Paper Topic #4 (5-7 pages)

Suggestions with questions to help you engage with each topic. You are free to take whatever approach you wish (for example, comparative, thematic, or chronological) to develop your own thesis. You may want to include the works listed under each topic although you must choose works dealt with after the second paper.  For topics #1 and #2 you might incorporate Rousseau’s Second Discourse on Social Inequality. Please feel free to include other literary or historical works from the course to support your thesis.

1. Identity and the Other. How do early Modern writers confront the other? How do these representations lead to the construction of a European Identity and that of an Other? How do the authors critique notions of identity (cultural, religious, social) and of the Other (women, minorities, races)? What does it mean to be European? Keep in mind Rousseau’s declaration that “I am convinced that the only men we know are Europeans…the study of man is to study the men of his country” (209).  

Lazarillo de Tormes

Cervantes (Selections)

Othello

Oroonoko

Letters of Montesquieu, Goldsmith, Cadalso and Montagu

Letters from a Peruvian Princess

Lieutenant Nun

 2. Religion. How do authors represent and critique notions of religion (Counter Reformation, Reformation), religious institutions, concepts of good and evil (the Fall, the devil) in the following works?  

Lazarillo de Tormes

Cervantes

Letters of Montesquieu, Goldsmith, Cadalso and Montagu

Letters from a Peruvian Princess

3.  Individual and Society. Consider the following works in light of Rousseau’s Discourse on Social Inequality.  

Lazarillo de Tormes

Cervantes (selections)

Oroonoko

Othello

Letters of Montesquieu, Goldsmith, Cadalso and Montagu  

Letters from a Peruvian Princess

Lieutenant Nun