ENGL 4950  ~ Americans in Italy: Culture, Romance, & Personal Re-invention

Critical Analysis Assignment 1 – Mary Magoulick ~ Montepulciano, Italy

Compose your answers yourself and be sure to include what you think; but make sure you also show how what you think the text means is consistent with the text itself. Feel free to use the word "I.” Be aware of class discussions and issues, but go back to the text(s) and think these things through for yourself.

Base your answer on a few specific places in each of the texts and do close textual analysis. This means to work with actual quotations and the words and implications therein to prove your main point(s). REMEMBER that your interpretation of a specific passage must be consistent with an overall interpretation of the text. In other words, if a quotation is taken out of context and analyzed without being clearly connected to the rest of the text and its main messages, it is not a very strong interpretation. Analyze (or interpret) each quotation thoroughly – for each sentence you quote you should write at least 2 sentences of your own explaining that quotation, what it means, and how it helps to make your point. 

In the bulk of your writing, you should interpret the text in close textual analysis in order to prove your answer to the questions/topics below.

Be sure to number your pages and reference all quotations (author, page #). I encourage the use of gender inclusive language. Proven cases of plagiarism will result in an F in the course.

DUE DATE: 7-6-09 ~ Your answer should be 700-1000 words (minimum). Please include a word count.

1. In many of our early readings and the first film (Summertime), the characters are seduced partly by Italy itself – the sights, the tastes, the sounds, the people, and the history. But they are also seduced more literally by characters (particularly American women seduced by Italian men). Explore this theme of seduction as a particular charm or hazard (consider which you believe it to be, according to the texts you analyze), and demonstrate what it suggests about American attitudes toward Italy.  

OR

2. Italy is represented in all of our readings thus far as an appealingly EXOTIC place (though that appeal is not without danger). Characterize the way this exoticism is developed as well as its affect on the work(s) you discuss. Demonstrate how the effect of the exotic in regards to Italy is achieved in at least one of our readings. You may analyze both form (language, style, and other formal elements of the text) and/or content (characters, message, theme, etc.) in order to develop and prove your point.

OR

3. Illness and danger (even of volcanoes, as in Twain) are important themes in several of our readings thus far (through July 6). How do these themes enhance the works and influence the American attitude toward Italy, as represented thus far in our readings?

This should be an interpretive, thoughtful, engaged, in-depth analysis that shows connections to and understanding of the greater context of the work as a whole as well as the concepts of our course.

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