English 46B
Spring 2019
Essay #1
The Task:
Write a polished 4-5 page paper on one or more of the texts we’ve read during the first half of this course.
Prompt:
Identify a theme that you’ve noticed present in one or more of the texts we’ve looked at so far this
semester. Identify the theme, show how it is treated in your text, and explain what it tells you about the
text and the times.
Due Date:
o In identifying a theme you want to work with, start with the text (or aspect of several texts) that
you found the most interesting (the most beautiful, the most alien, the most reprehensible, the
most silly, etc).
o Identify two or three places in the text that you see this theme cropping up. Explain, in each
place, what unique idea is being expressed about (or through) this theme.
o If you’re writing a somewhat longer paper, consider exploring how this theme is treated
differently in another text.
o After you’ve gathered your data, consider the significance of how this theme is treated in the text.
What does it tell you about the text, characters, plot and concerns of the text? How and what
does it help us better understand?
Requirements:
It should be between 4 and 5 pages. Your paper should be long enough to answer your focus question in
a thorough, convincing way. It should use ample and specific evidence from the texts you’re looking at. I
can’t see this happening in less than 4 pages.
You don’t need to do outside research. It MUST be based upon close examinations of specific portions of
texts. In a lit class, a short paper like this must by necessity be a “close reading” style paper.
It should be interesting and, if possible, something you have some fun with!
Some Themes In Restoration and 18th Century
Literature
Moments of narrative breakdown, or in which voices other than the narrator’s compete for control…
or Authors and the struggle to control “real” characters as well as reader’s sympathies:
Pamela, Roxana, (Wycherley?)
Syphilis
(Hogarth, Rochester’s debauchee, Roxana’s make-up)
Libertines, Public Honor and Sex (as in, maybe it’s not about the sex…)
Rochester, “A Woman’s Honor;” Wycherley; Roxana
Woman’s honour:
Wycherly, 5 and 15; Rochester; Roxana, Pamela
Disguises
Wycherley III:1; Roxana; Pamela letter XXIV
Masks
Hogarth’s makeup and death masks; Roxana’s Turkish outfit (and others); Mrs. Pinchwife,
Harcourt & Horner; Rochester, “upon nothing.”