Any title which you are set, or which you develop yourself, encapsulates a problem to be solved; it would not otherwise be worth posing as a university-level assignment. It is a useful exercise to consider why you have been set that title; why it is a fruitful way of engaging with the text and what problems does it raise? This is particularly true of the more open types of title. Once you have identified the problem and become aware of the range of potential approaches or solutions, you will have begun to engage with it at a more sophisticated level. Look for contradictions, propositions or assumptions to challenge, juxtapositions of issues where the connection between them needs unpicking, issues which have a wider impact on our understanding, or which might engender a range of views, or for which there is no obvious explanation.
Activity
What are the problems contained in the following essay title?
"Words cannot paint the horror." (Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto) Discuss the relationship between horror and inexpressibility.
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