English 2332. Topics for research essay
Dr. Marta Moore
1. The “arrogance of power” in Gilgamesh and in today’s society
2. Discuss the thin line that divides enmity between men from deep friendship in
Gilgamesh and in your own experience
3. Compare and contrast the account of the creation of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and
Genesis 1-3.
4. In Gilgamesh, the prostitute is principally responsible for Enkidu’s
transformation. Is she merely the Mesopotamian equivalent of a hooker? Discuss
the role of the temple prostitute in Gilgamesh.
5. Cities have important functions in the heroic works of the ancient and premodern
world. What are the characteristics of a city like Uruk in Gilgamesh? How would
you contrast the attitudes toward urban life expressed in ancient texts to those you
encounter in our contemporary world?
6. In Genesis, what is the significance of the fact that God forbids eating the fruit of
the tree of knowledge? Why should the knowledge of ‘good and evil’ be
forbidden? Are there kinds of knowledge that is risky for human beings to have?
7. Cain and Abel, symbolic of two different ways of life, farmers and pastoral
nomads etc.
8. What is the concept of God that underlies the stories of Adam, Noah, and Babel in
the Old Testament?
9. The subordinate role of Eve and her responsibility for the fall in the Old
Testament.
10. Myths in many societies have explanatory function; they answer questions. Why
do we have to work to live and eventually die? Why don’t we all speak the same
language? Why does the serpent crawl? Explain the role of these myths
underlying the stories of Creation, Fall and Babel in the Old Testament.
11. Genesis ends with the story of Joseph and begins with a story about free will,
knowledge, and obedience. Discuss the importance and complexity of these three
themes in the lives of various biblical figures.
12. The belief that gods know the future was no longer universally held in
Sophocles’s day. How is this intellectual conflict reflected in Oedipus?
13. The theme of sight and blindness in Oedipus.
14. Explain Freud’s Oedipal complex.
15. In Euripides’s Medea, the title hero is a foreigner, an Oriental princess, and Jason,
as well as some modern critics, attributes the ferocity of her revenge to the fact
that she is a ‘barbarian’. How does the contrast between barbarian and Greek
function in the play?
16. Medea is a woman, but Euripides has presented her as a figure previously thought
of as exclusively male –a hero. Analyze her character in the play.
17. Explain Socrates’ defiance of the court in his apparently arrogant refusal to
bargain by suggesting an acceptable penalty in Plato’s Apology..
18. Explain Aristotle’s view of the tragic character in his Poetics
19. What is your conception of the relationship between animals and human beings?
Do all cultures see the relationship in identical ways? How is this relationship
reflected in The Jataka?
20. What is Ovid’s treatment of gods in the Metamorphoses?
21. Discuss the ways in which the authors of the jataka stories have transformed folk
narratives to suit their religious and didactic purposes.
22. The jataka stories provide the themes of some of the most famous paintings and
sculptures of India. Study the monkey jataka etc in relation to its illustrated
versions.
23. How are the love poems in the Tamil Anthologies different from others you have
read in the Western tradition and in the modern age?
24. Catullus had read and translated poems by Sappho. In what ways can one see
evidence of a tradition of European love poetry in formation?
25. Compare and contrast Catullus’s and Sappho’s poetry
26. Compare and contrast the involvement of the gods in human life in Gilgamesh,
Genesis, and the Metamorphoses.
27. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses Pygmalion ‘falls in love with his own work.’ How
would you evaluate him as an artist and a man?
28. Ovid’s narrative technique, as well as his narrative content, is metamorphic.
Investigate the way he manages transitions from one story to the next. How does
this resemble the technique of other stories, like the jataka tales, or The
Thousand and One Nights?
29. Discuss Trimalchio’s account of his rise from rags to riches in Petronius’
Satyricon.
30. What is the purpose of the references to the Old Testament in Luke and Matthew?
31. l
32. Living up the expectations of the Sermon on the mount demands extraordinary
self- discipline. How would you compare the code of conduct that the jataka tales
suggest?
33. The parables in Luke emphasize the lesson that the redeemed sinner is more
precious to God than the righteous person who never sinned. How does this
conception of God differ from the one found in the Old Testament?
34. Discuss how Augustine Confessions, his spiritual biography gives an account of
man’s troubled journey toward his final conversion to the Christian faith.
35. Compare Augustine’s evaluation of his own conduct in Confessions with that
offered by Socrates in the Apology.
36. Augustine is confessing his sins directly to God. The very idea that a god would
be interested in an individual’s confession of wrongdoing I was alien to the
ancient mentality. How does Augustine’ new concept of god differ from the that
of the Greeks?
37. Analyze closely Augustine’s tribute to his mother, Monica.
38. Augustine’s Confessions and T’ao Chi’en’s autobiographical poems, written in
the same time period, represent two quite different versions of the self. How do
religious and cultural differences condition the style and nature of their
introspection?
39. Augustine is ashamed of having wept for Dido. What does he think is wrong with
imaginative literature? How would you compare Hamlet’s self-criticism when he
sees the First Player weep for Hecuba?
40. Compare and contrast the selections from the Bible and the Koran.
41. Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. Discuss the spread of Islam in the next century.
42. How does the Koran, a work of revelation, inspire Muslims throughout the world?
43. Discuss the Koranic attitude toward women as revealed in Suras 4 Women, 12
Joseph, and 19 Mary.
44. How do Islamic perceptions of Heaven and Hell differ from those of Christianity
and Judaism?
45. What sort of man does Muhammad appear to be in Ibn Ishaq’s The Biography of
the Prophet?
46. Why do the leaders of Muhammad’s tribe hate and fear him in The Biography of
the Prophet? What are the parallels between this and the accounts of Jesus’
reception in the Gospels?
47. Discuss Attar’s characterization of Christianity in The Conference of the Birds.
48. Discuss the Sufis’ worldview in Rumi’s poetry.
49. What separates Rumi’s mystical lyrics from those of Christian piety like the
poems of Petrarh?
50. Discuss why Sufis consider Muhammad himself to be the first Sufi and find the
roots of Sufism in the Koran.
51. Using Rumi’s poetry, investigate the primary theme of Sufi poetry (the
paradoxical relation of tangible and intangible reality. What is intangible is
enduring. God is everywhere, but unseen.)
52. Discuss the theme of justice or the relation of crime to punishment in The
Thousand and One Nights.
53. How are we to understand Shahrayar’s madness in The Thousand and One
Nights? Does it make sense to you? That is, are male egos in macho societies that
frail, or is his a special case?
54. How are women portrayed in The Thousand and One Nights?
55. Discuss the historical context of the Mali Epic (the process of state formation in
West Africa during the Middle Ages)
56. Compare the warrior-hero figure in Gilgamesh and The Mali Epic.
57. Discuss the figure of the speaker and his varied attitudes between elation and
despair in Petrarch’s poems.
58. Laughter does not necessarily indicate disrespect, but often an affectionate
familiarity. How is this reflected in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel?
59. Describe the implications of the fact that Pantagruel’s kingdom is named Utopia.
Discuss the idea that utopias are useful in showing the way to an unattainable
perfection.
60. Montaigne is his Essays writes of the ‘disorders of our poor country’ Our present
world can hardly be seen as free from corruption. Discuss whether Montaigne’s
position would be conceivable and morally justifiable in our own age.
61. Examine Montaigne’s attitude toward scientific discoveries and the idea of
progress. Make possible comparisons with Rabelais’ notions of the betterment of
humankind through education.
62. Trace the aspect of mystery that Shakespeare seems to have built into Hamlet –its
riddling language, its continual questions,
and the obscure motivations of the characters.
63. Compare the character of Polonius in Hamlet –his behavior and speech – to that
of the ideal ‘courtier’
64. The theme of incest in Oedipus and in Hamlet.
65. Analyze the court in Hamlet as a setting and organizing structure typical of
Renaissance drama.
66. In West African culture it is acceptable for the younger brother to marry the elder
brother’s widow. What else that disgusts Hamlet might seem quite normal in
other cultural milieux? Discuss the cultural assumptions that govern Hamlet’s
despair.