Writing an about Hamlet, Act I

Essay Four: Your Final Essay
A note about citing quotations and paraphrases: Please ask me for assistance if you choose to write about a text for which the documentation style may be unclear.

Consider for a while the idea of “the literary canon.” The word “canon” once signified the list of books in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament that were officially recognized by the Christian Church as Holy Scripture. The Bible, after all, did not fall from the sky: out of many religious texts–accounts of Jesus’ life and so forth–somebody, in this case early Church fathers, had to decide which texts were good enough, authoritative enough, to be part of the Holy Bible.

Literary critics today use the word “canon” similarly, but they apply it to secular as well as religious literature. From the earliest writing until the Renaissance in Europe , a lot of literature has been written by many different people. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of that literature is published in a book like The Norton Anthology of World Literature. The editors of your book have decided which literature seems important, which literature has been the most influential, which literature has the greatest chance of speaking to a contemporary audience. The literature that is thought to be important during any historical time period is the “literary canon.” The literary canon is, simply, the literature that seems most indispensable.

A lot of people have a hand in the formation of a literary canon. Contemporary authors who are inspired by older authors play perhaps the strongest role. Editors of anthologies like The Norton are certainly important. Teachers and professors, like me, who decide what to place on a syllabus for a course help form the canon. And students like you, who respond enthusiastically to some literature and less enthusiastically to other literature, make a difference. (What professor wants to continually teach a story or poem that the students hate?)

I would like these considerations to lead you to the topic for your last essay in this course. Here is the question:

I, as your professor, hope to teach ENGL 2310 again in the future. And I will certainly, over time, decide to drop some of the selections we have read this semester in favor of others. But I may very well continue teaching some of this literature until the day I retire. I want you to present an argument for one piece of literature (or one poet). Argue that one piece of literature or one poet we have read this semester is especially worthy of being kept on the syllabus.

Part of the fun of this assignment is that you really ARE having a part in the formation of a literary canon. I really will look at your suggestions and arguments and decide what to teach in future semesters based on them.

A word of advice: although you’re using your own values and judgments here, this isn’t meant to be strictly a personal essay. You won’t want to argue, for instance, that a particular literary work should be saved because it spoke specifically to you the most strongly. (The main character reminded you of your grandmother, whom you love.) You’ll want to consider larger questions here and discuss how a particular literary work is significant for a larger readership. But that’s not to say you might not begin by asking yourself, simply, what text you “liked” the most.

Obviously, you will want to quote liberally from and use specific examples from the text you choose to write about.

For Essay Four, you can choose to write about ANYTHING we studied this semester. The point of the essay is that you’re creating an argument for why a particular work of literature is important enough that we should consider it an work of World Literature that deservcixes to be continued to be studied.

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