Reference no: EM133829568

Homework: Literary Analysis

Write a short literary analysis of 2 to 3 pages (500 words at minimum) on "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg

Your essay should make an interpretive claim about the text, connecting its key literary devices to its theme or message. You will need to provide at least three quotes from the text as evidence to support your thesis and also to perform a close reading of that evidence. Please note that your quotes will not contribute to your word count and that no outside research is permitted or required.

Your paper will begin with an introduction and a thesis statement, then you will briefly summarize the text (either as a standalone paragraph or in the introduction) before presenting at least two well-developed body paragraphs that include quotes from the text and your analysis. You'll end with a conclusion that affirms your reading of this text. In total, your essay should have four to six paragraphs.

Good analytical papers have an interesting, defensible, and clearly stated thesis. They present well-developed arguments in support of the thesis, including textual evidence cited through a standard format. Further, good papers are carefully organized, concisely and clearly written, and paginated and proofread.

Avoid these common pitfalls:

1. Merely summarizing your text. While you should briefly describe the plot to orient a reader who hasn't read the text, the bulk of your paper should be your analysis, not simply a recitation of "first this happens, then this, etc."

2. Writing a review. Keep in mind that for this homework, you need to make an interpretive argument not an evaluative one. In this paper, I am less concerned with whether the text is good or bad than with what it means. So you must connect its message to its literary devices, not explain that it excellent or terrible. Get the instant assignment help.

3. Not supporting your claims with specific evidence from the text. There are multiple, competing, and sometimes dissonant readings of every text. What matters the most is not being right (whatever that means!), but whether you can support your reading with specific evidence from the text and analysis of those quotes.

4. The argument that develops over the course of the paper. It isn't unusual to find your argument, or another better argument, while writing. If this happens, you need to revise the paper so that you're making one consistent claim from the start.

5. Identifying a text's subject and not its theme. While the story may be about love, love itself isn't a theme. "Love sucks" is quite a different message than "love is what makes us human"; so what precisely is the story trying to say about love (or gender, or home, or race, etc.)?

Potential topics: What do colors symbolize in "Roger Malvin's Burial"? What are the key images in Gorman's "In This Place," Eliot's "Love Song," or Ginberg's "Howl" and how do they contribute to the poem's message? What do "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" or "The Swimmer" say about interiority and how does it relate to what Irving or Cheever are trying to communicate about subjectivity? What do the various settings of "Recitatif" suggest about the story's message about race, gender, and safety?

To use one these topics, answer the question and turn that answer into a thesis statement. ("In James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" (1957), jazz is a metaphor for...and this supports Baldwin's theme of...") You may also use any of the participation activities or class discussions as a way to jump start your essay.