Read the two poems on the next page, “Between the Sheets” and “Eating Poetry.” They both share a theme about enjoying literature. With the ideas of these poems perhaps as a starting place, brainstorm some aspects of reading literature that you enjoy. Then write an essay in which you explain what you value most in literature. Use examples from our textbook, from at least two of the three genres we have discussed: poetry, fiction, and drama. In other words, you must use specific lines, images, characters, etc. from at least one poem and one story, or one story and one play, or one poem and one play. You may use more than that, but at least two genres must be discussed. The goal is to analyze your taste in literature.
Keep in mind that the speaker of “Between the Sheets” only mentions “books” as her subject, while the speaker of “Eating Poetry” specifically addresses poetry as a genre, but that the ideas of both speakers may apply to other kinds of literature as well. Therefore, your main ideas (what you enjoy about literature) should apply to all kinds of literature, but your specific examples may apply only to a specific genre. A minimum of two specific examples, from two different genres, must come from works in our textbook and/or the stage play you saw this semester.
Your argument will be entirely subjective, of course, since what you value depends on many personal factors in your life, so you will need to analyze a few of the reasons for your particular tastes. For example, someone who loves revenge plays may enjoy the fantasy of revenge because he or she feels victimized in his or her own life. You do not necessarily need to psychoanalyze yourself to write this essay, but you do need to be aware that your reader will want more than surface reasons (“I just like the pretty words”) for your choices.
Your essay must be a minimum of 2½ pages long. You will be graded on how well you justify your literary favorites, the relevance of the examples you choose, your ability to use literary terminology correctly, clarity of your ideas, and correctness of grammar and citations. Include a Works Cited page and in-text citations of lines for poems, pages for stories, and act/scene/lines for plays.
