contain all four of these precepts by *****, the master of argumentation writing and discussion:

Ethos *****“ reliability, ethics, authority (your voice, experiential knowledge, and sources to prove the thesis)

Pathos *****“ emotional bonding with the audience through use of powerful language targeted at the audience*****s feelings

Logos *****“ logic, reason

Kairos *****“ organization, timing (applied to ethos, pathos, and logos), timing the comments in writing to put them in the best possible place in writing to most effect the reader

This essay must be written in 3rd-person voice (they, them, their, his, himself, her, herself, them, themselves, person, people). You may not use 1st person (me, my, I, myself, mine, we, us, our, ourselves) and you may not use 2nd person voice (you, your, yourself, yourselves) in this essay. The essay must use deductive organization: an introduction paragraph, a body of several paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. The thesis is stated in the intro paragraph and re-stated in different words in the concluding paragraph.

Introduction paragraph: Name the theme, issue, interpretation of the sonnet(s) you intend to defend.

Introduction -- Required

Body of the paper: Defend or prove your thesis by quoting from the text(s).

Body Paragraph #1 -- Required

Body Paragraph #2 -- Required

Body Paragraph #3 -- Required

Body Paragraph #4 -- Optional

Concluding paragraph: Explain why this theme is important to works of literature in the early modern period in England.

Conclusion -- Required