Second Take-Home Exam Questions and Answer Explanations

I completed my second take-home exam this evening. I wrote an essay on the themes of John Keats' poetry, namely death and mortality. There were two other essays I had to write as well. This time around, we had four sections to choose from and were required to select one essay prompt out of three of them. I chose to write a couple pages or so each about items from sections I, II, and IV. (I decided not to do anything with section III, which pertained to the writings of Mary Shelley. No disrespect to Ms. Shelley and her fine work, but analyses/interpretations of Frankenstein are a little trite and, well, done before.) Anyway, below are the questions that I did answer and my explanations of those answers.
I. Byron
b. "Glimpses of Julia." Analyze the character of Donna Julia in Don Juan, Canto I, emphasizing how different moments in the poem give us strikingly different views of her. Is the portrait ultimately a consistent one, or not?
For my answer to this question, I discussed the changes in Don Juan's perception of Donna Julia, his love interest. I said that in the beginning, Donna Julia, although a sexy, exotic beauty, was still quite chaste and innocent on the inside. In other words, her perceived sexuality was superficial. Later, Julia escapes an unsatisfying marriage to a much older man by having an affair with a very young Don Juan. At the end of the canto, Julia repents for her sinful deeds and becomes an older, wiser version of her earlier self. I argued that the portrait of her is consistent in that Julia basically changes by reverting to the chastity of her youth.
II. Percy Shelley
a. "Agnosticism in The Cenci." Paying close attention to key passages, show how the play undermines traditional religious faith, building a strong implicit case for agnosticism or atheism.
This play, based on a true story of the wicked 16th-century Italian count, Francesco Cenci, tackles the issue of hypocrisy within the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. In one of the passages I cited, Cenci is trying to "buy" his way into Heaven by paying large sums of his sizeable fortune in order to avoid punishment for abusing his daughter, Beatrice, who helps devise a plan to assassinate her father in retaliation for his evil deeds. The other passage I allude to in the essay is a dialogue between Beatrice and stepmother Lucretia in which Beatrice decries the fact that history will probably view her father as a great ruler, while she will be forever punished if she goes through with killing him, even though he is a terrible person and abuses her horribly. I took Beatrice's side, arguing that the social conventions of her time and social status, not to mention her religion, dictated that she suffer in silence. Ultimately, I decided that the play was a definite case for atheism, since both earthly justice and traditional faith have failed Beatrice miserably. (Personally, I think the play is also an excellent argument for the separation of church and state, but that wasn't part of the question.)
IV. Keats
c. "Accepting Death." In an essay touching on at least two of the Odes, discuss ways that Keats comes to grips with death-- that is, with mortality in general, and perhaps specifically with the premonition of his own early death.
For starters, I discussed the aforementioned themes in Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." For example, in one stanza, Keats uses the nightingale, an ancient bird species, as a symbol for longevity. Here, Keats exclaims that he wishes that he, like nightingales, will be able to create art that will be enjoyed by many generations. I concluded this portion of the essay by stating that even though Keats had premonitions of an early death, he found solace in that fact that he could write enduring poetry. (Incidentally, Mr. Keats' premonition proved to be right, for he died at age 25, two years after writing his "Great Odes" series.) Next, I discussed "Ode on a Grecian Urn." In this paragraph, I said that the poem's final stanza "says it all." More specifically, I argued that Keats is describing the true meaning of life-- creating beautiful things and contributing beautiful ideas to society. I really like this stanza! Finally, I stated that the two poems are in sharp contrast to one another in that Keats' attitude in the former is one of grappling with death and mortality, whereas the latter poem illustrates a man who has come to terms with his inevitable impending death. My ultimate assertion is that Keats does indeed live on through his words.