Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Research Paper Guidelines
Overview
You will select a significant work of literature and write a research paper
relating the work to our broader discussion of Western culture and Christian
thought.
Potential Topics
This is not a comprehensive list of all great works written before the modern
era. Rather, it is a starting point, a collection of ideas to help guide you to a
promising thesis topic.
Pre-Classic
Epic of Gilgamesh
Jeremiah: Lamentations
Job
Psalms: selections
Solomon: Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
Greek
Aeschylus: any play
Apollonius Rhodius: Argonautica
Euripides: any play
Herodotus: The Histories
Hesiod: Works and Days
Homer: Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymns
Plato: any dialogue
Sophocles: Antigone, Oedipus Rex
Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War
Latin
Apuleius: The Golden Ass
Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, Confessions, City of God
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy
Caesar, Julius: The Gallic Wars
Catullus: selected poems
Cicero, Marcus Tullius: any work
Eusebius: Church History
Horace: selected poems
Gregory the Great: Cura Pastoralis
Josephus: any work
Juvenal: any work
Livy: The History of Rome
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
Origen: any work
Ovid: Metamorphoses
Plutarch: selected lives from Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Caesars
Tacitus: Annals, Germania, Histories
Terence: any play
Tertullian: any work
Vergil: Aeneid, Bucolics, Georgics
Medieval
Ancrene Wisse
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Aquinas, Thomas: any work
The Arabian Nights
The Battle of Maldon
Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Beowulf
Boccaccio: Decameron
Chaucer, Geoffrey: Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde
Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy, La Vita Nuova
El Cid
Everyman
Gower: Confessio Amantis
Ibn Battuta: Rihla
Koran: selected passages
Langland, William: Piers Plowman
Layamon: Brut
Machiavelli, Niccolo: The Prince
Malory, Thomas: Le Morte d’Arthur
de Meun, Jean: Roman de la Rose
The Niebelungenlied
Njal’s Saga
Polo, Marco: Travels
Pearl Poet: “The Pearl,” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, “Sir Orfeo”
Petrarch: selected poems
Pisan, Christine de: selected poems
Poetic Edda
Ramayana
The Song of Roland
Sturluson, Snorri: Prose Edda
Renaissance
Arminius, Jacobus: any work
Bacon, Francis: selected essays
Behn, Aphra: any work
Calvin, John: any work
Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote
Cranmer, Thomas: The Book of Common Prayer
Diaz, Bernal: A True History of the Conquest of New Spain
Donne, John: any work
Erasmus, Desiderius: any work
Foxe, John: Acts and Monuments (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs)
Galileo, any work
Grantham, Thomas: Christianismus Primitivus
Hakluyt, Richard: Voyages
Helwys, Thomas: any work
Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles
Jonson, Ben: any play
Latimer, Hugh: selected sermons
Loyola, Ignatius: Spiritual Exercises
Luther, Martin: any work
Marlowe, Christopher: any play
Montaigne: selected essays
More, Thomas: any work
Shakespeare, William: any work
Sidney, Philip: Astrophel and Stella, A Defense of Poesy, The Countess
of Pembroke’s Arcadia
Simons, Menno: any work
Spencer, Edmund: The Faerie Queene, The Shepherd’s Calendar
Taylor, Jeremy: Holy Living, Holy Dying
Tottel, Richard: Tottel’s Miscellany
Tyndale, William: any work
Grading Criteria
Your research paper will be graded as follows.
Content: 45%
Do you provide a clear, provable thesis?
Do you defend and support your thesis with concrete evidence?
Do you demonstrate an awareness of issues surrounding your thesis
and the work it examines?
Structure: 30%
Do you have an introduction?
Does your argument proceed logically?
Are your transitions smooth?
Do you have a conclusion?
Length and Format: 10%
Is your paper 2,000-2,500 words long?
Is your paper double-spaced?
Do you follow Turabian format? (For this paper, use endnotes and
include a bibliography.)
Spelling & Grammar: 5%
Is your paper polished?
Sources: 10%
Do you have 8-10 valid sources, including at least one full-length book
and one journal article?
Are your sources appropriate and adequate for the topic?