ENGL 144 Wilkes University Poetry Exam Could you please do this exam? please follow the guidelines while answering question 2. Fr. Grasso, CSC Guidelines f

ENGL 144 Wilkes University Poetry Exam Could you please do this exam? please follow the guidelines while answering question 2. Fr. Grasso, CSC
Guidelines for Writing Critical Essays
This set of remarks presumes that you have (1) read the work a few times; (2) selected the theme or topic
for your essay; (3) chosen specific and relevant passages from the work to use in the essay; and (4)
written a preliminary outline for the paper.
1. “To be, or not to be…” (Shakespeare): Give your essay an appropriate title, so that it will not suffer
an identity crisis.
2. “Don’t circle the runway; land!” (Delta Flight Manual): The opening paragraph should not restate
the question, nor should it (or the essay) contain a paraphrase or summary of the “plot.” Instead, the first
para. should contain your thesis and main point(s), which you will develop and demonstrate in the body
of the essay.
3. “Wherever you go, there you are.” (Eastern Wisdom): Since you are analyzing a specific work of
literature, you must refer to the text; don’t “spin off” and generalize. Begin your analysis by citing what
you think to be important lines/passages/dialogue that helped you to arrive at your interpretation. Explain
the meaning that you deduce from them. This informs the reader of your concrete thoughts, and supports
the ideas that you are putting forth in the essay. After you explain the specific, you can then point out
associations with life and experience that this piece of literature suggests.
4. “Sometimes, less is more” (William Morris): While it is necessary to offer evidence from the text
to illustrate, support and develop your ideas, SELECT PASSAGES CAREFULLY. Don’t simply string a
series of unexplained passages together to impress the reader. Rather, choose the best segments of the
work and explain or comment upon them clearly and completely. Don’t presume that the reader of your
essay “knows what you mean.”
5. “Form ever follows function” (John Sullivan): When you cite and interpret lines or passages from a
work, incorporate them into the body and flow of your paragraphs. Any quote that you take from the text
which is too lengthy to really fit the flow of your sentence shoud be cited as follows:
A) introduce your idea in the
opening
lines
of
the
paragraph.
(indent first line 5 spaces)
B) cite the passage you are
analyzing or using to support
your ideas:
(indent 10 spaces)
C) draw out & explain your
meaning in a few sentences
before shifting paragraphs:
D) use proper shorthand citations for:
fiction – (23) or (86-88) refers to pages in the text
poetry – (6) or (36-42) when citing lines from the poem
drama – (I.iv), (Sc. 7) or (Act 3). Refers to acts and or scenes of the play
6. “A Rose by any other name…” (Shakespeare): Check the essay for repeated phrases or ideas, and
eliminate them. If the same word(s) or phrases occur two or three times in one para., rewrite the para. or
combine sentences to eliminate the problem.
Ex: Jim is not a major character, but he is a very important one. Jim is important
because…” Better: “Although he is not a major character, Jim is important because…”
7. “Never burn your bridges” (Jimmy Hoffa): Reread and check the essay to ensure a good flow
between sentences and smooth links between paragraphs. Whenever necessary, use transition words such
as: also, however, in contrast, in addition, then, finally, consequently, etc. Refer to any writing text or
handbook for a complete list of appropriate words and expressions.
8. “Always know when to leave” (Emily Post): Don’t overstay your welcome. The concluding
paragraph should be a brief, natural summary of your critical comments. The analysis you have done of
the work and the examples/explanations in the body of the paper stand by themselves and should lead to a
logical closing statement.
Do not begin the closing paragraph. with the following expressions:
“In conclusion,…”; “As you have seen…”; “I have demonstrated in this paper
that…”; OR “This essay has proven beyond doubt that…”
These are overblown and sadly overused phrases that don’t really communicate anything.
9. “I, I, I, I” (The “Me” Phenomenon): The essay is your critical thought and interpretation of a piece
of literature. The reader presumes that it contains your ideas and thoughts. Therefore, you should avoid
stating “I think” or “I feel” altogether. Rather, give definite views: “The speaker in this poem is
alienated,” OR “The narrator of the story offers us a one-sided view of the event…”
10. BE CONFIDENT! (Grasso) Avoid saying “It seems/appears/might mean…”; take a direct stance in
offering your ideas, without qualifying everything you say. Doing this along w/Step 9 will help your
writing to be less repetitive and more concrete; you will therefore sound more convincing to the reader.
ENGL. 144
Final Exam (5/20)
NAME: _____________________________________
DIRECTIONS: Please read the directions at the beginning of each section, since they will differ. Please
write your responses in COHERENT short paragraph OR essay form, depending upon the directions in
that section. For the essay responses, try to make a brief outline before you begin writing to help organize
your thoughts. Check to ensure that you have illustrated your ideas using specific references from the
works you are writing about and developed in your responses. Since there are choices in both parts,
PLEASE number your answers correctly, based on the selections you make. Thanks!
Part I: Select four [4] of the following excerpts or passages to explain. [5 pts. each; 20 pts. total]
Explain important aspects of the passages and how they relate to the larger theme of the poem. If you see
a figure of speech, such as metaphor, simile, irony, allusion or symbolism, comment on and explain its
significance and meaning.
1) William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles* made: (*interwoven twigs)
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
2) Thomas Hardy, “Channel Firing”:
So down we lay again. ‘I wonder
Will the world ever saner be.’
Said one, ‘than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!’
And many a skeleton shook his head.
‘Instead of preaching forty year.’
My neighbor Parson Thirdly said,
‘I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.’
3) William Butler Yeats, “Easter, 1916”:
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream…
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of it all.
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice*? (* be enough or sufficient)
4) T. S. Eliot, “The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse…
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin?
5) W. H. Auden, “Musee des Beaux Arts”:
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive, delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
6) Thomas Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain”:
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.
Part II: Please select ONE of the following questions to answer in essay form (4-5 paragraphs) with
examples from texts/authors that you select a part of your response [20 pts.]
1) The American Collegiate Dictionary defines “alienation” as “withdrawal or estrangement from feelings
or the affections.” Looking at the speaker, J. Alfred Prufrock, in Eliot’s poem, through to Lawrence’s
protagonists, Jack & Mabel, and characters in Nadine Gordimer’s, “The Moment Before the Gun Went
Off,” we see that some complexity and real ambiguity surface concerning the benefits of “society.” Do
Prufrock or any of the other protagonists/speakers we’ve seen (Jack, Mabel, Mabel’s brothers, or Marais
van der Vyver) have a sense of purpose or fulfillment in their lives? Do any of these authors subscribe to
the traditional idea that society helps people to connect, or do they suggest, as Matthew Arnold says in
“To Marguerite—Continued,” that: “We mortal millions live alone” (l. 4). Take a stand on this question,
select at least two (2) characters to discuss and refer to specific aspects of their behaviors, thoughts and
motivations to explain and support your viewpoint in this essay.
2) Examine the following poem by Stevie Smith [photo below; she’s named that b/c her Dad wanted a
boy!], and explain how it reveals aspects of this modern awareness, or self-consciousness, which we have
spoken about this semester. Then select works by two [2] other writers we’ve read to compare with the
theme and techniques you found in Smith’s poem. Do any compare in ways with the speaker, often the
“dead man who lay moaning” in Smith’s poem? Writers you may select are: Yeats, Hardy, Eliot, Auden
or Walcott.
Not Waving, but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
but still he lay moaning.
I was much further out than you thought,
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking*
5
And now he’s dead.
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
And I was much too far out all my life,
And not waving, but drowning.
*(Brit. expression for “joking”)
10
Part III : Please use your outline and prepared notes to compose your short essay based upon the
question you were given on the last day of class about the emerging modern “consciousness” that we’ve
been seeing and discussing in many of this semester’s readings. Select 2 different works and writers (i.e.,
both works can’t be from the same author), from the Victorian and Modern writers, to comment on.
Which ones perhaps opened your eyes the most or made you think more deeply about how modern
society has evolved. Did one or more raise issues/questions you might not have thought about before
concerning American culture/society, or that in your own country if you are an international student?
Obviously, there is no “right” answer to this response. I am interested in learning which writers or pieces
had the most effect on you as a reader/student. Please try to explain your thoughts as clearly as possible
(in 2-3 paragraphs), using a few examples from the texts you chose to clarify or illustrate what caught
your attention in those pieces of literature. [10 pts.]

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