Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
CLCS 1101 Creative Assignment Suggested due date: 4 December
This assignment is one that we could say Ovid invented, in his Heroides, where he composed a series of
letters from the IMAGINED point of view of women who were famous characters in his own literary
tradition – where the original or traditional story is told from the point of view of the man who is the
hero. Ovid instead imagined how the women might describe their situation and tell the story of what
happened to them.
The task of imagining a story from another point of view became a famous classroom exercise in the
Middle Ages. Augustine, a fourth century African Christian author, tells of how he composed these
exercises as a school child, and listened to other students’ efforts. This exercise has been used down to
the present day, as a way to encourage students to understand the world from a point of view other
than their own (one of the learning outcomes for a Gen Ed class!).
Pick a scene or episode or maybe a couple of short scenes from ANY of the works we have read. Write
me a SINGLE SPACED composition AT LEAST ONE PAGE LONG in which you imagine and retell in your
own words how the scene would have looked and felt and been experienced from the point of view of
ANOTHER character. Not the character that in the original scene is 1) telling the story, or 2) whose
experience is the focus of the story. Somebody else in the story, or even a new character who you add.
For example, what would the Snake say about the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor? What might the
Queen of Sheba have to say about her visit to King Solomon in Kebra Nagast? What would Paolo say if it
were him telling the story instead of Francesca, in Dante’s Inferno?
Here are some tips to make your imagined story more interesting and more fun to write.
a) Think about the character, feelings, life history, and perspective of the character you’re putting
at the center. Just as if you were acting. Put some time into imagining them in the scene, maybe
visualize it as if you were watching it.
b) You can tell your piece of the story IN THE CHARACTER’S OWN WORDS or else have a
NARRATOR who tells us what your character is thinking and feeling.
