Poetry Translation & Commentary Assignment

English/Environmental Studies 122LE
TA: Patrick Mooney
Fall 2011
§§ 64741, 64758, 64881, & 64899
Medina engraving, 1688 edition of Paradise Lost
John Baptist Medina's illustration of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden accompanying the fourth (1688) edition of Paradise Lost. Source.

Overview: This assignment will graded for 0-3 points of extra credit counting toward the overall course grade. This optional assignment is due at the same time as your second paper: at the end of the last lecture for the course, at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, 1 December. No late extra credit assignments will be accepted for any reason.

You may turn in this assignment by handing it to me in lecture or section, by leaving a copy in my box in the English Department mailroom (South Hall 3421), or by e-mail. This is the only assignment I will accept by e-mail except in an emergency. Even though paper two is due at the same time, you must submit paper two in hard copy form, even if you submit the extra credit by e-mail. If you submit it by e-mail, you should attach the assignment in any common format (Microsoft Word, .pdf, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, or other reasonably common formats are fine) to an e-mail message that you send to me.

This assignment is intended to give you practice focusing closely on the details of a text and commenting on those details. Unlike your two primary papers for this course, which ask you to engage with one or more texts analytically, this assignment simply asks you to observe and reflect upon one. This is an essential first step in writing an analytic paper, and you are welcome to use this extra credit assignment as an opportunity to reflect on issues that inform your second paper, if you are able to do so in a way that satisfies the formal requirements of both assignments.

Please ask me if you have any questions!

N.B. Extra credit cannot lift you above 97% for the quarter (i.e., any A+ that I assign as a final grade is a "natural" A+, denoting excellent achievement throughout the entire quarter). Extra credit also cannot lift you from below 60% to above 60% (i.e., you cannot rise out of the F range by virtue of extra credit). Therefore, in order to receive any points at all, your final score for the quarter before extra credit is applied must be between 60% and 94%.

  1. Choose a passage of 12-16 lines from any of the English verse assigned on the syllabus through November 17: Chaucer, Donne, Lanyer, Jonson, Shakespeare (lines of verse only), Denham, Cooper, Milton, Marvell, Blake, Wordsworth, or Shelley.
  2. Reproduce the passage (type it into your document). Cite page numbers from your reader and from the original source, and line numbers, if there are any lines in the original text.
  3. Produce an appropriate MLA-style bibliographic entry for the poem you are examining, based on the original source, not the course reader.
  4. Translate the passage into clear, accessible, contemporary English prose (your own words). This paraphrase assignment will require you to attend to the meaning(s) and sense of each word and phrase, perhaps to rearrange or supply missing words, or even to rework a sentence/stanza. This part of the assignment should demonstrate your understanding of content (what the text says).
  5. Write about 500 words, approx. 2 pages, commenting and reflecting on the original passage. This part of the assignment gives you an opportunity for both close reading (intensive textual analysis) and personal response, as you demonstrate your understanding not only of content but also of formal features, poetic devices, intertextuality, etc. (how the text makes meaning).

This is not an argumentative paper; instead, you will practice and demonstrate the earlier stages of close engagement with the text, the work from which a sound thesis can emerge, sustained by textual evidence. You might make a tentative claim about the passage or pose a question at the outset. Start by considering such questions as these: In your initial engagement with the text, what was unclear? What jumped out at you? What happens in the poem (plot/literal meaning)? What are key words and phrases in the text? What formal features and poetic devices are used? What effects do they have? What patterns do you see? What literary conventions are relevant (whether adopted, transformed, or rejected in the text)? You should move on from mere observation to commentary to critical reflection, gathering evidence that could be used to make a claim about the passage. You might also choose to write a sentence or two about the interpretive or creative choices you made in your paraphrase or translation. You may make connections to an aspect of the larger environmental themes of the course.

This assignment should be fun for you to write and for me to read!