ENGL 325 Assignments
Assignment 3: Essay 2
Due date: Following completion of Unit VII (The Tempest); at the end of Week 18 of the Suggested Study Schedule.
Weight: 30% You must submit this assignment in order to receive credit for ENGL 325.
Length: 1,500–2,000 words
Choose one topic from the list below, and write an essay of about 1,500 to 2,000 words on that topic. Your essay must have a clearly articulated thesis, and the body of your work must include specific examples and quotations from the play(s) to support your central claim.
You must include at least one reference to the ENGL 325 Study Guide for the play(s) you are analyzing (and cite it properly, using MLA citation criteria). You are not required to use any other secondary sources, but if you do, ensure that these sources are reputable and scholarly. Material designed for high school students such as Coles Notes and Spark Notes are not acceptable. You are also discouraged from using Wikipedia. However, if you use any of these sources, you must cite them appropriately.
Notes for Assignment 3 (Essay 2):
- Papers that exceed the word maximum by 10% or more will be penalized by 10%.
- Papers that are shorter than the word minimum by 10% will be penalized by 10%.
- The paper must conform to scholarly standard of documentation and be formatted according to MLA. Please see the MLA documentation guide on the Athabasca University website. Papers with chronic formatting errors in the text and/or in the Works Cited will be penalized by 5%.
o Any borrowed material in your essay—whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized—must be documented within the essay (in a parenthetical reference) and at the end of your essay (in the Works Cited page). Be aware that paraphrases must be substantially different from the original (wording, sentence structure, and length) if they are to be considered legitimate paraphrases and must still be cited, since the ideas are not your own; if only small changes (e.g., in wording) occur, the original should be used and documented as a quotation. Failure to properly document sources will result in a failing grade on the assignment and further
ENGL 325: SHAKESPEARE II ASSIGNMENTS 1
academic penalty could result. Please see further notes about plagiarism in the Course Information Manual.
- If you are writing on more than one play in a single essay, the essay must still be unified through comparative analysis. You can find some good writing help for comparative analyses on the Harvard College Writing Center website.
- This essay is worth 30% of your final grade. You must submit this essay to be eligible to write the final examination. This essay may not be rewritten.
- For more information, please see the ENGL 325 Rubric in your Course
Information Manual. This rubric delineates clear expectations for writing quality, argument, and content.
Essay 2 Topics (DUE: END of Unit VII)
- Are Shakespeare’s tragedies politically radical? Answer using King Lear and Hamlet as your primary sources.
- “In his late plays, Shakespeare gives us a dramatic image of an integrally ordered and harmonious world which, having fallen into chaos, can regenerate and restore itself via the fictive arts of its inhabitants.”[1] Discuss this idea in relation to The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.
- Explore misogyny in King Lear and The Winter’s Tale.
- Looking at Measure for Measure and The Tempest, use the following quotation as a starting point for a discussion of the function of tragicomedy: “With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage” (Claudius in Hamlet).
Footnote
[1] Egan, Robert. Drama within Drama: Shakespeare’s Sense of His Art in King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. Columbia University Press, 1975.