Help me kick around essay ideas - Writers Forum

PrettyPistol · 02-12-2008, 12:21 PM

So I have to have two theses (is that plural for thesis? Lol) and outlines due tomorrow, and well finding what to right about is my biggest problem when it comes to writing. I was hoping you guys could help give me ideas at least for my Brit Lit paper (I have more ideas for my history paper).

The prompt asks to watch the movie A Knight's Tale and compare one aspect of it to the same aspect in the middle English literature we've read so far [Beowulf, Lanval, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales: General Prologue, The Wife of Bath's prologue and tale, and The Miller's tale].

It's hard for me to try to link all or some of those in my head right now, and obviously re-reading them all is out of the question (I'm not a speed reader).

But I did some brainstorming, and here is one idea I'm working with, but was hoping you guys could help me expand on.

I was thinking about reward and motivation (or both as one). So Beowulf's reward seemed to be gold and respect, Lanval's reward seemed to be his life and love, Gawain's was maybe pride / protecting Arthur and also his life, The Wife of Bath's tale maybe control / happiness.... Not so sure about The Miller's tale...Maybe women....

So that's a bit of stuff, but I need five pages out of this, and have to use scholarly research....

I was also thinking of tying in the risks of failure to attain these awards (death in most cases)...

As for the scholarly research, anyone have a good idea for how to go about that? I've done a good bit of it last semester, but it's always hard getting good articles... I'm not sure what to search for in the databases...I found an article on the movie which is decent, but only speaks of my (proposed) topic in a few lines...

It's hard finding research on Beowulf because I find like 50,000 articles...LOL Same with Canterbury....

Any suggestions you can supply would be appreciated!!!

amalie_bowers · 04-22-2008, 02:26 AM

Of course it will start on deciding the topic your are going to write. I suggest that you avoid a broad topic, try to be specific as much as possible. Then, start from scratch, you have the idea and you just don't know how to start it.