1. In “The Prophet’s Hair,” what is the story’s attitude toward the religious relic? Why does the relic cause such mayhem in Hashim’s life? Why does it destroy Sheikh Sin and cure his wife and children of their afflictions? What elements of Magical Realism do you see in the story? Be sure to provide quotations from the text(s) in order to support and illustrate your points. 2. Compare Yeats’s “Easter 1916” to Shelley’s “England in 1819” from Week 3. Which poem do you think has the harsher or more pointed political message? Which poet do you think risked more in writing his poem? Be sure to provide quotations from the text(s) in order to support and illustrate your points. 3. Compare and contrast any points made by Virginia Woolf about women writers in “A Room of One’s Own” with those made by Mary Wollstonecraft in “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” from Week 3. What do you think Woolf and Wollstonecraft agree about? What would they possibly disagree about? Be sure to provide quotations from the text(s) in order to support and illustrate your points. 4. Taking William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” as a whole and “Songs of Experience” as a whole, do you think one can be read without the other? Must they be read in conjunction in order to fully appreciate either one, or can they exist independently of each other? Be sure to provide quotations from the text(s) in order to support and illustrate your points.
