Monday, October 3, 2016

L309 Midterm

Dr. Stapleton First Exam

Not at the first sight, nor with a dribbed shot,
Loue gaue the wound, which, while I breathe, will bleede;
But knowne worth did in tract of time proceed,
Till by degrees, it had full conquest got.
I saw and lik'd; I lik'd but loued not; 5
I lou'd, but straight did not what Loue decreed:
At length, to Loues decrees I, forc'd, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partiall lot.
Now, euen that footstep of lost libertie
Is gone; and now, like slaue-borne Muscouite, 10
I call it praise to suffer tyrannie;
And nowe imploy the remnant of my wit
To make myselfe beleeue that all is well,
While, with a feeling skill, I paint my hell.

1. Explicate the sonnet above, Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella #2. Simply paraphrasing it into your own words will not be sufficent. To explicate means to explain and analyze the poet’s effects, which will enable you to demonstrate your newfound knowledge about how those like him do their work: structure, rhetoric, rhyme scheme, “matching” rhymes, meter and metrical diversity, tone, emotion, allusion, diction, puns, wordplay.

2. You’ve now read other writers of the period, such as Gascoigne, Wyatt, Skelton, Dowriche, Lok, Whitney, and Surrey. What traditions or conventions do Sidney and his predecessors have in common? What seems different? Be specific.

3. As a refresher, here is my section on analytical writing from my webpage that I’m sure you’ve seen before. Let it be your guide:


Its most important section:
Always a) Analyze your quotations. Find words, phrases, or general ideas in your citations that you can discuss and relate to your premises; b) avoid the simple paraphrase of a character’s words into your own, unless the actual meaning of a passage is in question and at issue; and, most crucial, hardest to master, c)cite only as much as you are prepared to discuss thoroughly, and no more. Keep those quotations SHORT.

4-5 pp. Due Friday 7 October by 9 a.m. via email

stapletm@ipfw.edu