Draft a two-to-three page essay where you explore the notion of “responsibility.”  Use etymologies and histories of the word to inform your discussion, as well as your own encounters with the word/the notion during your college careers.  You can even think about it in terms of your first reading assignments for the Seminar, also due the first and second days of class…

Although we aren’t going to spend very much time here discussing poetry – my inclination is that most of you are prose people (and those of you who aren’t can write well enough on poetry when the times comes) – the history of “the artist” really starts with folks thinking about poetry.  For the first Sunday of class, please have read Aristotle’s Poetics, particularly Sections IV, VI – IX (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html) , and Sidney’s “Defence of Poesy” (http://www.bartleby.com/27/1.html).