Ashes Sparks & Hypertext project: Remapping poems

What's that? Doing what to poems? AS&H students were asked to practice some unusual intervention on their favorite romantic texts.

Click on images to browse examples of the projects submitted. The project assignment is at the bottom of this page.

Pick a poem on the syllabus that particularly interests or troubles you. This can be the same poem that you did research work on, but it certainly doesn't have to be.

Write a 4-5 page argument, based on close reading, on how that poem acts to shape its own reception. Reach for the surprising and anti-intuitive; make sure you prove your thesis with judicious use of details from the poem. Some leads: Does the poem present itself as fragmented or whole, and how does it invite a reader to respond to its (in)completion? If a surrogate reader or receiver is imagined, how exactly is that surrogate treated, and why? Does the poem defend against or welcome deviant, disruptive, distorted reception?

Think of a new way to present the poem, one that will reflect the insight of your essay. Keep in mind the capabilities of the Web as you imagine how the text could be re-ordered, linked, contrasted, flashed, or supplemented with image/sound.

On 2 pages of regular paper, or a larger single sheet if you prefer, carefully draw a diagram of your re-presented poem. Bear in mind the various ways of diagraming we've mentioned in class: flow chart, venn diagram, matrix, timeline... but by all means feel free to indulge in your Berkeley creativity.

Finally, write a brief (1 page) explanation of how your diagram works to bear out your essay.