Literary Mosaic

Final Project Assignment: Literary Mosaic
ENGL 2310-80
Write a 1500-2000 word essay in the style of Sei Shonagan’s The Pillow Book. Use a number of sections and categories as Shonagan does to create a literary “mosaic” which creates form out of apparently random elements. Shonagan uses: lists of poetic images, personal memories, reflections about everyday life, observations on love, age, social class and/or gender, short stories in the various sections of her work.
You can access a variety of excerpts from The Pillow Book online at: http://web.archive.org/web/20070313222036/http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/shonagon.html
For those of you who would rather follow the example of the Online List, you can use the lists at http://www.listverse.com (Ten Amazing Acts of Defiance, 9 Fairy Tales with Sinister Morals) for your essay. If you decide to do a “List” rather than “Pillow Book,” you should focus on some aspect of World Literature (i.e., Top Ten Villains in Ancient Mythology). Your list should provide documentation of sources in MLA style. Also, each entry in the list should provide: 1) a summary; 2) analysis; and 3) evaluation.
Use the following as an example of an individual section of a List: 1) summary: Loki is the Norse god of mischief, who kills the blind god Baldar . . . ; 2) analysis: Loki’s evil results from his envy of Baldar’s acceptance by the community in Valhalla . . . ; 3) evaluation: Loki’s evil makes him the enemy of all social and cosmic order—the personification of Chaos. Like Satan in the Bible, he is able to challenge the cosmic order itself; however, he is more powerful in his relationship with Odin, King of the Norse Gods, than the Biblical Satan is his relationship with the all-powerful Yahweh (who created and “controls” Satan) . . . .