English 510: Romanticism and Realism

Short Essay #2

Date Due:  Wednesday, November 5 at the beginning of class

Essay Length:  At least 2 and no more than 3 pages

Be sure to respond to the topic, but try not to feel overly limited by it. If you believe that your argument is deviating substantially from the topic, you should check with me before proceeding.

 

Topic

Select a short passage from Dickens’ Bleak House that you find strange, baffling, confusing, contradictory, beautiful, or otherwise interesting. Examine it carefully and write an essay that uses the details of the short passage to make a claim about what is or should be important to readers of Dickens’ novel.

Instructions

  1. Choose a short section of the novel as your focus. The passage should be less than a page (even less than half a page).
  2. Type out your passage and print out two copies—one you will mark up carefully as you prepare to write your paper; the other “clean copy” you will attach to the finished paper.
  3. Work from the details of the text and employ “close reading.”  A close reading is an examination of a passage in detail—word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence, thought by thought.  On the basis of what you find, you should present an argument about how careful attention to the passage helps us read the novel.
  4. Be sure to focus your argument well, using evidence from the text itself to support a clearly articulated thesis.  Avoid generalities and don’t be afraid of the specific details of the text.  Remember that the text is your friend.
  5. Consider taking early drafts of your paper to the University Writing Center or arrange with someone in class to exchange papers for peer review.
  6. Be sure to proofread your essays carefully, and consider giving your paper to a friend or classmate for proofreading.  Also read your paper out loud to yourself before completing a final draft—make sure it sounds like spoken English and not like paper-ese.  Try for an easy, graceful, but not overly casual writing style; assume a reader who knows the text, but has not memorized every detail.
  7. Remember essays are never finished, only abandoned when we run out of time.