ENG 211: English Literature 1

University of Miami

Choose one of the following topics for your first paper, 3 pages in length, double-spaced. Clarify and defend your insights using direct quotations from the text. The content of the argument, the style of the composition, and the use of standard grammar and spelling will be taken into account in the grading process. Please use one-inch margins and a reasonably sized font (10- or 12- point). Pages should be numbered and the paper should be titled.

1. Grendel–a descendent from Cain who lives under an inherited curse–disrupts the joyous and peaceful mead hall of Heorot and commits various murders without apparent provocation. We can argue that the Beowulf-poet succeeds in giving the figure of Grendel his memorable power precisely by keeping him flickering in that half world on the edge of the human–far away from mankind, yet an essential part of him. In your estimation, what foremost characteristics of mankind are revealed in the poet’s representation of this monster? Do Grendel’s mother and/or the Dragon serve similar purposes? Feel free to refer to Robert Zemeckis’s 2007 film version Beowulf in your response.

2. The transfer of power and authority from one male character to another is of vital significance to the narrative development of Beowulf. Analyze the representation of patrilinear succession in this epic poem. Feel free to refer to Robert Zemeckis’s 2007 film version Beowulf in your response.

3. In excerpts from his article “The Question of Machiavelli,” Isaiah Berlin remarks that “Machiavelli, we are often told, was not concerned with morals” (p.212). Do you agree?

4. Before Machiavelli, many others emphasized of the powerlessness of human beings at the hands of fate. Medieval paintings and illuminated manuscripts, for example, frequently portray Fortuna as a fickle and capricious goddess who spun her wheel whenever the mood struck her. Men poised at the top (bearers of good fortune) could be plummeted beneath or at the bottom the wheel (and be utterly destroyed) without warning. Analyze Machiavelli’s arguably more optimistic representation of man’s relationship with Fortuna in The Prince.