Quotation Identification is the process of explaining the context and significance of a quotation from the works we have read during the course. I will only select quotations from the assigned readings, and will choose quotations that illustrate some important theme we have addressed during the course.
Your quotation identification should demonstrate that you know from what literary work the quotation is taken, and what author or civilization produced that literary work. The best identifications will also indicate when the literary work was written (inasmuch as we know).
More importantly, your identification should demonstrate that you understand what more general theme the quotation illustrates. That connection should comprise the bulk of your answer.
Additionally, quotation identifications are not the correct venue to express your opinion about the term in question. Your identification should be purely factual. The venue to express your (well reasoned, supported) opinion will be the essay.
Examples of quotation identifications that would earn the full range of marks, from zero to four points, are given below. If you have any particular questions about what makes a good quotation identification, please do not hesitate to ask.
“Meriones overtook him as he was flying, and struck him on the right buttock. The point of the spear went through the bone into the bladder, and death came upon him as he cried aloud and fell forward on his knees.”
Drawn from book five of Homer’s Iliad, written sometime around 700 B.C., this quotation illustrates the Greek virtue of Techne. Techne is skill with tools or weapons, and Meriones demonstrates his Techne by the specificity and devastating nature of the wound he inflicts. Techne contributed to Arete, virtue or excellence, so here Meriones demonstrates that he is an excellent man, which was the ultimate purpose of the Greek life.
Drawn from the Iliad written in ancient Greece, this quotation illustrates the virtue of skill with weapons. Meriones demonstrates his skill by the specificity and devastating nature of the wound he inflicts. This would make him have more virtue, which was the objective of the Greek life.
This quotation from the Iliad shows how the hero had virtue, because he could kill someone really gruesomely. He stabs him in a vital spot that shows how he knows how to use his spear, and is deadly with it.
This quotation shows how Meroines [sic] was virtous because he did a good job killing his enemy. He stabs him and hits a vital organ killing him, which happens a lot on the Iliad.
This is a gross part where the guy kills another hero by stabing [sic] him.