Yeats Papers

Generally, although my comments may seem critical, I was pleased with these ambitious papers. The choice of topics was very interesting - some very serious topics with scholarly potential.

The real challenge is framing the topic correctly. That is, setting out what you want to explore, finding a way that you can reasonably and thoroughly explore it, and - the payoff - emphasizing why this is an addition to the way we think of Yeats. There is a real danger of ending up saying things that most any Yeats reader would already agree with. So, most of your topics need some reframing.

Very few of you "justified" your topic in light of "what people usually say" about Yeats. This sounds hard, because it makes it seem like you have to know all Yeats scholarship, but actually it's nowhere near as hard as you would think. It's part of the literary critical form.

So, if your grade is lower than you expected, it's because I'm trying to motivate you to really learn the literary critical form. Maybe you'll never become a professional literary scholar, but the principle applies to almost any kind of writing you might do. You have to observe certain formalities.

Your revisions are due at the last day of school, May 12 (another discrepancy on the syllabus), so you'd be well advised to work on it in dribs... a little at a time, since you'll be very busy with Ulysses.

Note the revised dates for presentations due to my illness today.

Cheers, Robin.