Proper Paper #1: Your Own Private Ithaca (see new due date!)

“If a literary work is conceived as a succession of actions upon the understanding of a reader, then an interpretation of the work can be a story of that encounter, with its ups and downs...To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading” (Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction)

INTRO: One of the most popular forms of literary theory, “Reader Response Criticism,” suggests that interpretation is about the journey readers take with a given text, and in college, that journey occurs in the classroom. How we read a work is shaped, in large part, by how we first experience it. As you read these books chronologically from Week 1 to Week 8, you created a kind of inner narrative of what they mean, why they’re important, and how they relate to one another. So when you write a paper about them now, it tells a story of reading…of how you read them, and how your journey of reading led to discovering your own private ‘Ithaca.’ So for this first paper, I want you to show me a piece of this journey, and how reading one work shaped how you read the others—and made your own narrative of self-discovery.

PROMPT: To do that, I want you to choose ONE Cavafy poem that you can use as a THEORY. By “theory,” I mean a kind of thesis, or focus, in which to shine a light on the other two books in class. The beginning of your paper (1) should be a close reading of the poem, explaining how you read it, and what you think are the most important ideas Cavafy is trying to convey. Then, (2) you will use this poem to examine some aspects of both Manon Lescaut and at least one of the Chekhov plays. In other words, by reading the Cavafy poem first, how does it influence how we read the other two works: what new ideas or interpretations would we see once we read them? How could the poem actually be an ‘introduction’ of sorts to the novel and the play?

EX: I love the poem “Ithaca,” so I would write an analysis that illustrates how it represents Cavafy’s worldview and how it relates to a general view of life and experience. Then I would find moments in Manon and, say, The Seagull, that seem to benefit from Cavafy’s thesis. Where does the idea that “Ithaca…has nothing to give you any more” resonate in one or more of the characters of each work? Remember, your reading doesn’t have to be bulletproof, just plausible and (of course) interesting. I’m more interested in the voyage—not the ultimate destination (like “Ithaca” itself!). NOTE: You don’t have to use this poem—it’s just an example!

REQUIREMENTS

• Page limit…up to you
• Must use only ONE Cavafy poem as your focus, and you must analyze it first
• Must compare it to passages in Manon and one of the plays (but you can use more than one play if you wish)
• DUE THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 19^th, but NO LATER THAN FRIDAY BY 5pm!