What does Beowulf (or The Canterbury Tales, or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) mean? Choose one text we’ve read so far and one specific literary device[i] and trace its development throughout the work, noting examples and analyzing their meaning as part of the text’s overall effect on you as a reader. Write a thesis-centered essay of 1000-1250 words (4-5 pages, double-spaced) in response to this question. As you develop your essay, make sure that you provide sufficient support and explanation by integrating relevant examples from the story (in the form of quotations). Analyze your quotations and examples to show their relevance to your argument.When you cite directly from the reading, use proper MLA page citation.
Essay should include an introduction that sets out your thesis (or opinion) about what you think the text means and how your specific literary device (e.g., alliteration or characterization) contributes to or establishes that meaning. Your body will clearly lay out reasons and points to support this claim in neatly ordered paragraphs. A good conclusion will do more than simply restate what’s gone before it; it will mirror those claims and ideas, certainly, but it will also consider broader implications of your thesis (e.g., if it is true that Anglo-Saxon poetry uses rhythm to create a sense of the inevitability of death, then it must also be true that…). For further writing help on the writing process, you use the Writing Center in S510.
The paper’s formal requirements are as follows: Times New Roman font in size 12, double spacing, one-inch margins all around, and MLA style parenthetical citations.