English 495/504 Critical Response Assignment:The House of Mirth            Stephan Flores

Due in class on Thursday November 20, 2003; Titled; Length: 500-600 words, singled-spaced

Write a Critical Response on The House of Mirth that cites a critical perspective from a relatively recent critical essay/book chapter as a point of reference and departure for further analysis of some aspect of the novel. As in the critical summary-response assignment on The Portrait of a Lady, your analytical response should include a reflective, question -and problem-posing dimension. Your observations and analysis should be succinct and sharply focused, with potential for substantial development.

As before, you are encouraged to consider to what extent and how a substantial secondary piece of criticism including its theoretical orientation and practice has influenced your views and understanding, to include also determining points of agreement or doubt, determining significant questions raised by your experience with this essay, determining the most important ideas that you "take away" from the reading, and by reflecting on what you might "say back" to the author in sharing your perspective on the essay and on the novel.

Thus the critical response should highlight and focus upon your understanding and exploration of the novel as influenced to some extent by critical methods and scholarly research. You may choose to extend an essay's critical perspectives by explaining its potential relevance to other aspects of the novel, or you may also read "against-the-grain" of the original argument to present a different or opposing perspective and argument based on your reading of the novel, on other critical perspectives, and on your own understanding and reasoning. Your response can be both reflective and persuasive in its emphases and aims, and our discussions and reading--including the materials in our case study edition--may inform your views. You may find it effective to compose a thesis for your response that maps out for readers the challenging, engaging, important points that you want to develop and discuss.

For secondary criticism, you might start by considering the many choices available in the selected bibliographies that follow each of the five case study approaches to the novel and other recent (late 1980s-present) criticism that you may come across; the course website also notes several additional possibilities:

Howard, Maureen. "The Bachelor and the Baby: The House of Mirth." The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton. Ed. Millicent Bell, 1995.

Joslin, Katherine. "The House of Mirth and the Question of Women." Edith Wharton. St. Martin's P, 1991.

Showalter, Elaine. "The Death of the Lady (Novelist): Wharton’s House of Mirth." Edith Wharton, ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House, 1986.

Please let me know about your selected critical essay by Tuesday November 18, and plan to include a copy of the original essay when you submit the critical response.