Authorship

abstract_assignment_guide_0

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Comparative Literature 203: The European Novel: What’s in an (Author’s) Name?

Fall 2010

Abstract guide

Our goal for this course is to engage thoughtfully, deeply, and creatively with our texts. To this end, all of your papers will reflect your engagement with our texts without (or with extremely minimal) recourse to secondary materials. There will be four formal writing assignments for the class: three short “abstracts” (1-2 pp) and one longer paper (5-6 pp). These assignments are all sustained close-reading assignments. Ideally, each paper will be an extension of the conversations that we’ve had in class and/or on various assignments. Your essays should reflect your individual engagement with our texts. They are not “research” papers or “reports”; you do not need to consult secondary sources. (You should use secondary sources only for verifying factual information, and only if this factual information is necessary for your argument – eg: confirming that Foucault’s essay in part responds to Barthes’). The purpose of these papers is NOT to show that you’ve read the texts – I take it for granted that you’ve been doing the reading – or to reiterate an “expert” opinion.

Goals: to attack a single issue thoroughly (instead of trying to solve the mysteries of the universe in a short paper); to be attentive to the interaction between the stylistics and ideas of a text (the way that how the author tells a story through particular rhetorical choices influences our reading of what the text “means”).

The abstract is so named (or misnamed) because you may be writing with an eye toward your longer paper. You will be doing a close reading of a short passage from one of the texts that we are studying. This may end up being the starting point for the longer paper, but need not be. The abstract is not, however, merely an informal paper proposal. While you may be thinking about it as a starting point for a longer essay, please also be aware that it will be graded as a close reading in its own right.

For this assignment you will:

1) Select and photocopy a short passage from one of the works we are studying. Your selection should be no more than two continuous
paragraphs or half a page long, whichever is shorter. Attach this to your assignment.

2) Highlight (or underline or circle) two or three SHORT pieces of language (preferrably single words, but 3-4 word images are also fine) on the photocopy of the text you’ve chosen that together add up to a constellation of meaning that we may have missed on a casual reading. These short units should form a pattern that convincingly suggests the story’s interest in a particular idea. Your chosen language should not just add up to a summary of the major theme of the text as a whole. Often, the more removed or seemingly “off-topic” your pattern of language is, the more you’ll have to work with in thinking about how this strange pattern modifies or asks questions about the text’s ostensible main idea.

3) Do a close reading of the passage you’ve chosen, showing how the language of the text that you have identified (step 2 above) shows us something about the themes and structures we have observed.

As we’ve discussed (and as is apparent from #2 above), a close reading is not a summary or a run down of the larger themes that appear in the text you’re examining; nor is it a summary of what your text says about authorship. Instead, you will be arguing a theory of your own devising about a pattern of details in your text that seems to suggest something about your text’s take on authorship (or any of the issues related to authorship we have been discussing — e.g.: names, appropriation of other texts, the status of the reader, etc.). You want to reveal something beyond the superficial level of the text, something that can’t be contained in a point-by-point summary of what “happens” in the text.
Avoid summary
. Instead, make a claim about the pattern that you’ve found, and support it with analysis of the details that you’ve found (the words and phrases that lead you to your claim); discuss how these details lead us to think about the questions, concerns, and contradictions that lie within the text.

Your argument should be quite focused. Make sure that you’re arguing a specific point, not attempting to handle a large theme or topic. Topics such as “The Death of the Author in Barthes” or “Existentialism in Sartre” are much too general. More importantly, topics like these tend prove points that do not need to be proven: that Barthes’ essay discusses a theory of the author’s death or that Sartre’s novel has existential themes. You will want keep your focus trained on the “small picture” instead of the “big picture.” Because your essay will be focused on the way that ONE pattern of small details works in the text, you will want to avoid any topic that creates a need to list a bunch of examples instead of staying rooted in one special case. Your essay should show how the very specific language you’re handling (from the particular passage you’re reading) adds unique nuance to the larger themes; make sure that you’re not simply saying that your passage is just one example of a general tendency in the text.

You want to be VERY aware of what can be done well in a short essay. Cramming what should be a book-length project into 1-2pp will either lead to an extremely superficial reading or a nervous breakdown. Again, your goal is to argue an implicit point, not to catalogue examples. Your argument should give a particular reading of what your author is questioning about a major issue through very specific evidence. (As examples, if you were to retool the too-general topics above into questions that could be handled in a short essay, you might consider how the sexualized language in the opening paragraph of Barthes’ essay mitigates the notion of death in the essay’s title. Or, you might consider how and why one or two of the editorial footnotes in Sartre’s novel assert the “reality” of the fictional text.)

“Evidence” is in the form of quotation. However, you do not want to pad your paper with huge blocks of quoted text. You should call attention to specific nuances in the text, quoting specific, SHORT (a word, a short phrase, a line) examples of strange or telling language. ALWAYS cite where you’ve found your evidence. You may need to refer to text outside of the short passage that you’re examining, but make sure that your focus is squarely on the passage you’re looking at. Whenever you quote something, make sure that you’re interpreting it — never ask a quotation to “speak for itself” or use it to summarize an author’s main point. Again, you want to be showing how the author’s particular choice of language reveals something not immediately apparent about his/her attitude about the material he/she is discussing.

Please type all materials. I will not accept handwritten papers! It is your responsibility to get your assignment to me by the stated due date, even if you are not in class.

Grading Criteria

Although the criteria for a successful humanities paper are difficult to isolate and quantify, they may be described. I am looking for:

1) A theory: a main claim that dominates the paper.

2) Use of evidence: quotations (preferably brief) from the text. This type of writing is based on reading specific works, not on life experience.

3) Readability: satisfactory use of the English language. An essay that I can read through without serious difficulty.

An essay meeting these first three criteria will get at least a “C.”

4) A revealing theory or main claim. The theory does not restate a point made in the text itself; instead, it claims something about the text.

5) Consistent interpretation of textual evidence. Comments on quotations should not involve paraphrase or summary. Easily-overlooked details are connected with implicit constellations of meaning.

6) A coherent, organized argument. The argument flows smoothly and does not stray from the topic at hand. It is evident what the point is at any place in the essay. Each subordinate point supports the main claim.

A paper that meets these first six criteria will get at least a “B.” This is a good, solid paper that has some flaws and/or lapses. An “A” paper fully meets all these criteria while exhibiting consistent control, lively intellectual engagement, and original thought. Containing few if any lapses, it may also possess elusive qualities such as elegance, wit, or passion.

For Abstract 1, work on a selection from: Genette, Barthes, Foucault, Sartre, OR Hesse

Abstract 2: Voltaire, Kierkegaard, OR Pessoa

Abstract 3: Mérimée, Elliot, Kafka, OR Borges