1) Choose an author you’ve been particularly interested in or have been puzzled about, and read more of his/her work. If it’s a fiction writer, read two to three more pieces of his/her work. If it’s a poet, several more poems; if it’s a playwright, one more play. Then, get inside the author’s head. Analyze, synthesize, compare–what do you see occurring across these texts: themes, symbols, issues, elements of style, etc.? You can discuss as many literary aspects as you like. Concentrate on giving a sense of what is valuable or not about reading this author’s work for your study of literature.

A word of caution if you choose option #1: as the audience reading this kind of essay, I may not have prior knowledge, so you should consider that part of your job
in writing this paper is to inform me of relevant background or context, on the sources and your essay’s main issue, so that I can understand what you base
your argument on. You’ll have to educate as well as persuade your audience in this case.

2) Examine autobiographical data on the author and discuss, in detail, the relevance of that information to the literary work(s) you are studying. You might look at
two or three pieces of the author’s work and apply this autobiographical focus to
it. Understand, you should not write a biography or a book report on the author; instead, you are to discuss the relevance of the autobiographical information to a new understanding of the literary text or texts.

3) Find essays, critical pieces, letters, journals, etc., where an author discusses his/her artistic intentions, beliefs, credo, methods, style, etc. Critically connect
or analyze how the author’s own comments about his/her work might help you to see the literary texts in a new light.

4) If an author writes in more than one genre–for example, Poe or Atwood write fiction, poetry and other kinds of texts—examine samples of these various genres by one author and discuss differences or similarities in the forms, themes, style. You might focus this option like #1 above.

5) Choose a theme or issue that haunts you and look at two or three separate authors’ handling of it: for example, texts on gender issues, sexuality, work, marriage, carpe diem, etc.

6) Choose a particular form within a genre–in poetry, for example, the sonnet; in drama, tragedy or comedy; in fiction…. Then examine ways in which two or more authors treat or handle the form.

7) Think about some of the cultural, social, political, spiritual, etc., issues that have arisen in our class about literature. Focus on an issue that intrigues, delights, puzzles or even offends you, and do some outside reading on it, bringing that information to bear on a literary text’s meaning. Does it inform your reading or interpretation? How so?

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Posted on May 5, 2016Author TutorCategories Question, Questions