Detailed Notes on Essay Structure and Poem Analysis

Diversity of Expertise: Choose either "Valediction" or another poem to discuss alongside one or two others to showcase expertise.
Poem Requirements:
- Two poems with at least a passing reference to a third.
- One poem must be either "valediction" or related to the discussion of one or two other poems.
Placement: "Valediction" pairs well with the discussion of arrival at death.

Purpose: Topic sentences should address the purpose of both Dickinson and Donne's poems.
Contrast and Comparison: Draw contrasts or comparisons between Edson and Donne; their poems may be in opposition or doing the same thing.
Order: Generally discuss Donne's poetry first, then move to Edson's.
Transitions: Ensure clear connections and shifts in argument between discussions of Donne and Edson.
Signaling: Use transitional sentences to signal the movement of the argument and what will be said in the next phase.

Key Terms: Incorporate relevant vocabulary throughout the essay.
- Ontological dualism
- Sonnet form
- Volta
- Sepsis
- Eschatology
- Doctrine of the Atonement
- Metatheater
- Discourse
- Constructivist narratives
- Intellectualism
- Science and aggressionism
- One-act play
Mise en abyme:
- A device where an image contains a copy of itself, suggesting an infinitely recurring sequence.
- In film and literary theory, it refers to a story within a story.
- In art, it's like a painter painting a painting of himself painting.
- The story is forever being told, with us as just one part.
- Relates to Edson looking to Donne to understand her death, and Donne looking to the Bible to understand his death.

Attempts to Counter Suffering:
- How does suffering and the recognition of the brevity of life impact our understanding of humanity?
- How does Donne accept human sin and suffering and represent his yearning for a return to Eden?
- How does the hospital setting impact Vivian's perception of human life and achievement?
- How does Vivian use wit to comprehend conflicting ideas about humanity?
Argument Development:
- Present Donne's perspective, then Edson's perspective, then synthesize to form a conclusion.
- Personal response: What conclusions can be drawn from studying both texts?
- How does considering both texts provide a better, more intelligent, more considered position?
- Initial Response: Both Donne and Vivian initially avoid death by being clever and witty.
- Synthesis: What does this tell us about humanity, our fascination with the afterlife, and our obsession with mortality?
Comparative Analysis: Avoid simply writing two mini-essays overlaid on each other.
Synthesis: Clearly articulate the synthesis of the two texts.
- Include personal, informed responses.

Questions to Consider:
- How does suffering confront what and how we value?
- How does suffering force us to question what is important and why?
- How does Donne accept the fallen human condition and acknowledge the need for spiritual redemption?
- How does this process encourage Vivian to arrive at a more truthful understanding of herself and her shortcomings?
- Why does Vivian look to her past while reflecting on experiences?
- How does this reflect a shift in values?
- Donne looks to God; Vivian looks to her past, reflecting changing values and understanding of death over time.

Questions to Consider:
- How does Donne explore spiritual completion, both in individual salvation and the transcendent nature of relationships?
- How does Dunne aspire for his relationship with God to be echoed within his relationships with others in his life beyond moral realm?
- What does Vivian conclude about the nature of death in the course of her life?
- How has Vivian reconstructed her sense of self as she approaches death?
- What role does her sense of legacy play in this process?

Purpose: Be clear about the purpose for both Donne and Edson.
- They both have a similar purpose to unpack and scrutinize the experience of death.
- How have their purposes been impacted by their context and the shift in values surrounding death, faith, and the individual?
Textual Conversation: How do both texts engage in an ongoing human conversation about death?
- Edson uses the play to grapple with the way salvation and redemption have been redefined in the late twentieth century.
- Donne uses his poetry and the valediction to find clarity in the confessional aspects of the bible.
- What does this tell us about our urge as humans to understand these concepts?
Human Need: Very human need to understand something that is so unknown.
- Why we have religion, science, and rationalism.
- Death is something that we will never fully be able to find an answer to.
- Doomed to forever be questioning what goes on after death.
- The urge to understand the big, inscrutable, and life-changing.
- Even if we know that we're never gonna find the answer, we still wanna kind of spend time in that space trying to unpack it.
- Vivian (Edson) represents that really well where we've got Vivian realizing by the end of the play that death is not an intellectual experiment.
- We have this urge to intellectualize death, and we see both personas and protagonists in each of the texts fundamentally accept that they can't intellectualize this process.

Poisonous Minerals:
- Reflects on the responsibility while playing a part in salvation.
- Could be tied to paragraph two.
Valediction:
- Symptom of suffering, reflecting fear of the unknown after death.
- Linked to the importance of relationships in accepting death.
- Can be linked to paragraph one and two.
Hymn to God:
- About getting ready to face God.
- Connected to paragraph three and the play's last scene.
- Ontological dualism can be incorporated into the scrutiny.

You're halfway up the mountain.
You know your three paragraphs and where you're gonna put the three poems that you'll be referring to.
Pick the three poems that you understand the best.

In paragraph one, you might spend most of the paragraph talking about "deputy not grant".
Then you might move into paragraph two, and you might talk about "poisonous minerals" and play's last seen together.
And then in paragraph three, you might just talk about "him to God" or "Valediction".
Picking and choosing from the big pool of the poetic examples that we can draw from based on what's relevant to your argument.
Don't just write about one poem per paragraph.
If you start paragraph two and you're talking about you're talking about the way that he wants to be he wants to have a role in his redemption, and then he and then he has this realization about his relationship with God, then you need to be able to draw from both of those poems to be able to make an argument that is substantial.

You can technically talk about more than three.
No, you would only talk about three.
Yes. Passing reference is the third problem.
But, like, would him to go to validation have to be one of the main
You don't just have to have two examples from Donne and two examples from Wynn.
Refer to two poems of your combination of the three in every single one of your paragraphs if you wanted to.
You need to specify which poems it's from.
Three poems maximum. You need to make life easy for yourself.
Stop playing life on hard mode.

A passing reference in the sense that you don't need to treat it with the same detail as your other poems.