{"id":24,"date":"2014-09-17T10:22:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T14:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/literature-new\/?page_id=24"},"modified":"2021-09-21T14:53:44","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T18:53:44","slug":"resources","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/hgs\/convening-group-webs\/english-literary-studies-major\/resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/i><\/i><\/i><\/span>Links<\/div>
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\"words-without-borders-2-300x136\"<\/a> Words Without Borders: An Online Magazine for International Literature<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nShakespeare: The Oxford English Faculty Website<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nToday in Literature<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nBeowulf in Cyberspace<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nHarvard Chaucer site<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nPoet Information<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nFrom the FIshouse (More Poetry Information)<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nAssociation of Writers and Writing Programs<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nLibrary of Congress American Memory Pages<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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\"images-21\" European Graduate School<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nFrench Language Literary Research<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nCommon Grammatical Mistakes<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nAn \u201ce-anthology\u201d of Literature<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nVoices of the Shuttle<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nHypertexts in American Studies<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nAn American lit link created by a Japanese University<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

<\/i><\/i><\/i><\/span>Writing Essay<\/div>
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Doing Literary Research<\/h3>\n

The Literature Faculty have created a Literature Resource Guide web page <\/a>to help English & Literary Studies Majors with their research.This page will help you initiate literary research and find literary resources. This guide is not intended to be comprehensive, but instead as an introduction to the process.
\nIf you are looking for help with your writing, please visit the Center for Reading and Writing<\/a> at the Center for Academic Success<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Theme-to-Thesis Exercise<\/h4>\n

The goal of this exercise is to help students identify and work with the elements required to begin writing a literary analysis. It is also intended to emphasize the aspects of choice and variety involved in writing about literature by asking each student to identify and provide evidence for different responses to the same work of literature.
\nAny worthwhile work of fiction tells a good story. But some books do more than that, and those are the books we tend to study formally. At the plot level, for instance, Great Expectations is about a young man who falls in love, learns to despise his \u201ccommon\u201d self, receives an enormous financial gift that removes him from his home \u2013 and then loses all. It is, overall, a compelling story \u2013 but the story is not the only reason the book endures. The novel also invites \u2013 even compels \u2013 the reader to think about many important issues including family relations, class and power relations, ambition, shame, guilt, and the English criminal justice system of Dickens\u2019 day. Your paper (about Great Expectations or any other book) will be far more interesting (to yourself and to your professor) if you engage those issues, rather than recounting the plot (with which we are both familiar).
\nDoing the steps involved in this exercise should help you to identify those important themes and issues, to develop a stand on one (or more) of them, and to accumulate evidence that will help to persuade others that you are correct in the position you have taken. The exercise involves 4 basic steps.<\/p>\n

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  1. Identify 3 themes in the work you have been asked to examine. List them.
    \nFor instance, you might say that class is an important theme in Great Expectations.
    \n(Think of Estella\u2019s treatment of Pip, and his reaction to it.)<\/li>\n
  2. For 2 of these themes, write 2 theses each (for a total of 4 theses).
    \nAppearing a short twelve years after \u201cThe Communist Manifesto,\u201d Great Expectations is Charles Dickens\u2019 condemnation of the class system in Great Britain.
    \nCharles Dickens\u2019 Great Expectations highlights the fact that the lack of an effective public education system in nineteenth-century Great Britain helped to preserve a tremendous gap between the upper and lower classes.
    \nNotice how the thesis does more than note the fact that the theme exists. It narrows the theme down to a more specific statement, and takes a debatable position on it.<\/li>\n
  3. Compile evidence for 2 of these theses. Include the following:
    \n3 quotations
    \n3 other elements of plot, characterization, setting, tone, imagery, etc.
    \nYou should have a total of 6 items per thesis, and 12 items overall.
    \nFor instance, for the second thesis about class, you could cite Pip\u2019s attempts to teach Joe, and Pip\u2019s own early \u201clearning\u201d experiences with Wopsle\u2019s great-aunt.<\/li>\n
  4. Write the opening paragraph for a paper that will prove one of the two theses you have worked on above.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Tips & checklist<\/h4>\n

    Listed below are a few basic points that you should consider before turning in your essay. This list does not cover everything required for a good literary analysis paper \u2013 but if you don\u2019t do these things, it\u2019s a pretty safe bet that your paper (and your grade) will, like King Lear and Creon, suffer some sad consequences. Avoid tragedy now! Take these crucial steps.<\/p>\n