Study Guide, Exam 2 
Engl 4040 Modernism and Postmodernism
O'Donnell, ETSU, Fall 2017
Last update:  December 6, 2017

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Exam date and time: Monday Dec 11, 1:20-3:20pm

About the Exam
1. The format for this exam is the same as the format for exam 1. The exam will have two sections: I) Identification, and II) Short Essay. Each is explained below.

2. All the prompts that may appear on the exam are now here on this study guide web page.  
3. The exam is "open book":  I encourage you to bring your texts and notes to the exam. However, I require that you compose your responses in class, during the exam period, rather than composing the sentences ahead of time and transcribing them during the exam.

Section I. Identification
A. Instructions

This section is worth half of the exam grade. The section will include a list of 10 prompts -- that is, names, titles, concepts, and/or quotes. All 10 of those prompts on the exam will be drawn from the list of 16 prompts that appears below. 

From the 10 on the exam, you will in turn select 8, to which you will respond in writing. For each of those 8 prompts, write a "mini essay" -- three or four clear, complete, self-explanatory sentences -- in which you identify 1) the author(s) and text(s) with which prompt is associated; 2) the context or definition; 3) an important issue associated with the prompt.

B. 16 prompts

1. Confessional poetry

2. posthumanism

3. epistolary novel

4. Harriet Monroe

5. "beautiful and obscure"

6. maximalism

7. concupiscent

8. a "bestiary of male selfishness"

9.  "post-modernist chemistry projects"

10. äppärät

11. "...you can verbal me anytime day or night."

12. GlobalTeens

13. "... a deconstructive poet. He unmakes sense. He leads one to the brink of meaning, hovers there, then backs away, calling attention to our (and maybe his) hunger for closure, for truth." 

14. "It took dominion everywhere." 

15. "The gill net of history will pluck us soon enough / From the cold waters of self-contentment we drift in"  

16. LandO'LakesGMFordCredit

Section II. Short Essay
A. Instructions and 3 Prompts--Choose One

This section is worth half of the exam grade. Write a short essay -- 300-500 words -- in response to one of the following three questions.  Develop your response by discussing works that we've read during the first half of this semester.

1. What are the features of modernist poetry? What makes a poem "modernist", as opposed to merely "modern"?

2. Summarize Mark Edmundson's critique of "mainstream American poetry," as he makes the case in his 2015 Harper's magazine article entitled "Poetry Slam; Or, The Decline of American Verse." Apply his discussion to one of the poets we read this semester.

3. Compare Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.

B. Grading Criteria for the Short Essay

An "A" essay will ...

1. ... have a clear, well-defined purpose/ focus/ thesis, and a title that reflects that;

2. ... be well-developed, including dates, author names, titles, other proper nouns, and specific, well-selected quotes from texts;

3. ... be well-organized, with clear section divisions and paragraph breaks;

4. ... be reasonably fluent and readable;

5. ... be well edited.