Literary Analysis
Poetic Literary Analysis
I cannot presume to teach students how to analyze literature without having done so myself. I wrote multiple literary analyses for my undergraduate English courses. I absolutely love literary analysis, but one of my favorite assignments was handed to me by my Restoration Literature professor. We were tasked with writing a poetic critique of John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book II. Critiquing anything Milton wrote is difficult, but conveying that as poetry was doubly challenging.
At the time Milton composed his epic, he criticized his contemporaries for composing in rhyming couplet, something he called, "the invention of a barbarous age." Instead, Milton used iambic pentameter to convey his glorious work. The poetic critique I wrote simply looks at his use of iambic pentameter in Book II. Please click on the button below to see my writing sample:
Jane Eyre Research Paper
Throughout the Theories of Literature course, I studied various contemporary literary theories. The theories provide a lense through which one can interpret a literary piece. For my final research, I applied the feminist theory to Jane Eyre. While Jane Eyre is often described as feminist literature, I applied a different approach to feminism by claiming Jane's marriage to Rochester demonstrated feminist strength and not submission. In my essay, I argue against a well known essay by Gilbert and Gubar that critiques Jane Eyre with disappointment in Brontë's acquiescence to patriarchial norms through Jane's marriage. Please click on the button below to see my writing sample:
Philosophy Argument
In an elective introductory Philosophy class, I read multiple philosophical essays from an anthology. Philosophy was an enlightening and challenging class that required deeper thinking than I had experienced to that point. For my term paper, I was to write a concise one page argument that refuted one of the essays we studied during the semester. Although this is just one page, it was one of the most challenging essays I have written. I argued against A.J. Ayre's Freedom and Neccesity. Please click on the button below to see my writing sample: