TAKE HOME EXAM

Instructions:

  • Given out on April 14th from 12:00 to 2:00 PM and submitted on April 20thfrom 9:00 to 12:00 AM.
  • You are to do each of the four questions in Part A and only one of the four questions in Part B. The answers will add up to a total of 60 marks, that is 4X10 plus 1X20.
  • You may not write on a single text more than once. The exception is the F.Q. You may use this text in Part B, question 1.
  • All answers must be typed.

 

Part A: Questions on the Worlds

Please answer all four questions, each of which is worth 10 marks. Answers will be marked according to textual evidence and argumentation. Please cite sources for quotations.

 

  1. The World of Learning:
    Why is knowledge of rhetoric (ie. the art of persuasion) invaluable for studying early modern literature? Please discuss examples from at least two texts inside The World of Learning but you may also draw on texts outside this unit. (750-1000 words)

    2.  

  2. The Worldly:
    Describe the different kinds of figurative and poetic devices through which Sidney inscribes desire in Astrophil and Stella? In your answer please supply at least three different textual illustrations and account for the ambiguity or complexity of this desire. (750-1000 words)

    3.  

  3. From Printing Press to Hypertext:
    Do you think print constituted a revolution in Western culture? Drawing on texts, arguments and illustrations from this section of the course, please consider both sides of the question. (750-1000 words)

    4.  

  4. The Fairie Queene: The Body and the Book:
    Duplicity, that is the deception of doubles and doubling, is both a theme and an ordering principle in the F.Q. With specific references to the poem, articulate the strategies through which the text deceives the reader and explain the reasons why Spenser would subject the reader to such deception. (750-1000 words)

 

Part B: General Questions

Please choose one question and write an essay. The essay is worth 20 marks. The answers will be marked according to thesis, organization, evidence, style, and knowledge. Please cite sources for quotations. The essay must be at least 1250 words long (ie. 5 typed pages).

  1. Find three blazons from three different works we have studied. Describe the scopic economy in each of these blazons, noting significant differences (the scopic economy is the way in which the gaze constructs gender identity). You may use the F.Q. in your answer.
  2. Early modernity has been credited with giving birth to the "society of the spectacle," a society in which being is not based on doing but on seeing and being seen. How does the courtier produce and how is he produced by spectacles? Please draw upon three texts studied this year.
  3. With respect to their treatment of patriarchal literary forms (the sonnet cycle and the utopia), which woman writer on the course, do you think, is the more radical feminist: Mary Wroth or Margaret Cavendish? Please compare the two writers.
  4. How does utopian literature express the imperialist drive of Western European culture? Draw on three texts studied this year, paying close attention to the form of this genre.


Any questions about the assignment?
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