(1) Problems in periodization (e.g., the definition of medieval and renaissance attitudes as these are found to be reflected in a major work of the fourteenth century, such as the Decameron).

(2) Genre study (e.g., the pastoral tradition in the European renaissance as reflected in Spenser or Sidney).

(3) Problems in poetics (e.g., Samuel Beckett's response to Romantic theories of inspiration; the relationship between generic and structural principles of criticism as these may be applied to one or two authors).

(4) Thematics (i.e., not merely the tracing of a literary idea or trope through several works, but the analysis of differences that distinguish varying uses of similar literary materials, such as Classical catalogues [e.g., Iliad II] and Romantic collections of junk [e.g., Balzac's Maison Vauquer, the contents of Félicité's room in "Un coeur simple"]).

(5) Critical perspective: an extended exercise in which the student chooses a critic and analyzes a text using his/her methodology (e.g., Wolfgang Iser's description of the act of reading applied to a prose poem of Baudelaire).

Deadlines and Extensions: Junior Papers are due in the Comparative Literature office, 133 East Pyne, on the date specified on the Departmental calendar. Any independent work received after the deadline will be subject to a grade reduction of three points per day on a scale of 100 (approximately one step on the letter-grade scale, e.g. from B+ to B). Petitions for extensions for medical reasons must include letters from a doctor or dean and be received by the Director of Undergraduate Studies at least seven days prior to the deadline in question. As independent work must be paced over the course of the entire academic year, petitions for extensions will normally not be deemed admissible in the final week before a deadline. The reasons for these rules are simple: (1) lateness is not fair to the other students who, perhaps at the risk of doing a less-than-perfect job, hand their work in on time, and (2) extensions ultimately handicap the individual directly involved, since they make the completion of the usual end-of-term course work all the more difficult.

SENIOR THESIS GUIDELINES

For most undergraduate students the initial thought of writing a senior thesis, even though their two junior papers together are more than half the length of the thesis, seems palpably unreal, as though they feel expected to walk from here to Chicago, swim the English Channel, in short, to complete a project which others have completed before them, but not others like themselves. t is thus of the utmost importance that juniors prepare themselves for the undertaking well before they leave for the summer by having a preliminary discussion with at least one member of the faculty and submitting a tentative statement of purpose (see Calendar for Departmental Independent Work) to the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

While there is no official set of requirements governing the choice of a topic, the following suggestions should be followed:

1) Students are discouraged from working on subjects for which they have scant or no preparation, thus essentially asking faculty to turn advising for the thesis into an informal course.

2) Students may not give significant space in their thesis to the treatment of works that they cannot read in the original language(s).

3) In general, students should be able to show that their preparation at Princeton and elsewhere has been sufficient to make their choice of topic a reasonable one.

What follows is a series of remarks that represent a mixture of requirements and advice:

(1) Each of you will, at least by early May of the junior year (see "Calendar for Departmental Independent Work"), meet with a member of the faculty in Comparative Literature and then draft a brief statement of purpose, to be submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by mid-May. This will ensure that work on the thesis may be begun early on. At this time assignments of thesis advisers and second readers will begin. Your relationship with the second reader is largely to be defined by the group including you and your two advisers. Some students work extensively with the second reader; others do not. In what follows we refer to a single adviser; you may understand that we potentially mean two of them. Just as it is the adviser's responsibility to be regularly available to students during office hours, it is the student's responsibility to respect the office hours posted by each faculty member and to keep appointments.

(2) The next step is to develop, in concert with your thesis adviser, a working bibliography of primary and secondary sources that should immediately become an object of close attention. N.B.: Early attention to bibliography is of especial importance when materials are not available in Firestone Library. In that case, a faculty member (generally the thesis adviser) will need to certify your need for such materials, so that they can be acquired by the Library, whether by Inter-Library Loan or acquisition.