Sample Assignment 2

220: Principles of Literary Study
Brad Evans
Essay #1: Due Thursday, November 9

Length: 5-7 pages

1. Using two letters from Les Liaisons Dangereuses that are in dialogue with each other as your focus (much as in the last warm-up exercise you used two or three paragraphs), write an essay about desire - the desire generated between any particular pair (or menage) of characters and even, perhaps, between the book and its audience. What is desire for your characters and what narrative techniques are used to produce it?

Or

2. Focusing on one scene from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, produce a reading of Stephen Frears' reading of Laclos' novel. You must be very specific here, talking about particular film and narrative techniques in one particular scene. What does Frears' interpretation of the novel add or change? What might those changes be saying?

Or

3. Come up with your own topic that takes as its focus a close reading of one particular letter (or, from the movie, one scene), being sure to attend in some detail to formal aspects of the narrative.