This is your chance to sum up what you have learned in the course, to
exercise your sympathetic imagination, to speculate on how your life would have
been different if you had been born in another country and another century --
England a hundred years ago -- and to articulate how that knowledge can enrich
your life now.
You will be expected to cite at least ten authors and to supply quotation
marks along with page nos. for all quotes from the Norton Anthology and chapter
nos. for all quotes from novels. You will be evaluated on how many
nineteenth-century English authors and texts you can cite meaningfully and
specifically, how well you can integrate them in your essay [the organization
and unity of your essay], and especially your ability to relate them to own
life.
As a previous student said in his contribution to the Internet disucssion of the sympathetic imagination:
"There is no better way to grasp ... what the Victorian time was like and what
those people experienced than by imagining yourself in their position. That is
why we have been looking at all these slides. That is why we read about and try
to empathize with Jane Eyre,... Helen Burns, Sarah and Charles in FLW,
and all the poets and prose writers we have been reading.... What I am trying
to say is: what would I be like had I lived then and not now."
All your ideas must be fully assimilated and be expressed in your own
words: the premium is on thinking for yourself. Do not simply regurgitate class
lectures. Unacknowledged quotations or paraphrases from others will result in
an F in the course. All the ideas that you've learned must be fully assimilated
and expressed in your own words.
No more than seven pages at 350 words per page will be accepted. To be
delivered to your T.A. per his or her instructions no later than 11 Am, May
14th.