Essay Proposal
Choose one of the defining characteristics of the Modern Period and demonstrate how two of the works we covered in Topic 7 explore the theme/characteristic:
Alienation
Isolation
Inability to Communicate
Fragmentation
Loss/Despair/Hopelessness
Crisis of Faith
Reinterpretation of Myth
Experimentation and the need for Free Verse
Self vs. Society
In your proposal, due at the end of Topic 7, provide the following:
A paragraph that begins by introducing how the theme/characteristic (i.e., core truths, shift in styles, and/or other characteristics of modernism) you’ve chosen helps define the Modern Period and ends with your working thesis;
A paragraph that introduces the two works you will be using and an explanation of why these works are emblematic of the theme/characteristic you have chosen; and
Two to three secondary sources you will be using, in proper MLA form, with a two-to-three sentence description of why each source will be useful in your essay.
The work covered in Topic 7 is:
Read the following from the Norton Anthology of American Literature:
In a Station in the Metro by Pound
A Pact by Pound
Helen by H.D.
Leda by H.D.
The Red Wheelbarrow by Williams
Spring and All by Williams
The Young Housewife by Williams
This Is Just to Say by Williams
Anecdote of the Jar by Stevens
Read the following from the Norton Anthology of English Literature:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by Eliot
The Second Coming by Yeats
Easter 1916 by Yeats
Sailing to Byzantium by Yeats
In Memory of W. B. Yeats by Auden
Musee des Beaux Arts by Auden
