Assignment: Critical Summary

This exercise will give you practice in critical reading, summary writing in its objective and critical forms, and evaluation of an article focusing on Canadian literature and culture.

The following is a list of articles published in Canadian Literature about A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. Select one journal article from the list, and write a critical summary. See Writing a Critical Summary for help.

• Flavio Multineddu’s A Tendentious Game With An Uncanny Riddle
• Gwendolyn Guth’s Reading Frames of Reference
• Linda Lamont-Stewart’s article Rescued by Postmodernism
• Stephen Milnes’ Colonialist Discourse, Lord Featherstone’s Yawn and the Significance of the Denouement
• M. G. Parks’ Strange to Strangers Only

Key Things to Remember:

• Summarize the thesis of the article.
• Evaluate the article’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Take a position for or against the argument presented in the article.
• Keep your summary concise without distorting the meaning of the original paper.

Works Cited

• Guth, Gwendolyn. Reading Frames of Reference: The Satire of Exegesis in James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. Canadian Literature 145 (1995): 39–59. Print. (PDF)
• Lamont-Stewart, Linda. Rescued by Postmodernism: The Escalating Value of James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. Canadian Literature 145 (1995): 21–36. Print. (PDF)
• Milnes, Stephen. Colonialist Discourse, Lord Featherstone’s Yawn and the Significance of the Denouement in A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. Canadian Literature 145 (1995): 86–104. Print. (PDF)
• Multineddu, Flavio. A Tendentious Game with an Uncanny Riddle: A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. Canadian Literature 145 (1995): 62–81. Print. (PDF)
• Parks, M. G. Strange to Strangers Only. Canadian Literature 70 (1976): 61–78. Print. (PDF)