Would any students or even teachers/profs be willing to give me feedback on my (very) short essay?
It’s an essay about how Bisclavret: The Werewolf (a medieval story) is a queer allegory about coping with human nature being different than what is described in Adam and Eve (i.e cis heteronormative monogamy) which was and is the dominant Christian view of human nature.
Most of the essays on Google/DuckDuckGo that come up when you look up “Bisclavret” are queer essays, including an essay published by the foundation of original author, but my prof told me:
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you didn’t even talk about the major point of the story which is that Bisclavret is a werewolf
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I don’t know why you think the king and Bisclavret are engaged in a sexual relationship
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the connections to homosexuality are tenuous at best
I just want to know if he’s docking my marks based on his personal bias or if I’m genuinely not meeting the rubric. I’m second guessing myself and I’m worried I’m overreacting, I’m very sure that I met the rubric requirements but I feel like he just doesn’t like my analysis or wants to shut it down because it was using a queer lens (white presumably religious cis het male prof from a religious university/college). I’m afraid if I dispute it he will retaliate and grade me even worse but I also feel very discouraged so if I’m not overreacting I want to dispute it.
I can send an anonymized link to a scrubbed essay and the professor’s feedback through DM if anyone wants to help 
you didn’t even talk about the major point of the story which is that Bisclavret is a werewolf
If I’m being charitable, he’s ignorant and not exactly college professor level material - the point of college level discourse is the diversity of ideas and discussion. A professor that doesn’t want you to write an interpretation of themes and ideas needs to specify that in the rubric. Otherwise the default assumption is that they’re asking you to think on it and produce a unique take.
You probably won’t get anywhere in a religious school though. You just kinda need to ask yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. If you feel you can talk to him, pop in during his office hours and talk about how others see these same things, see what his take is.
Otherwise the default assumption is that they’re asking you to think on it and produce a unique take.
That was my exact thought, I had never been given pushback from a prof before for queer analysis. I’m at a secular school in an otherwise very queer friendly department but after some digging after I got his feedback I found out this prof is from a religious oriented department federated in my college/uni.
Ohhhh, okay. That changes things a lot. Fight it.
I’m an English teacher with a background in literature if you want me to take a look
I’d also need to know what the assignment was in the first place
Thank you so so much!!! I sent you a DM, let me know if there’s any issues
Okay, so I took a look and overall, I don’t think this professor is targeting you or grading you unfairly. I did take a look at the original poem, as well as your arguments, and I do agree that a queer lens could certainly be applied to the poem. However, the way you’re talking about the story makes it sound like an explicitly homosexual text, which it isn’t. I think a lot of that is a product of the assignment being a short response that doesn’t really give you the scope for what is ultimately a pretty complex argument about the text that needs a lot more breathing space, or maybe your research on other scholarship about the poem giving you the impression that a queer theory reading of the poem is a settled fact rather than one interpretation. However, it is also true that there is no explicit homosexuality in the text. I also think he’s right in that it’s difficult to follow your line of argument about what was asked in the prompt re. the view of human nature in the poem. You’re pointing at some different ideas about Adam and Eve, the Old vs. New Testament, a third reconciliation beyond the two. It’s ultimately too overambitious for what the assignment is.
I also look at the professor’s feedback, and it’s critical while being encouraging. He’s appreciative that you tried something here, although it didn’t quite work and acknowledges some of your writing strengths. If I got this from you, I would think that you were a strong, but still developing academic writer with a lot of interesting ideas that needs some work on the underlying structure and fundamentals of argument and interpretation that will support the more complex analysis you’re trying to do (and a better sense of what’s possible within the scope of the assignment).
As someone who works in pre/early modern lit, this is a good post and the real key I think is here:
However, the way you’re talking about the story makes it sound like an explicitly homosexual text, which it isn’t.
I haven’t read OP’s essay, but in general this is the big thing with gender/sexuality and pre modern texts. Noncery aside,
reminds us that these things are historically determined. If you want to read homosexual desire into a pre modern texts you need to basically do the work to explain how that desire fits into the material conditions of the medieval period.Btw, this is actually rooted in a Marxist approach - sex and desire are not trans-historical but always determined by the material conditions of the historical moment. If you’re gonna read same sex desire into Bisclarivet (which, as you note, is actually a commonplace) you have to do the work to read it into the text and articulate how we see something like same sex desire in a period where this didn’t really have a systematic/ideological/cultural sanction.
Ok this really helped put it all into perspective for me, genuinely thank you so much for taking an honest look and your feedback was really clarifying. I really struggle with reading tone so I may have read his feedback as more passive aggressive (autism strikes again). You’re right that I took the queer reading as a given and it was overambitious for the assignment. I’ve been stressing about this all day cause I was so unsure about the situation and reading your feedback and talking through it has allowed me to take a step back.
I really appreciate the kind words and I’m genuinely looking forward to developing those skills. I’m the only person I know in university/college so reading this is really helping me to understand the norms and expectations and how to succeed. I’ve never even heard the fundamentals of argument and fundamentals of interpretation so I will definitely be researching and practicing those skills going forward with my writing. Thank you again for taking the time and energy to do this!!
Absolutely no problem. One general thing I’d recommend, not just for this class but any class is dropping by your professors’ office hours maybe once a month or every couple of weeks. Come with a question about the reading or get some feedback on an assignment in progress. Make an excuse if you need to. You will have a much more collegiate relationship with your professors, they will know you more as a person, and it will very much come in handy if you need to ask for a recommendation or something
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I had to make a formal, public apology for sexual harassment (I told the dude something like “you’re not gay you’ve no right”) for complaining someone wrote a homophobic story in college. That was 12 years ago and I assume things are worse now
wtfI see so many queer/gender studies with PhDs publishing lgbtq+ literary analysis but I haven’t seen any articles about how to navigate the college environment itself as a queer student given that almost every Prof is a cis het white man wielding an immense power imbalance.
Like how did they manage? If someone can’t even say “don’t write a homophobic story” or write “werewolves are gay” without being reprimanded how did these other queer people survive in the system long enough to get PhDs and become professors themselves?
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That’s horrible I’m sorry you went through that
I’ve been lucky enough to have mostly good professors but I’m realizing that outside of their clique I’m starting to realize I might be in a more hostile environment. My part of the school has had recent problems with violence because of it but I thought it would mostly be just the STEM department with discrimination problems on the professor side.
Do you think a paper explaining why you believe that what you wrote actually reached his criteria would do more harm than good?
You could submit a paper thoroughly detailing the points you wanted to reach and the process you used to do so, then explain why you feel this meets his criteria if you don’t think he would react negatively.
Example: he says the main point is that bisclavret is a werewolf and that the connections to homosexuality are tennous at best; well if you could explain what in the story leads you to a different conclusion; then maybe top it with a citation of the essay from the authors foundation (but don’t use that as primary justification), would he take that well or as a challenge on his authority?
It really depends on the professor, but if you don’t think it would do more harm, this could either 1) change his mind, or 2) make it more clear his reasonings depending on his response, allowing you to move forward with the accurate understanding of his POV. Whether it be dismissal of analysis through LGBTQ lense, or a genuine belief your paper just didn’t reach the mark.
His feedback was that everything else in the paper was good. He said he doesn’t see how Bisclavret is an allegory for homosexuality and that I didn’t follow the prompt of discussing how human nature is explored in Bisclavret.
I don’t understand how talking about cis heteronormativity and monogamy and werewolves as an allegory for otherness isn’t talking about human nature. Medieval Christian peasants, the people that created this story, were extremely sexually repressed like wtf.
He said that what I wrote wasn’t related to the source material when the queer allegory was so dense I would end up quoting half of the text, and I had to consciously avoid accidentally plagiarizing other queer writers because it’s the most common essay topic when googling Bisclavret. Notably literally none of his course materials mention queerness at all even though “werewolves are gay” is such a common take that even TERF Rowling uses it as a trope 🤢. To the point that it feels like a conscious exclusion or erasure of any queerness in his medieval studies curriculum.
Brb gonna drone strike your professor
you didn’t even talk about the major point of the story, which is that Gregor is a bug
that guy about the entirity of Kafka studies
you didn’t even talk about the major point of the story which is that Bisclavret is a werewolf
opinion discarded, this guy sounds like a dumbass. if he wants to read book reports, he should go teach grade school. literacy rates are low, he should consider trying to stop contributing to it himself.
In this comment, Lituro argues that it’s Very Stupid to expect students to simply summarize the contents of a text when developing an essay about it.
They don’t even say the word “werewolf” in the text, they only say the word beast
Thank you for saying this its really validating to hear
