ENLS 2140 Intro. to Poetry
Prof. Richard
Final Project
Due: May 1
Proposal Due: April10
For your final project (due on May 1), you will engage, critically and/or creatively, with the work we have studied this semester. By “work we have studied this semester,” I mean:
• poems that were assigned; • further reading of poems by poets whose work you have been introduced to; • particular forms we have studied (sonnet, villanelle, etc.); • or particular topics and themes we have touched on (which could include prosody, elegy, love poetry, and poetry of witness).
Your project may take the form of either an academic essay or of a creative project that demonstrates your knowledge of poetry and your ability to engage critically with it.
Critical Essay
If you choose to write an essay, it should be at least 1500 words and should be an analysis of 1-3 poems that you have chosen. You should choose an appropriate critical lens to apply to the poems you select. I would be very open to a project that is focused on prosody, if that’s something you want to explore further.
For a critical essay, you will need to cite, in addition to the poems you’re writing about, at least two critical sources. One of those can be a general, informative article related to your essay topic. The other should be a critical essay that is closely related to your essay topic. If you are writing about poems by a single poet, your research may involve finding articles or chapters on the very same poems you are writing about; or it may involve finding articles or chapters that are also about the theme or topic you are focusing on in your chosen poet’s work. Ideally, you will find two kinds of sources: ones that sharpen your thinking because they are very much aligned with your reading of the poems, and ones that sharpen your thinking because you have a different viewpoint from the scholar whose work you are reading. What’s most important is that you are able to incorporate, through summary and direct quotation, their arguments and observations into your essay.