This essay assignment invites you to connect a work of art at Boston’s MFA with one of the texts we read in the first half of the semester. This combination of sources will require you to use two different modes of close analysis, visual and literary.

Two Sources? So this is a compare and contrast essay?

No. I’m looking for a “deepening digression” essay. A compare and contrast essay is interested in both sources equally. But in this essay I want the two sources to play different roles: Source A is the main event, while Source B serves merely as a tool—as a lens used to bring Source A into focus.

Which source should play which role?

It depends. Think about which source strikes you as strange, as needing to be explained and brought into better focus. Use that as Source A, and relegate the other to serve as analytical tool. But only if that second source really does give you at least a glimmer of a better grasp of the first one. If there’s no special “spark” when you bring the two sources together, maybe you need a different pair of sources.

So choosing the right pair of sources can be challenging?

Yes! Don’t choose your sources casually. Doing some preliminary thinking at the outset is vital to writing any paper—not just this one!

• Title: Use the title to signal both the topic and your unique take on it. One way to do this is with a “Title: Subtitle” structure, where the subtitle defines the topic, whereas the title signals your particular take on that topic.
• Introduction: Use the the introduction to accomplish three vital tasks:
  • Orient the reader to your “main event” source. Is it famous, a work most people have heard of, so you only need to remind us about it? Or is it something abstruse, so you need to start by engaging our interest?
  • Voice a preliminary understanding of the “main event” source. What’s obvious? What’s puzzling about it?
  • Voice your essay’s mission: roughly speaking, you plan to draw on source B (name or describe it) to better understand source A. Ideally, end the intro ¶ with the deeper understanding that you plan to argue. A genuine thesis claim is always better than a mere promise of insights to come. If necessary, leave us with a promise for now, but come back and rewrite your thesis claim once you’ve finished the essay and you know what you actually conclude.
• Early Body ¶s: Use the first one or even two body ¶s to flesh out the preliminary understanding, thus making sure your reader is “up to speed” on the basics of Source A. Do the obvious stuff first, and try to end this section with a focus on what’s odd or puzzling about Source A. (That puzzlement is vital: it will serve to motivate the digression into Source B at the start of the next section.)
• Digression ¶s: Use one or two ¶s to briefly give an account of Source B. Focus on details and qualities that “rhyme” with the qualities you were discussing in Source A. Remember, this isn’t really an essay about Source B: focus your account on what matters in your quest to better understand Source A. At the same time, don’t anticipate what you plan to say in the final section: limit your discussion to facts and details from Source B, with nary a mention of source A. Aim to end this section with a focus on the KEY from source B that (in the next section) will unlock the puzzle of Source A.
• Final Body ¶s: Return to source A with a bang, announcing how some detail or insight from Source B solves the puzzle of Source A. Flesh out the implications of this analysis, and you’re all done—except for the conclusion.
• Conclusion: What have you accomplished? Beyond merely restating your thesis claim, what are the larger implications of your analysis? How does seeing Source A in the larger context of Source B deepen our grasp of the culture(s) that produced them?

Sources allowed and not allowed: The purpose of this essay is to measure your skills as a reader and NOT as a researcher. Don’t turn to Google, Wikipedia or Chat-GPT for insight. Feel free to draw on class notes, HW posts, and scholars I assigned as reading. In the end, though, this is the sort of essay in which the real answers turn out to be hidden in the details of the primary source: read it, quote it, ponder it—and turn it into evidence.

Source citation: Use MLA style for source citation. This means parenthetical citations to signal the use of ideas or information and NOT just for citing quotations. Keep the parenthetic citation short: just a last name and page or line reference (in cases where the author is unknown, like Gilgamesh, give the title rather than the author, followed by a page or line ref). Then, in a list of Works Cited at the essay’s end, provide a list of the sources your cited, alphabetized by author last name—or title in the case of Gilgamesh.

Include at least one image you took of the object. Strong preference for photographs you took yourself. Either way, be sure to credit the photographer, whether yourself or someone else.