1. Instructions
This essay should be a 650-900 word essay focusing on the
assigned readings from the course. It is due by 11:55 pm ET on
Sunday of
Week 8
.
This should be a
close reading essay
, and should use as evidence primarily passages from the work
or works that you discuss.
You may not use ANY outside sources without the instructor's
approval.
The essay should be in MLA essay format (see the
sample essay here
) and should have the student/teacher cover letter (which should
answer
these questions
) as the first page.
A works cited entry and in-text citations for each text discussed
are required.
Analytical essays should be focused on making a
debatable claim about the work in question
; creative essays should be focused on presenting a work or kind
of work from a different angle. Informational essays or essays
consisting of summary are not appropriate for either type of
essay. Both types of essay should be supported with discussion
of specific passages from the text(s) on which the essay is
focused. The essay grading rubric can be found
here for the analytical choices
, and
here for the creative choices
.
DISCLAIMER: Originality of attachments will be verified by
Turnitin. Both you and your instructor will receive the results.

2. Choose
1
of the following topics from
either
the Analytical or Creative categories. For the analytical
choices, be sure to write a
thesis-driven essay
in response to the topic. Creative choices should be written as
narratives.
Analytical Choices
Who Painted the Lion?
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, as she describes her own life and
marriages in her prologue, points out the problem that stories
about women seem to have been mostly written by men: "Who
painted first the lion, tell me who?" (Chaucer 816). Many of
these, she opines, are negative, and the implication is that it
would be different if women were writing the stories
themselves. Choose 1 female character from the
tales
(not the prologues) in
The Canterbury Tales
or from any of our other earlier readings, and make a claim
about whether this female figure is positive, negative, or
neutral.
Use only passages from the story itself
(and, if you're writing on a part of
The Canterbury Tales
, the tale-teller's prologue) to support your position.
The Return of Greek Mythology:
The setting of “The Knight's Tale” is ancient Greece, and it
may be tempting to compare this story to
The Iliad
. Think back to our Week 2 reading and compare the heroic
ideals depicted in

3. The Iliad
with the heroic ideals depicted in “The Knight's Tale.” Can we
read “The Knight's Tale” as being a direct reflection of the
heroic ideals we find in
The Iliad
? Why or why not?
Ruling Well in the Real World:
Choose one leader from US history and evaluate him or her in
terms of
EITHER
Machiavelli's model of an ideal prince
OR
Confucius' model of a good leader. Support your thesis with
quotations of and references to specific passages from the
chosen author's work and with specific details from these
politicians' careers.
Some minor historical research is allowed for this topic.
Good Rulers in Fictional Works:
Choose one leader or character from our earlier assigned
readings (from Weeks 2-5) and evaluate him or her in terms of
EITHER
Machiavelli's model of an ideal prince
OR
Confucius' model of a good leader. Support your thesis with
quotations of and references to specific passages from the two
chosen works.
Judging Other Tales:
Choose one important character any one of the works assigned
in Weeks 2-5 (choose a single tale if using a work from Weeks
4 or 5), and evaluate him or her using the moral structures set
up by Dante in our reading from
The Inferno
. Leaving aside the character's religion (which would

4. automatically relegate some characters at least to Limbo),
would this character be hell-worthy in Dante's view? Why or
why not?
Make your own topic:
create your own critical question to answer in your essay.
If you choose this topic you must contact the instructor for
approval by Thursday of Week 8
. Essay submissions with unapproved topics will be returned.