Exam Format

Open-book, open-notebook.  Use any relevant course materials since or before the midterm, plus outside sources except direct coaching or contributions from another person, or copying or borrowing from outside sources without attribution. A few questions suggest the possibility of brief background research; if you do so, provide minimal documentation.

Options for taking exam:

• come to class during exam period and write your answers in a blue book or on notebook paper in blue or black ink, or

• spend a roughly equivalent time at a terminal writing an electronic document and sending it to the instructor at whitec@uhcl.edu via email.

Timing: The maximum time limit is 3 hours for in-class exams and approximately 4 hours for online exams. You should write at least two hours.

Submission schedule: By email you may write and submit the exam anytime between the afternoon of Tuesday, 8 July, and 6pm, Friday, 11 July, but keep a log of when you stop and start. Pauses are okay, but otherwise try not to take any advantage unavailable to in-class students. You may consult with the instructor by phone or email.

Response to email: Instructor will acknowledge receipt of email exam--if no response, check address. Final grades and notes are returned by individual email in about a week.

In-class protocol: Since you already have your copy of the midterm, you may come to the classroom at 9am and begin writing whether instructor is there or not. You may consult with the instructor--if not in classroom, phone office at 281 283 3380 or come to Bayou 2529-8. No need to ask permission for short breaks. Write in blue or black ink in a bluebook or notebook paper on fronts and backs of pages.  No need to erase—just draw a line through anything you don’t want read. When finished, turn in exam at instructor’s table or bring it to instructor's office .

Sending your midterm by email: Try both of the following
*Paste the contents of the appropriate word processing file directly into the email message to whitec@uhcl.edu.
*Attach your word processing file to an email message.

Exam Requirements

• Both your essays must have titles.
• Indicate which question you're answering by putting the appropriate number (e. g., #1, 6, 10) at the beginning of each essay.

Length: At least 4-6 paragraphs for each essay, but measurement varies with lengths of sentences and paragraphs.

Textual references:

• Somewhere in your exam, refer to at least 4 of our 5 tragedies since the midterm.
• Some topics may require texts before midterm.
• References to class presentations are impressive.
• Familiar examples from popular films or plays or other texts you read for other courses are welcome.
• Depending on your topic, refer to class handouts or web postings.

Readings since midterm: Oedipus at Colonus, Samson Agonistes, Hippolytus, Phaedra, Desire Under the Elms.

Readings before midterm: Oedipus the King, Hamlet 3.4, Agamemnon, The Homecoming

Grading standards:

Quality of writing: central theme consistently present throughout essay + power and appeal; unity, organization, and development; transitions and connections; surface quality (absence of chronic errors); inclusion of titles.

Evidence of learning: All exams are expected to use central terms and themes from objectives with text-examples highlighted in lecture-discussion with competence. Knowledge from beyond the course and on-the-spot inventiveness are impressive, but first and foremost demonstrate mastery of the course’s essential materials.

Extension of learning: The best exams not only comprehend the course’s terms, objectives, and texts but also use the student's voice to refresh, extend, or vary terms and themes with examples from the class and from experience beyond our class. Make our course meet the world!

Final Exam Contents

Two essays of at least one hour each (4-6 paragraphs each) on your choice of topics or questions below.

1. Tragedy and its Updates (Obj. 2a)

2. “Plot is the Soul of Tragedy” + Comedy & Romance (Obj.1, Aristotle’s Poetics, Genres handout)

3. Families in Tragedy + The Oedipal / Electra Conflict

4. Tragedy and Spectacle, including the Sublime (Obj. 2)

5. Classical Humanism and Judeo-Christianity in Tragedy (Obj. 3)

6. Tragedy as greatest genre--extension of midterm essay.

7. Tragedy’s cultural and historical backgrounds (Obj. 3a)

8. Sophocles and O'Neill: a review of styles, subjects, and stature in four plays.

9. Teaching Tragedy

10. Self-generated topic

Detailed descriptions of exam questions / topics

Some questions or answers overlap. Don't fear repeating essential points--or refer to or remind of points you make elsewhere.

1. Tragedy and its Updates (Obj. 2a)

Review and evaluate two sets of texts:

• Oedipus the King > Hamlet
• Agamemnon > The Homecoming (or The Oresteia > Mourning Becomes Electra)
• Oedipus at Colonus > Samson Agonistes
• Hippolytus > Phaedra > Desire Under the Elms

Introduction / Conclusion: Review the organization of the course by this “original > update” pattern. For a working thesis, how does Tragedy evolve from its classical origins? Emphasize this overall theme in your introduction and conclusion but also reinforce it in your body paragraphs. What does the "original > update" pattern show about Tragedy, pro and con?

Body paragraphs: Develop and vary the overall theme by describing and analyzing two sets of “original > update” progressions. Explain why you chose the sets you did, how the stories or characters change, and what you may learn about Tragedy from each.

Suggested textual references: See bullet-list above for sets of texts. This essay requires references to 4-5 tragedies. Refer to additional plays or sets of plays if helpful.

2. “Plot is the Soul of Tragedy” + Comedy & Romance (Obj.1, Aristotle’s Poetics, Genres handout)

Starting with Aristotle, review the preeminence of plot in Tragedy--but what problems are raised by this claim. Why does study of Tragedy often focus on character instead of plot? What are the rewards and costs of focusing on plot?

Clarify the tragic plot or narrative by comparing it with Comedy and Romance.  Welcome to defend Comedy and Romance, but above all compare and contrast with Tragedy. Focus especially on these genres’ distinct narratives and appeals, but always refocus on Tragedy.

Introduction / Conclusion: Review Aristotle’s Poetics as background to your discussion, but broaden to preview your range of materials and your overall point. Establish a working thesis or overall central theme that will unify your investigation—that is, connect your body paragraphs to it For your conclusion, reinforce your overall point and review how it has grown or what you have learned as a result of your discussion.

Body paragraphs: Keep your overall theme or thesis in sight and extend or test it through your examples. This essay’s inclusion of Tragedy, Comedy, and Romance invites comparison and contrast, which can develop material and sharpen points. In the body paragraphs, connect to your sub-points and examples to this larger theme.

Suggested textual references: Review Aristotle on plot from Poetics. Extensive references to “Narrative Genres” in Genres Handout. Examples from two or more tragedies and from at least one comedy and romance either from presentations or your reading / viewing experience. You may briefly refer to additional texts, plays, or films as helpful.

3. Families in Tragedy + The Oedipal / Electra Conflict

Families normally repress sexuality and violence, but tragedy expresses such impulses (including punishment). Referring in varying depth to several texts, describe and evaluate families in classical and modern tragedies. How have you come to terms with the persistence of the Oedipal or Electra conflicts in these “tragic families?”

• Is the Oedipal / Electra conflict an individual or family issue?
• Acknowledge and incorporate Aristotle’s remarks on families (Poetics XIII, XIV)

Introduction / Conclusion: You might start with natural "yuck" defenses, but why does Tragedy return obsessively to such outrageous plots and themes? As a working thesis, consider this question: How do such stories help Tragedy make people think and learn--and more or less enjoy themselves in the process? Highlight this overall theme in your introduction and conclusion, but also connect to your body paragraphs.

Body paragraphs: Refer to at least 3 plays. Use your examples to explore your working thesis and develop an analysis.

Suggested textual references: Oedipus the King and The Oresteia / Agamemnon or Mourning Becomes Electra / The Homecoming need  to be mentioned at least, but other tragedies also provide examples.

4. Spectacle and the Sublime (Objective 2, Aristotle’s Poetics, “Sublime” web posting)

Tragedy offers various examples of Spectacle and the Sublime.

• Review your understanding of these terms, explaining them with definitions and examples from texts and beyond.
• Relate the terms and keep them close to each other, but they must also be somewhat distinct.
• What are these concepts' purposes? Connect to Tragedy's larger purposes and styles, plus an audience's potential reactions.
• What do you do with this knowledge? Beyond standard definitions and examples, explore each concept's critical use and apply to your own experience with popular films or reading.

Introduction / Conclusion: Review or preview your understanding of these terms and how they may or may not fit into a single concept. Establish a working thesis that emphasizes possible uses of both terms in Tragedy. These terms represent potentially exciting concepts, so make them come alive.

Body paragraphs: Using examples, consider Spectacle first, then consider the Sublime within the framework of spectacle and beyond. Spectacle and the Sublime may operate distinctly and independently from each other, but they overlap enough that you should consider them together in parts of your essay. Continue to define and explain the terms by developing and analyzing examples.

Suggested textual references: Any of our Tragedies offers diverse examples of spectacle and the sublime—review two or three examples of each, plus examples beyond course and beyond Tragedy are welcome. (Obj. 2, Aristotle’s Poetics, “Sublime” web posting)

Trickiest feature of this question: Even though you’re discussing “spectacle,” its examples in Tragedy (and connections to the Sublime) may involve repression of spectacle--is it shown or merely described in words?

5. Classical Humanism and Judeo-Christianity in Tragedy (Objective 3c + terms)

Refer to Objective 3c, “To acknowledge classical humanism's interfaces with revealed religion, especially Judeo-Christianity” and its “Essential Terms”: empiricism, reason, revelation; fate and free will; humanism and Christian humanism

• How does a student of literature, whether religious or not, balance or mediate “interfaces” between Greek classical humanism emphasizing reason and empiricism, and Judeo-Christian scriptural traditions emphasizing revelation (i. e., revealed truth)?
   

• The popular model for such discussions is the “culture war” between faith-based society and secular humanism. What aspects of our course suggest alternatives to the “warfare” model between these aspects of Western Civilization?
   

• Keep texts and examples in sight. This is a big subject, but you can control it by referring to the plays available.
   

• Belief in Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, and knowledge of Oedipus, Theseus, and Phaedra are now categorized as “mythology,” yet attitudes toward gods and humanity in classical tragedy often sound like modern anxieties about religion--and modern religion (as in Desire Under the Elms) can sound like Greek religion.
   

• “Prophecy” is a common “revelation” pattern in Greek and Judeo-Christian belief systems. You could spin off an essay on prophecy in tragedy for Topic 10 below.
   

• As a secular public institution, UHCL neither endorses nor prohibits religious expression, but what limits are observed in teaching these two aspects of Western Civilization in secular public schools or religious private schools?

Introduction / Conclusion: Briefly introduce texts or other features of the course that raise these issues. For a working thesis, preview your management of the subject and what may be learned. To conclude, summarize your learning on the subject and consider the final bullet in this question.

Body paragraphs: Develop and vary the overall theme or working thesis by describing and analyzing examples of the “interface” between the two aspects, or places where one or the other seems dominant. What lessons and limits result from such meetings or interfaces of distinct materials? Such a far-reaching but sensitive issue can be difficult to organize, so maintain connections or transitions as you write or rewrite.

Suggested  or possible textual references:

• Course texts: Oedipus at Colonus, Gospel at Colonus, Samson Agonistes, & Desire Under the Elms
   

• Scriptural Backgrounds to Hippolytus, Phaedra, and Desire Under the Elms
   

• St. Paul meets the Greeks on Mars Hill / Areopagus (court mentioned in Oedipus at Colonus)
   

• other texts in course and beyond

6. Tragedy as the greatest genre (Objective 2; extension of midterm essay)

Objective 2 highlights Tragedy as “the supreme genre in western culture and art,” and our midterm asked, “Why or how might Tragedy be considered the greatest genre?”

The midterm also asked, “How may this greatness be questioned?” The premises or biases of such a judgment must be acknowledged even if they are upheld--for example, Tragedy’s unpopularity compared to Comedy and Romance, its almost exclusive authorship by men, and its appearance during periods of empire. Consider and develop such counter-arguments, but take the original claim of greatness seriously.

Introduction / Conclusion: Since this essay topic extends elements of the midterm assignment, welcome to refer to conclusions in your midterm. Set up your attitude or reaction to the “greatest genre” theme and, as a working thesis, preview how your essay upholds, questions, or otherwise resolves this judgment. As a conclusion (you may start this earlier), don’t shoot Tragedy down but offer a balanced account of Tragedy’s limits as well as its power.

Suggested textual references + Body Paragraphs: Either refer to a number of plays through an overview, or examine 1 or 2 plays in depth.

7. Tragedy’s cultural and historical backgrounds (Obj. 3a)

Objective 3a. To witness tragedy's emergence during great periods of civilization--in other words, cultures don't create tragedy because they're depressed but because they're confident enough to face failure.

What kind of society produces Tragedy? What do you learn from this association between art and its social background?

Introduction / Conclusion: Since this essay may be more historical than cultural, you might begin by reviewing the reasons for your interest and your sources of knowledge. As a working thesis, what may you learn through the question’s suggested relationship between historical culture and heroic tragedy? For your conclusion, resolve your observations and consider where our own civilization is in relation to Tragedy? (No 9/11 references, please.)

Body Paragraphs: Investigate 2 or 3 historical periods in which great Tragedy appears, highlighting features of these societies that prospered heroic art plus the Tragedies themselves and their emphasis on justice, striving, power, or the forbidden.

Suggested Textual references: The historical content of this question keeps you somewhat outside the texts, but connect to readings by showing how a great state can appear in great tragedy, as in considerations of justice.

8. Sophocles and O'Neill: a review of styles, subjects, and stature in four plays.

Review and evaluate the only two playwrights by whom we read two plays, both of whom are essential to ancient and modern tragedy. Reviewing the appropriate plays, establish how their works exemplify tragic style and subject matter--but also contrast their works and styles.

Introduction / Conclusion: Introduce the two authors and why they appear together under these circumstances, acknowledging their differences and similarities. Review your interest in the question and, for a working thesis, preview what  your discussion will attempt to accomplish. To conclude, review what you’ve learned about Tragedy from looking at these two writers together and separately.

Suggested Textual references:

• Plays by Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus (+ references to Antigone if familiar & Gospel at Colonus if helpful)
   

• Plays by Eugene O’Neill: The Homecoming (part 1 of Mourning Becomes Electra); Desire Under the Elms (+ references to other O’Neill plays if familiar)

Body Paragraphs: Discuss each playwright’s place in history, career, style, and subject matter while referring to the plays for examples. You may know more about some of these aspects than others, or welcome to do some brief background research, but don’t bother bringing up what you don’t feel confident writing about. Concentrate on what you know or can discover about these writers. To unify discussion of the two authors, compare and contrast.

9. Teaching Tragedy

American high school curricula provide most students in Tragedy with some pre-knowledge to incorporate with this course's intensive study. The purpose of this essay is to reflect on your status as both a student and a potential teacher of Tragedy in various classrooms.

Introduction / Conclusion: Review what knowledge you brought to our course and how it provided a background for managing this course’s materials. As a working thesis, characterize your knowledge of Tragedy and survey what aspects may be useful to your teaching career.

Body paragraphs: Review several texts or their critical features that are appropriate to various classrooms. Compare and contrast what you learned in high school with what you learned here, and what from this course might transfer back to a high school classroom. What did we leave out that high school lessons successfully managed? (e. g., high schools’ traditional emphasis on the Tragic Hero and the Tragic Flaw, which may be easier to test than plot.) You may also discuss teaching techniques in this class and others, but return to the subject matter of Tragedy + how and why it is learned.

Suggested Textual references: Refer to two or three plays from our course that might work for your students, or that work for you and what lessons you’d like to develop, but welcome also to discuss plays outside this course. The danger of this question is that writers take their eyes off the texts to look at potential students and classes. Connect!

10. Self-generated topic: What did you learn or see in our course that you're ready to explore on your own?

Based on our readings and connecting at least tangentially to our objectives and discussions, develop your own topic for one essay.

Whatever topic you come up, write to benefit or inform a reader from our course.

• This topic may be completely different from this exam’s other questions.
• Or spin off one or more of the questions above.
• Or combine two or more questions above into a new subject or issue.
• Your topic may be something we discussed that this exam hasn't isolated, or something we should have discussed—why didn't we?

Suggested textual references: Your topic will dictate the number and selection of texts. Apply your thesis and points to examples from our texts.

Course Objectives:

Objective 1. To study "genres" of literature not as rules but as adaptable conventions of subject, narrative, and representation. (genres handout)

1a. Subject genre as entertainment / education: in contrast to the escapism of comedy and romance, the complex morality of tragedy challenges (yet respects) traditional norms and values: “makes you think.”

1b. Representational genre as single-voiced or diverse: compare tragedy’s dramatic dialogue with the single voice of song or sermon, or narrator + dialogue in novels & film noir.

1c. Narrative genre—“Plot is the soul of tragedy”: compare and contrast the hard-driving but variable narrative of tragedy with those of comedy, romance, and satire, especially in terms of learning.

Essential terms:

• genre: subject, representational, & narrative

• conventions (a.k.a. expectations, norms, standard features, "contract with reader")

Objective 2.  To evaluate "the greatness of tragedy" (handout) as the supreme genre in western culture and art.

2a. To focus on Tragedy’s persistent story-lines through the course’s “Tragedy and its Updates” organization: How does Tragedy adapt to changing social and historical circumstances?

2b. To describe the heroic cultural values associated with dramatic tragedies in various periods of western history.

2c. To assert the purpose of tragic art for a “feel-good” society. To balance art's competing or complementary values of "liking" and "learning."

Essential terms:

• narrative / plot / story

• irony, metaphor, foreshadowing

• spectacle and the sublime

• compare / contrast with other basic narratives: comedy, romance, satire

Objective 3. To study Tragedy in the context of Western Civilization

3a. To witness tragedy's emergence during great periods of civilization--in other words, cultures don't create tragedy because they're depressed but because they're confident enough to face failure.

3b. To recognize the contribution of "classical civilization" to secular institutions: the theater, literary criticism, democracy +

3c. To acknowledge classical humanism's interfaces with revealed religion, especially Judeo-Christianity

Essential terms:

• modernization

• empiricism, reason, revelation

• fate and free will

• humanism, Christian humanism