tzikeh

I have *one more paper* to write for this semester. All my final exams are taken; all of my other papers are in. The paper I need to write is for Survey of British Literature Part One: Medieval Anglo-Saxon Works through Seventeenth Century Metaphysical Poets. The paper only has to be six freaking pages, *double-spaced*, for goodness' sake, and I am drawing a complete blank. I don't even have to prove my thesis, just show thoughtful development. It's not even a research paper--just a close reading of a piece or pieces we've covered. I can't use anything but the materials we've read.

Venerable Bede (selections)
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (selections)
Exeter Book Elegies
Beowulf (in a truly exhaustingly poor translation)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Selections from Canterbury Tales (General Prologue, Miller's Prologue and Tale, Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale)
Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play
Wyatt and Surrey's translations and Englishings of Petrarchan sonnets, and then a few of their own
Sidney's Astrophil and Stella (just a few pieces)
Spenser's Amoretti (selections), Shakespeare's sonnets (selection)
John Donne (Good Morrow, Sun Rising, Flea, Valediction Forbidding Mourning, Elegy 19, To His Mistress Going to Bed, Holy Sonnets 6 and 10)
George Herbert (Redemption, Easter Wings, Prayer 1, Jordan 1 & 2, The Windows, The Collar, Love)
Robert Herrick (Argument of his Book, Delight in Disorder, His Farewell to Sack, Corinna's Gone A-Maying, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, The Hock-Cart, Upon Julia's Clothes)
Andrew Marvell (To His Coy Mistress, Mower Against Gardens, The Garden)

All I need is a freaking thesis. It doesn't have to be complex; it just needs to be thesis-like. The example the professor gave was "The role of women as portrayed in "The Wife's Lament (Exeter Elegy) and "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" differs greatly due to the genre of these works as well as each woman's social status."

My first two close readings were "The Wife's Lament as compared to the other Exeter Elegies; internal vs. external journeying", and "The role of the natural world in Wyatt and how it differs from Surrey's use of it". Easy-peasy, made sense, whipped them off in no time.

IT'S THAT STRAIGHTFORWARD. And I can't think of a fucking thing.

Help? Seriously. Any ideas at all might spark something.