How to Write an Introduction and a Conclusion

Writing an introduction and conclusion for an English Literature essay can often be the most difficult process as choosing which information to include whilst not giving away to much about your essay can be very challenging. As a starting point, it is most important to introduce your texts, including their full title, author and publication date. Make sure to either italicize the title of your text, if it is a novel or longer poem, or place it in quotation marks, if it is a short story or poem from a collection. Once this is done, think about how you have explored/are going to explore the theme of your essay on a larger scale, not being too specific – for instance, considering whether it has moral or political significance in relation to the context in which the text is written. In setting up your essay through the introduction, including context about the period in which your text(s) were written gives one the opportunity to define its (their) cultural significance and/or cultural reception – were they controversial, did they challenge the literary expectations of the time? An example of an introduction would be: Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, published in 1594, and Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, first printed in 1591, employ two contrasting archetypes of masculinity who, through their political, moral and societal transgression, serve to challenge the hegemonic values of the Renaissance period in which the poems were composed. Elizabethan society viewed masculinity as the embodiment of patriarchal values of duty and authority whilst the feminine ideal existed in subjugation and marginalization. The narrative poetry of Shakespeare and Sidney, in his ‘graver labour’, thereby confronts the period’s societal expectations of gender roles through their subversive exemplifications of masculinity. Writing a conclusion both contrasts the introduction process and shares similarities, in as much as it is important not to give specific examples from the text that should have been used throughout the essay BUT you should use ideas explored in your essay to come to your conclusion. This final paragraph should express exactly what you were trying to say in the essay and HOW you have portrayed your points in light of the text’s cultural significance. As in the name, it should conclude your essay/bring it to a close and not be just another paragraph to make more points in. An example of a conclusion would thereby be: To conclude, the clash of Roman and Renaissance ideals embodied by Lucrece and the Neoplatonic Petrarchan love-interest that Stella represents are both passive agents in the development of both Tarquin and Astrophil’s transgressive masculinity within The Rape of Lucrece and Astrophil and Stella. Shakespeare and Sidney correspondingly allocate much significance to the idea of masculinity within their poetry in its confrontation of the institutional norms and taboos of Renaissance England, demonstrating the fragility of the political, moral and societal confines in which the patriarchal ideal existed.(both introduction and conclusion are taken from one of my own essays)