Reflection

My initial thought upon receiving the assignment was to write a more modern version of a scene from Gawain, mocking the pompous ideas of chivalry. However, I thought the idea was rather cliched. During a discussion with my table in class one day, we touched upon the idea of reading the poem through a certain lens. I proposed a new idea to Mr. Barra: writing an overly dramatic critical analysis of the book through a psychoanalytic lens. Mr. Barra was concerned that it would be difficult to convey the idea of satire through such a lens, but liked the idea of mocking the pretentious writing of literary critics.

After some thought, I decided to modify my idea by writing a literary critique of the color green in the poem. I hoped to mimic the obtuse and esoteric language of literary critics to show how they can make describing even such a simple color a complex endeavor. I also wanted to make fun of how critics over analyze simple texts, reading more meaning into the language than the author probably intended.

I think I should get 39 out of 40 points. The piece does a pretty good job of capturing the satirical genre and the conclusions of the argument are humorous (I hope). It is also pretty lengthy, and took a lot of time to write, so I would like the assignment to count for more points. However, I do think I could have introduced more humor in the opening paragraph to emphasize that the piece was satirical.