Mid-Term Essay

Write a two thousand word essay on one of the following topics. The essay is due in my Department mailbox at midnight on October 31st.

1.] “Tempest, if there is one human being more than any other that I utterly abhor, it is the type of man so common to the present time, the man who huddles his own loathly vices under a cloak of assumed broad-mindedness and virtue. Such a one will even deify the loss of chastity in woman by the name of “purity” – because he knows that it is by her moral and physical ruin alone that he can gratify his brutal lusts. Rather than be such a sanctimonious coward I would openly proclaim myself vile!”
This execration from Satan in persona Rimanez is arguably the quintessential passage of Sorrows of Satan. Analyse the significance of three telescoping levels. One, fully unpack the moralism on its straightforward reading. Two, explain its significance as a Demonic doctrine, according to Correlli’s characterization of the Prince of Darkness in the novel. And three, suggest how Corelli applied the passage as an indictment of the state of Edwardian England leading up to the singularity of the First World War.

2.] C.S. Forester and Ford Madox Ford both have superlative genius as raconteurs. Rare among storytellers, however, both are also writers of high literary quality. Select one passage from The General and explain how what seems to be pure storytelling in addition demonstrates elite literary technique, and one passage from Parade’s End which exemplifies High Modernist esoterica but is at the same time roustabout tale-telling such as would lighten a watch of soldiery under eighteen hours of bombardment in a rat-run trench.

3.] Parade’s End is a tour de force of literary modernism which contains multitudes. It has plausibly been praised by writers of unimpeachable calibre as the finest fictional representation of the First World War. From your reading of the tetralogy select any two passages which support this claim and detail, with entirely open possibilities, the literary means by which Ford accomplishes this. This is an “Open-topic”question.