Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing

For introductory courses in Literature.

Cultivates a love of literature and an understanding of effective writing

Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing introduces students to the appreciation and experience of literature in its major forms – and develops their abilities to think critically and communicate effectively through, and about, writing. Authors X.J. Kennedy and  Dana Gioia aim to help readers develop sensitivity to language, culture, and identity, see beyond the boundaries of their own selves, and view the world through the eyes of others. 

Each of the first three sections is devoted to one of the major literary forms of fiction, poetry, and drama; the fourth is a comprehensive introduction to critical writing. The 14th Edition of this trusted resource has been revised throughout for clarity and accessibility, and all chapters have been updated with a more visual appeal for current students. Packed with a variety of popular and provocative stories, poems, plays, and critical prose, it includes exciting and often-surprising contemporary selections. Every chapter has been reviewed and updated with relevant cultural references.  

X. J. KENNEDY, after graduation from Seton Hall and Columbia, became a journalist second class in the Navy (“Actually, I was pretty eighth class”). His poems, some published in the New Yorker, were first collected in Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Since then he has published seven more collections, including a volume of new and selected poems in 2007, several widely adopted literature and writing textbooks, and seventeen books for children, including two novels. He has taught at Michigan, North Carolina (Greensboro), California (Irvine), Wellesley, Tufts, and Leeds. Cited in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and reprinted in some 200 anthologies, his verse has brought him a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lamont Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an Aiken-Taylor prize, and the Award for Poetry for Children from the National Council of Teachers of English. He now lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he and his wife Dorothy have collaborated on five books and five children.

DANA GIOIA is a poet, critic, and teacher. Born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican ancestry, he attended Stanford and Harvard before taking a detour into business. (“Not many poets have a Stanford MBA, thank goodness!”) After years of writing and reading late in the evenings after work, he quit a vice presidency to write and teach. He has published four collections of poetry, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and Pity the Beautiful (2012); and three critical volumes, including Can Poetry Matter? (1992), an influential study of poetry’s place in contemporary America. Gioia has taught at Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan (Connecticut), Mercer, and Colorado College. From 2003 to 2009 he served as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. At the NEA he created the largest literary programs in federal history, including Shakespeare in American Communities and Poetry Out Loud, the national high school poetry recitation contest. He also led the campaign to restore active literary reading by creating The Big Read, which helped reverse a quarter century of decline in US reading. He is currently the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California. (The surname Gioia is pronounced JOY-A. As some of you may have already guessed, gioia is the Italian word for “joy.”)

FICTION

Talking with Amy Tan 

1. READING A STORY 

THE ART OF FICTION 

TYPES OF SHORT FICTION 

Sufi Legend, Death Has an Appointment in Samarra    A student tries to flee from Death in this brief, sardonic fable.

Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes    Ever wonder where the phrase “sour grapes” comes from? Find out in this classic fable.

Bidpai, The Camel and His Friends    With friends like these, you can guess what the camel doesn’t need.

Chuang Tzu, Independence    The Prince of Ch’u asks the philosopher Chuang Tzu to become his advisor and gets a surprising reply in this classic Chinese fable.

Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm , Godfather Death    Neither God nor the Devil came to the christening. In this stark folktale, a young man receives magical powers with a string attached.

PLOT

THE SHORT STORY

John Updike, A & P    In walk three girls in nothing but bathing suits, and Sammy finds himself no longer an aproned checkout clerk but an armored knight.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Wilhelm Grimm on Writing, On the Nature of Fairy Tales

THINKING ABOUT PLOT

CHECKLIST: Writing about Plot

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PLOT

TERMS FOR REVIEW

2. POINT OF VIEW

IDENTIFYING POINT OF VIEW

TYPES OF NARRATORS

HOW MUCH DOES A NARRATOR KNOW?

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily    Proud, imperious Emily Grierson defies the town from the fortress of her mansion. Who could have guessed the secret that lay within?

Muriel Spark , The First Year of My Life    An omniscient infant narrator, able to access any conversation or scene on the planet, is born into a time of war.

Eudora Welty, A Worn Path    When the man says to old Phoenix, “You must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing,” he might be exaggerating, but not by much.

James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues    Two brothers in Harlem see life differently. The older brother is the sensible family man, but Sonny wants to be a jazz musician.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

James Baldwin on Writing, Race and the African American Writer

THINKING ABOUT POINT OF VIEW

CHECKLIST: Writing About Point of View

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON POINT OF VIEW

TERMS FOR REVIEW

3. CHARACTER

CHARACTERIZATION

MOTIVATION 

Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain    Anders is in line when armed robbers enter the bank, and he can’t help but get involved.

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?    Alone in the house, Connie finds herself helpless before the advances of Arnold Friend, a spellbinding imitation teenager.

Toni Morrison, Recitatif    Over many decades, two women’s lives continue to collide, as they find that their relationship is complicated by the challenges of race, class, and circumstance.

Raymond Carver, Cathedral    He never expected to find himself trying to describe a cathedral to a blind man. He hadn’t even wanted to meet this odd, old friend of his wife.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Raymond Carver on Writing, Commonplace but Precise Language

THINKING ABOUT CHARACTER

CHECKLIST: Writing about Character

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON CHARACTER

TERMS FOR REVIEW

4. SETTING

ELEMENTS OF SETTING

HISTORICAL FICTION

REGIONALISM

NATURALISM

HOW SETTING CAN HARMONIZE WITH OTHER ELEMENTS OF A STORY

Kate Chopin, The Storm    Even with her husband away, Calixta feels happily, securely married. Why then should she not shelter an old admirer from the rain?

Jack London, To Build a Fire    Seventy-five degrees below zero. Alone except for one mistrustful wolf dog, a man finds himself battling a relentless force.

Ron Carlson , At the Jim Bridger    Two men nearly freeze to death in the Wyoming wilderness. How does their intimate encounter with their mortality change them?

Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets    A young woman flies with her father to China to meet two half-sisters she never knew existed.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Amy Tan on Writing, Developing a Setting

THINKING ABOUT SETTING

CHECKLIST: Writing About Setting

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SETTING

TERMS FOR REVIEW

5. TONE AND STYLE

TONE

STYLE

DICTION

Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place    All by himself each night, the old man lingers in the bright café. What does he need more than brandy?

William Faulkner, Barn Burning    This time when Ab Snopes wields his blazing torch, his son Sarty faces a dilemma: whether to obey or defy the vengeful old man.

IRONY

O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi    A young husband and wife find ingenious ways to buy each other Christmas presents, in the classic story that defines the word “irony.”

Margaret Atwood , Happy Endings    John and Mary meet. What happens next? This witty experimental story offers several different outcomes.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Ernest Hemingway on Writing, The Direct Style

THINKING ABOUT TONE AND STYLE

CHECKLIST: Writing about Tone and Style

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE AND STYLE

TERMS FOR REVIEW

6. THEME

PLOT VERSUS THEME

SUMMARIZING THE THEME

FINDING THE THEME

Stephen Crane, The Open Boat    In a lifeboat circled by sharks, tantalized by glimpses of land, a reporter scrutinizes Fate and learns about comradeship.

Sandra Cisneros, Barbie-Q    The trouble with buying Barbie dolls is that you want all the clothes, companions, and accessories. But in this neighborhood, things suddenly change.

Luke, The Parable of the Prodigal Son    A father has two sons. One demands his inheritance now and leaves to spend it with ruinous results.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr ., Harrison Bergeron    Are you handsome? Then off with your eyebrows! Are you brainy? Then a transmitter will sound thought-shattering beeps inside your ear.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Writing, The Themes of Science Fiction

THINKING ABOUT THEME

CHECKLIST: Writing About Theme

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON THEME

TERMS FOR REVIEW

7. SYMBOL

ALLEGORY

SYMBOLS

RECOGNIZING SYMBOLS

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums    Fenced-in Elisa feels emotionally starved–then her life promises to blossom with the arrival of the scissors-grinding man.

Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace    A woman enjoys one night of luxury, and then spends years of her life paying for it.

Ursula K. Le Guin , The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas    Omelas is the perfect city. All of its inhabitants are happy. But everyone’s prosperity depends on a hidden evil.

Shirley Jackson , The Lottery    Splintered and faded, the sinister black box has worked its annual terror for longer than anyone in town can remember.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Shirley Jackson on Writing, Biography of a Story

THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS

CHECKLIST: Writing About Symbols

Sample Student Paper, An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLS

TERMS FOR REVIEW

8. GENRE FICTION

ROMANCE VERSUS REALISM

WHAT IS GENRE?

COMMON TYPES OF GENRE FICTION

GENRE AND POPULAR CULTURE

Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder    In 2055, you can go on a Time Safari to hunt dinosaurs 60 million years ago. But put one foot wrong, and suddenly the future’s not what it used to be.

Kelly Link, The Faery Handbag    The magical handbag allows one to access other worlds, with both beautiful and dark consequences.

H. P. Lovecraft, The Outsider    He has been locked in a gothic castle for his entire life, until the day he escapes, but what he discovers outside sends him running back to his dark captivity.

Dashiell Hammett, One Hour    Someone killed a man named Newhouse in broad daylight on a San Francisco street. Our detective is on the case.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Ray Bradbury on Writing, Falling in Love at the Library

TOPICS FOR WRITING 

TERMS FOR REVIEW

9. READING LONG STORIES AND NOVELS

ORIGINS OF THE NOVEL

NOVELISTIC METHODS

READING NOVELS

Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych    The supreme Russian novelist tells how a petty, ambitious judge, near the end of his wasted life, discovers a harrowing truth.

Franz Kafka , The Metamorphosis    “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” Kafka’s famous opening sentence introduces one of the most chilling stories in world literature.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Franz Kafka on Writing, Gustav Janouch Discussing The Metamorphosis

THINKING ABOUT LONG STORIES AND NOVELS

CHECKLIST: Writing About Long Stories and Novels

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON LONG STORIES AND NOVELS

TERMS FOR REVIEW

10. LATIN AMERICAN FICTION

EL BOOM

MAGIC REALISM

AFTER EL BOOM

ARGENTINA: Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark    A young man from Buenos Aires is trapped by a flood on an isolated ranch. To pass the time, he reads the Gospel to a family, with unforeseen results.

COLOMBIA: Gabriel García Márquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World    Even in death, a mysterious stranger has a profound effect on all of the people in the village.

CHILE: Isabel Allende, Revenge    The young, beautiful Dulce Rosa Orellano is Queen of the Carnival and the daughter of a beloved Senator, and then a night of terrible violence changes her life forever.

MEXICO: Juan Rulfo, Tell Them Not to Kill Me!    A violent episode from decades past catches up with an old man. Will he be saved from the firing squad?

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Jorge Luis Borges on Writing, On Storytelling

TOPICS FOR WRITING

TERMS FOR REVIEW

11. CRITICAL CASEBOOK: Flannery O’Connor

FLANNERY O’CONNOR

A Good Man Is Hard to Find    Wanted: The Misfit, a cold-blooded killer. An ordinary family vacation leads to horror–and one moment of redeeming grace.

Revelation    Mrs. Turpin thinks herself Jesus’s favorite child, until she meets a troubled college girl. Soon violence flares in a doctor’s waiting room.

Parker’s Back     A tormented man tries to find his way to God and to his wife–by having himself

tattooed.

FLANNERY O’CONNOR ON WRITING

Insights into “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

On Her Catholic Faith

CRITICS ON FLANNERY O’CONNOR

Benjamin Percy, There Will Be Blood: Violence in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction

J. O. Tate, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit

Louise S. Cowan, The Character of Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation”

Damian J. Ference, No Vague Believer

Lucinda Williams, Meeting Flannery O’Connor

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON FLANNERY O’CONNOR

12. CRITICAL CASEBOOK: Three Stories in Depth

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The Tell-Tale Heart    The smoldering eye at last extinguished, a murderer finds that, despite all his attempts at a cover-up, his victim will be heard.

EDGAR ALLAN POE ON WRITING

On Imagination

The Philosophy of Composition

CRITICS ON “THE TELL-TALE HEART”

Daniel Hoffman, The Father-Figure in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Scott Peeples, “The Tell-Tale Heart” as a Love Story

Charles Baudelaire, Poe’s Characters

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

The Yellow Wallpaper    A doctor prescribes a “rest cure” for his wife after the birth of their child. The new mother tries to settle in to life in the isolated and mysterious country house they have rented for the summer. The cure proves worse than the disease in this Gothic classic.

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN ON WRITING

Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The Nervous Breakdown of Women

CRITICS ON “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER”

Juliann Fleenor, Gender and Pathology in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar , Imprisonment and Escape: The Psychology of Confinement

Elizabeth Ammons, Biographical Echoes in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

ALICE WALKER

Everyday Use    When successful Dee visits from the city, she has changed her name to reflect her

African roots. Her mother and sister notice other things have changed, too.

ALICE WALKER ON WRITING

The Black Woman Writer in America

Reflections on Writing and Women’s Lives

CRITICS ON “EVERYDAY USE”

Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement

Mary Helen Washington, “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist

Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker , Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

TOPICS FOR WRITING

13. GALLERY OF INTERNATIONAL VOICES

NIGERIA: Chinua Achebe , Dead Men’s Path    The new headmaster of the village school is determined to fight superstition, but the villagers do not agree.

BANGLADESH: Tahmima Anam , Garments    The girl who works next to Jesmin in the garments factory says one day, “My boyfriend wants to marry you.” Should Jesmin become this man’s third wife?

MEXICO: Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite    When Luisa visits her dying uncle, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever.

ALGERIA/FRANCE: Albert Camus, The Guest    A prisoner is delivered to a schoolhouse on a remote hillside, and the schoolmaster must decide what to do with him.

SOUTH AFRICA: Nadine Gordimer , The Defeated    In a dusty South African mining town, two schoolgirls become unlikely friends. As they grow up together, they start to grow apart.

JAPAN: Kazuo Ishiguro, A Family Supper    Something very odd lurks beneath the surface of this family supper, and it might prove fatal.

CHINA: Ha Jin, Saboteur    When the police unfairly arrest Mr. Chiu, he hopes for justice. After witnessing their brutality, he quietly plans revenge.

ANTIGUA: Jamaica Kincaid, Girl    “Try to walk like a lady, and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” An old-fashioned mother tells her daughter how to live.

EGYPT: Naguib Mahfouz, The Lawsuit    He thought he’d seen the last of his late father’s second wife, but now she’s back to trouble his peaceful existence.

INDIA: Bharati Mukherjee, Saints    Shawn wanders around his neighborhood at night, imagining an existence other than the sad, confusing, and often frightening home life dominated by the unwelcome presence of his mom’s boyfriend, Wayne.

CANADA: Alice Munro, Wild Swans    Rose has a disturbing and transformative experience on her first train ride to the big city.

IRAN: Marjane Satrapi, Kim Wilde (from Persepolis)    During the Islamic Revolution, rock ‘n’ roll contraband is smuggled into Iran.

14. STORIES FOR FURTHER READING

Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona    The only one who can help Victor when his father dies is a childhood friend he’s been avoiding for years.

T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake    Murky and strewn with beer cans, the lake appears to be a wasteland. One grim night on its shore, three “dangerous characters” learn a lesson.

Willa Cather, Paul’s Case    Paul’s teachers can’t understand the boy. Then one day, with stolen cash, he boards a train for New York and the life of his dreams.

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour    “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name.”

Neil Gaiman , How to Talk to Girls at Parties    Two teenage boys try to navigate their way through a party filled with exotic, mysterious girls.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown    Urged on through deepening woods, a young Puritan sees–or dreams he sees–good villagers hasten toward a diabolic rite.

Zora Neale Hurston , Sweat    Delia’s hard work paid for her small house. Now her drunken husband Sykes has promised it to another woman.

James Joyce, Araby    If only he can find her a token, she might love him in return. As night falls, a Dublin boy hurries to make his dream come true.

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies    Mr. Kapasi’s life had settled into a quiet pattern–and then Mrs. Das and her family come into it.

Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill    Sundays had long brought joy to solitary Miss Brill, until one fateful day when she happens to share a bench with two lovers in the park.

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried    What each soldier carries into the combat zone is largely determined by necessity, but each man’s necessities differ.

Daniel Orozco , Orientation    “Those are the offices and these are the cubicles.” Welcome to the first day of your new job.

George Saunders, Puppy    A puppy for sale exposes the vast class differences between seller and buyer.

Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned    Marauders ransack an island in a terrible show of violence, but not all the pirates have dark hearts.

Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House    Whatever hour you wake, a door is shutting. From room to room the ghostly couple walks, hand in hand.

POETRY

Talking with Kay Ryan

15. READING A POEM

POETRY OR VERSE

HOW TO READ A POEM

PARAPHRASE

William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

LYRIC POETRY

Robert Hayden , Those Winter Sundays

Adrienne Rich , Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

NARRATIVE POETRY

Anonymous , Sir Patrick Spence

Robert Frost , “Out, Out–”

DRAMATIC POETRY

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

DIDACTIC POETRY

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Adrienne Rich on Writing, Recalling “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

THINKING ABOUT PARAPHRASING

William Stafford, Ask Me

William Stafford, A Paraphrase of “Ask Me”

CHECKLIST: Writing a Paraphrase

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PARAPHRASING

TERMS FOR REVIEW

16. LISTENING TO A VOICE

TONE

Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz

Stephen Crane, The Wayfarer

Anne Bradstreet , The Author to Her Book

Rhina Espaillat , Bilingual / Bilingüe

Franz Wright, Alcohol

Gwendolyn Brooks, Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward.

Weldon Kees, For My Daughter

THE SPEAKER IN THE POEM

Natasha Trethewey, White Lies

Edwin Arlington Robinson , Luke Havergal

Anonymous , Dog Haiku

William Wordsworth , I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Dorothy Wordsworth , Journal Entry

Karen An-hwei Lee, Rainfall

William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow

IRONY

Robert Creeley, Oh No

W. H. Auden , The Unknown Citizen

Sharon Olds , Rite of Passage

Thomas Hardy , The Workbox

Sarah N. Cleghorn , The Golf Links

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper

Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Wilfred Owen on Writing , War Poetry

THINKING ABOUT TONE

CHECKLIST: Writing About Tone

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE

Sample Student Paper, Word Choice, Tone, and Point of View in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”

TERMS FOR REVIEW

17. WORDS

LITERAL MEANING: WHAT A POEM SAYS FIRST

William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say

DICTION

John Masefield, Cargoes

Robert Graves, Down, Wanton, Down!

John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You

THE VALUE OF A DICTIONARY

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath

Samuel Menashe, Bread

Carl Sandburg, Grass

J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead

WORD CHOICE AND WORD ORDER

Robert Herrick , Upon Julia’s Clothes

Kay Ryan, Blandeur

Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid

Richard Eberhart , The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

Julie Larios , What Bee Did

Wendy Cope , Lonely Hearts

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

Sarah Cortez , Adam

E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town

Anonymous, Carnation Milk

Gina Valdés, English con Salsa

William Wordsworth, My heart leaps up when I behold

William Wordsworth , Mutability

Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Lewis Carroll on Writing , Humpty Dumpty Explicates “Jabberwocky”

THINKING ABOUT DICTION

CHECKLIST: Writing About Diction

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON WORD CHOICE

TERMS FOR REVIEW

18. SAYING AND SUGGESTING

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

William Blake, London

Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

E. E. Cummings, “next to of course god america i

Maria Hummel , The Tree

Timothy Steele, Epitaph

Hieu Minh Nguyen, Arranged

Diane Thiel, The Minefield

H.D., Sea Rose

Po Chü-i, The Cranes

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears

Anne-Marie Thompson, Audiation

Rebecca Foust, What You Work For 71

Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Richard Wilbur on Writing, Concerning “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

THINKING ABOUT DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

CHECKLIST: Writing About What A Poem Says And Suggests

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

TERMS FOR REVIEW

19. IMAGERY

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro

Taniguchi Buson , The piercing chill I feel

IMAGERY

T. S. Eliot, The winter evening settles down

Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar

Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish

Emily Dickinson , A Route of Evanescence

Jean Toomer, Reapers

Gerard Manley Hopkins , Pied Beauty

ABOUT HAIKU

Arakida Moritake , The falling flower

Matsuo Basho , Heat-lightning streak

Matsuo Basho, In the old stone pool

Taniguchi Buson , On the one-ton temple bell

Taniguchi Buson , Moonrise on mudflats

Kobayashi Issa, only one guy

Kobayashi Issa , Cricket

HAIKU FROM JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS

Suiko Matsushita, Rain shower from mountain

Suiko Matsushita, Cosmos in bloom

Hakuro Wada , Even the croaking of frogs

Neiji Ozawa , The war–this year

CONTEMPORARY HAIKU

Nick Virgilio , The Old Neighborhood

Yone Noguchi, Oh, How Cool

Penny Harter , broken bowl 

Jennifer Brutschy , Born Again 

Adelle Foley , Learning to Shave 

Garry Gay , Hole in the ozone 

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY 

John Keats, Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art 

Walt Whitman, The Runner 

H.D., Heat 

William Carlos Williams, El Hombre 

Billy Collins , Embrace 

Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter 

Chana Bloch, Tired Sex 

Gary Snyder , Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout 

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Tattoo 

Stevie Smith , Not Waving but Drowning 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY 

Ezra Pound on Writing , The Image 

THINKING ABOUT IMAGERY 

CHECKLIST: Writing About Imagery 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON IMAGERY 

Sample Student Paper, Faded Beauty: Bishop’s Use of Imagery in “The Fish” 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 

20. FIGURES OF SPEECH

WHY SPEAK FIGURATIVELY?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle

William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Howard Moss, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

METAPHOR AND SIMILE

Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun

Alfred, Lord Tennyson , Flower in the Crannied Wall

William Blake , To see a world in a grain of sand

Sylvia Plath , Metaphors

N. Scott Momaday, Simile

Emily Dickinson , It dropped so low — in my Regard

Jill Alexander Essbaum , The Heart

Craig Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home

Cody Walker , I’m Like

OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH

James Stephens , The Wind

Robinson Jeffers , Hands

Aurora Stewart, Word Play

George Herbert, The Pulley

Dana Gioia , Money

Carl Sandburg , Fog

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

Jane Kenyon , The Suitor

Robert Frost, A Patch of Old Snow

Kay Ryan, Turtle

Emily Brontë, Love and Friendship

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Robert Frost on Writing, The Importance of Poetic Metaphor

THINKING ABOUT METAPHORS

CHECKLIST: Writing About Metaphors

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON FIGURES OF SPEECH

TERMS FOR REVIEW

21. SONG

SINGING AND SAYING

Ben Jonson, To Celia

James Weldon Johnson , Sence You Went Away

William Shakespeare , O mistress mine

Edwin Arlington Robinson , Richard Cory

Paul Simon , Richard Cory

BALLADS

Anonymous , Bonny Barbara Allan

Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham

BLUES

Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams , Jailhouse Blues

Ishmael Reed, Oakland Blues

RAP AND PERFORMANCE POETRY

Patricia Smith, Hip-hop Ghazel

Taylor Mali, Totally like whatever, you know?

Franny Choi, Choi Jeong Min

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down (Thao Nguyen), Meticulous Bird

Father John Misty (Joshua Tillman), Bored in the USA

St. Vincent (Annie Clark) , Severed Crossed Fingers

Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Bob Dylan on Writing, Rhythm, Rime, and Songwriting from the Outside

THINKING ABOUT POETRY AND SONG

CHECKLIST: Writing About Song Lyrics

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SONG

TERMS FOR REVIEW

22. SOUND

SOUND AS MEANING

Alexander Pope, True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance

William Butler Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus?

Edgar Allan Poe , from Ulalume

William Wordsworth , A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

Aphra Behn , When maidens are young

ALLITERATION AND ASSONANCE

Frances Cornford, The Watch

James Joyce, All day I hear

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The splendor falls on castle walls

RIME

William Cole, On my boat on Lake Cayuga

Hilaire Belloc, The Hippopotamus

Bob Kaufman , No More Jazz at Alcatraz

David Barber, Aria

Gerard Manley Hopkins , God’s Grandeur

HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD

Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane

William Shakespeare, When daisies pied and violets blue

T. S. Eliot, Virginia

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

T. S. Eliot on Writing, The Music of Poetry

THINKING ABOUT A POEM’S SOUND

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Poem’s Sound

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SOUND

TERMS FOR REVIEW

23. RHYTHM

STRESSES AND PAUSES

STRESS AND MEANING

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool

George Gordon, Lord Byron, So We’ll Go No More a-Roving

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break

Dorothy Parker, Résumé

METER

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme

Edith Sitwell, Mariner Man

A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty

William Carlos Williams , Smell!

Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums!

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Gwendolyn Brooks on Writing, Hearing “We Real Cool”

THINKING ABOUT RHYTHM

CHECKLIST: Scanning a Poem

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON RHYTHM

TERMS FOR REVIEW

24. CLOSED FORM

THE VALUE OF FORM

FORMAL PATTERNS

Ernest Dowson, Days of wine and roses

John Donne , Song (“Go and catch a falling star”)

Thomas M. Disch , Zewhyexary

THE SONNET

William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Michael Drayton, Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part

Edna St. Vincent Millay , What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

Kim Addonizio , First Poem for You

Luis J. Rodríguez, Praise to Shoes

A. E. Stallings, Sine Qua Non

Amit Majmudar , Rites to Allay the Dead

R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet

Sherman Alexie, The Facebook Sonnet

Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

THE EPIGRAM

Sir John Harrington, Of Treason

William Blake , To H–

Langston Hughes , Two Somewhat Different Epigrams

John Frederick Nims , Contemplation

Anonymous , Epitaph on a dentist

Hilaire Belloc , Fatigue

Wendy Cope , Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”

Wendy Videlock, If Not for the Dark

OTHER FORMS

Omar Khayyam , Rubaiyat

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

Robert Bridges, Triolet

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask

Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

A. E. Stallings on Writing , On Form and Artifice

THINKING ABOUT A SONNET

CHECKLIST: Writing About A Sonnet

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON CLOSED FORM

TERMS FOR REVIEW

25. OPEN FORM

Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway

FREE VERSE

E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s

W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death

Ezra Pound, Salutation

William Carlos Williams, The Dance

Stephen Crane, The Heart

Walt Whitman , I Hear America Singing

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

PROSE POETRY

Charles Simic, The Magic Study of Happiness

Gertrude Stein, Nothing Elegant

VISUAL POETRY

George Herbert, Easter Wings

John Hollander, Swan and Shadow

CONCRETE POETRY

Dorthi Charles, Concrete Cat

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red

E. E. Cummings, in Just-

Francisco X. Alarcón , Frontera/Border

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Traveling Onion

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Walt Whitman on Writing , The Poetry of the Future

THINKING ABOUT FREE VERSE

CHECKLIST: Writing About Line Breaks

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON OPEN FORM

TERMS FOR REVIEW

26. SYMBOL

THE MEANINGS OF A SYMBOL

T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript

Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork

THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT

IDENTIFYING SYMBOLS

Thomas Hardy , Neutral Tones

ALLEGORY

Matthew , The Parable of the Good Seed

George Herbert, Redemption

Edwin Markham , Outwitted

Suji Kwock Kim, Occupation

Frank O’Hara, To the Harbormaster

Antonio Machado, Proverbios y Cantares (XXIX) 

Translated by Michael Ortiz, Traveler

Christina Rossetti, Up-Hill

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

William Carlos Williams, Winter Trees

Ted Kooser , Carrie

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

William Blake, The Tyger

Karen Holden , Bats in a Box

Tami Haaland, Lipstick

Lorine Niedecker, Popcorn-can cover

Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man

Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

William Butler Yeats on Writing, Poetic Symbols

THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS

CHECKLIST: Writing about Symbols

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLISM

TERMS FOR REVIEW

27. MYTH

THE SUBJECTS AND USES OF MYTH

Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us

H.D., Helen

Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen

ARCHETYPE

Louise Bogan , Medusa

John Keats , La Belle Dame sans Merci

PERSONAL MYTH

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Diane Thiel, Memento Mori in Middle School

MYTH AND POPULAR CULTURE

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, What I Learned from the Incredible Hulk

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz

Alfred, Lord Tennyso n, Ulysses

Anne Sexton , Cinderella

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Diane Thiel on Writing, The Map of Myth

THINKING ABOUT MYTH

CHECKLIST: Writing About Myth

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON MYTH

Sample Student Paper, The Bonds Between Love and Hatred in H.D.’s “Helen”

TERMS FOR REVIEW

28. POETRY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY

CONFESSIONAL POETRY

Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

IDENTITY POETICS

Rhina Espaillat, Bra

CULTURE, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

Claude McKay, America

Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Riding into California

Francisco X. Alarcón , The X in My Name

Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quinceañera

Sherman Alexie , The Powwow at the End of the World

Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It

GENDER

Anne Stevenson, The Victory

Jenny Factor, Rubyfruit

James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

Adrienne Rich , Women

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY

Brian Turner, The Hurt Locker

Philip Larkin , Aubade

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Rhina P. Espaillat on Writing , Being a Bilingual Writer

THINKING ABOUT POETIC VOICE AND IDENTITY

CHECKLIST: Writing About Voice and Personal Identity

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PERSONAL IDENTITY

TERMS FOR REVIEW

29. POETRY IN SPANISH: LITERATURE OF LATIN AMERICA

Sor Juana, Presente en que el Cariño Hace Regalo la Llaneza

Translated by Diane Thiel, A Simple Gift Made Rich by Affection

Pablo Neruda, Muchos Somos

Translated by Alastair Reid, We Are Many

Jorge Luis Borges , On his blindness

Translated by Robert Mezey, On His Blindness

Octavio Paz, Con los ojos cerrados

Translated by Eliot Weinberger , With eyes closed

SURREALISM IN LATIN AMERICAN POETRY

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas

César Vallejo, La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños

Translated by Kimberly Gooden, The anger that breaks the man into children

CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN POETRY

José Emilio Pacheco, Alta Traición

Translated by Alastair Reid, High Treason

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Alastair Reid on Writing, Translating Neruda

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SPANISH POETRY

30. CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

THE EFFECT A POEM MAKES

Anonymous , O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face

Emily Dickinson , Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

SENTIMENTALITY

RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE

William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium

Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

Percy Bysshe Shelley , Ozymandias

Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass

Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

Walt Whitman , O Captain! My Captain!

Emma Lazarus , The New Colossus

Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Edgar Allan Poe on Writing, A Long Poem Does Not Exist

THINKING ABOUT EVALUATING A POEM

CHECKLIST: Writing An Evaluation

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON EVALUATING A POEM

TERMS FOR REVIEW

31. WHAT IS POETRY?

32. THREE CRITICAL CASEBOOKS: Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost

EMILY DICKINSON

Wild Nights — Wild Nights!

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

The Soul selects her own Society

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

Much Madness is divinest Sense

This is my letter to the World

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

I started Early — Took my Dog

I dwell in Possibility

Because I could not stop for Death

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

EMILY DICKINSON ON WRITING

Recognizing Poetry

Self-Description

CRITICS ON EMILY DICKINSON

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Meeting Emily Dickinson

Thomas H. Johnson, The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts

Richard Wilbur, The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson

Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Dickinson and Death (A Reading of “Because I could not stop for Death”)

LANGSTON HUGHES

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

The Negro

My People

Song for a Banjo Dance

Mother to Son

I, Too

Cross

Song for a Dark Girl

Prayer

Theme for English B

Nightmare Boogie

Harlem [Dream Deferred]

Homecoming

LANGSTON HUGHES ON WRITING

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

The Harlem Renaissance

CRITICS ON LANGSTON HUGHES

Arnold Rampersad, Hughes as an Experimentalist

Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson , The Voices in Langston Hughes

Darryl Pinckney, Black Identity in Langston Hughes

Peter Townsend , Langston Hughes and Jazz

ROBERT FROST

Mowing

My November Guest

Mending Wall

After Apple-Picking

The Road Not Taken

Birches

Design

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Fire and Ice

Acquainted with the Night

Desert Places

Home Burial

ROBERT FROST ON WRITING

The Sound of Sense

The Figure a Poem Makes

“There Are Two Types of Realist”: An Interview with Robert Frost

CRITICS ON ROBERT FROST

Katherine Kearns, On “Mending Wall”

Ezra Pound, An Honest Writer

Rhina P. Espaillat, Translating Frost into Spanish

Dana Gioia, Robert Frost’s Dramatic Narratives

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

TOPICS FOR WRITING

33. CRITICAL CASEBOOK–T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

T. S. ELIOT

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

PUBLISHING “PRUFROCK”

THE REVIEWERS ON PRUFROCK

Unsigned Review, from Literary World

Conrad Aiken, from “Divers Realists,” The Dial

Babette Deutsch, from “Another Impressionist,” The New Republic

Marianne Moore, from “A Note on T. S. Eliot’s Book,” Poetry

T. S. ELIOT ON WRITING

Poetry and Emotion

The Objective Correlative

Free Verse and the Ghost of Meter

CRITICS ON “PRUFROCK”

Christopher Ricks, What’s in a Name?

Philip R. Headings, The Pronouns in the Poem: “One,” “You,” and “I”

Maud Ellmann, Will There Be Time?

Burton Raffel, “Indeterminacy” in Eliot’s Poetry

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

TOPICS FOR WRITING

34. POEMS FOR FURTHER READING

Aaron Abeyta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla

Julia Alvarez, By Accident

Anonymous (traditional Scottish ballad), Lord Randall

Anonymous (Navajo mountain chant), Last Words of the Prophet

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach

John Ashbery, At North Farm

W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts

Jimmy Santiago Baca , Spliced Wire

Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station

William Blake, The Sick Rose

Gwendolyn Brooks, the mother

Gwendolyn Brooks , the rites for Cousin Vit

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Charles Bukowski, Dostoevsky

Geoffrey Chaucer , Merciless Beauty

G. K. Chesterton, The Donkey

John Ciardi, Most Like an Arch This Marriage

Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Kubla Khan

Billy Collins , Introduction to Poetry

Hart Crane, My Grandmother’s Love Letters

E. E. Cummings , somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

Marisa de los Santos, Perfect Dress

John Donne, Death be not proud

John Donne, The Flea

John Donne , A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi

Allen Ginsberg , A Supermarket in California

Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain

Thomas Hardy, Hap

Seamus Heaney , Digging

William Ernest Henley, Invictus

Juan Felipe Herrera , El Ángel de la Guarda

George Herbert, Love

Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall

Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover

A. E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

A. E. Housman , To an Athlete Dying Young

Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Robinson Jeffers, Fire on the Hills

Ha Jin, Missed Time

Ben Jonson, On My First Son

Donald Justice , On the Death of Friends in Childhood

John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats, When I have fears that I may cease to be

Ted Kooser, Abandoned Farmhouse

Philip Larkin, Home is so Sad

Philip Larkin, Poetry of Departures

D. H. Lawrence, Piano

Li-Young Lee , Night Mirror

Denise Levertov, O Taste and See

Li Po, Drinking Alone by Moonlight

Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Learning to Love America

Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour

Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

David Mason , Song of the Powers

Claude McKay, If We Must Die

Edna St. Vincent Millay , Recuerdo

John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent

Marianne Moore, Poetry

Harryette Mullen, Dim Lady

Marilyn Nelson, A Strange Beautiful Woman

Lorine Niedecker , Sorrow Moves in Wide Waves

Yone Noguchi, Japanese Hokkus

Sylvia Plath, Daddy

Alexander Pope , A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing

Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

Henry Reed, Naming of Parts

Adrienne Rich , Living in Sin

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy

Christina Rossetti, Song (“When I am dead, my dearest”)

Kay Ryan, That Will to Divest

William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes

William Shakespeare, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Charles Simic, Butcher Shop

Christopher Smart, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry

Cathy Song, Stamp Collecting

Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning

Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill

Amy Uyematsu , Deliberate

Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes

Edmund Waller , Go, Lovely Rose

Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astonomer

Walt Whitman, from Song of the Open Road

Walt Whitman, To a Stranger

William Carlos Williams , The Widow’s Lament in Springtime

William Carlos Williams , Queen-Anne’s-Lace

William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Mary Sidney Wroth, In this strange labyrinth

Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me that sometime did me sekë

William Butler Yeats , When You Are Old

William Butler Yeats , He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

William Butler Yeats , The Magi

DRAMA

Talking with David Ives

35. READING A PLAY

INTERPRETING PLAYS

THEATRICAL CONVENTIONS

ELEMENTS OF A PLAY

Susan Glaspell, Trifles    Was Minnie Wright to blame for the death of her husband? While the menfolk try to unravel a mystery, two women in the kitchen turn up revealing clues.

ANALYZING Trifles 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Susan Glaspell on Writing, Creating Trifles

THINKING ABOUT A PLAY

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Play

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON Trifles

Sample Student Paper, Outside Trifles

TERMS FOR REVIEW

36. TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

TRAGEDY

Christopher Marlowe, Scene from Doctor Faustus    In this scene from the classic drama, a brilliant scholar sells his soul to the devil. How smart is that?

COMEDY

Oscar Wilde, Scene from The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 1, Scene 1–Lady Bracknell Interviews Her Daughter’s Suitor)    Lady Bracknell is no softie when interviewing a potential future son-in-law.

David Ives, Sure Thing     Bill wants to pick up Betty in a cafe, but he makes every mistake in the book. Luckily, he not only gets a second chance, but a third and a fourth as well.

Sharon E. Cooper, Mistaken Identity    An odd couple tries to find common ground in an English pub.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

David Ives on Writing , On the One-Act Play

THINKING ABOUT COMEDY

CHECKLIST: Writing About Comedy

TOPICS FOR WRITING ABOUT TRAGEDY

TOPICS FOR WRITING ABOUT COMEDY

TERMS FOR REVIEW

37. CRITICAL CASEBOOK: Sophocles

THE THEATER OF SOPHOCLES

THE CIVIC ROLE OF GREEK DRAMA

ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF TRAGEDY

SOPHOCLES

THE ORIGINS OF Oedipus The King

Sophocles , Oedipus the King (Translated by David Grene)    The dark story of Oedipus is considered by many to be the greatest example of classical Greek tragedy.

THE BACKGROUND OF ANTIGONE

Sophocles , Antigone ( Translated by David Grene)    In one of the monumental plays of classical Greek drama, a daughter of Oedipus strives to give the body of her slain brother a proper burial. Soon she finds herself in conflict with a king.

CRITICS ON SOPHOCLES

Aristotle , Defining Tragedy

Sigmund Freud, The Destiny of Oedipus

A. E. Haigh, The Irony of Sophocles

David Wiles, The Chorus as Democrat

Patricia M. Lines, What Is Antigone’s Tragic Flaw?

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

A. E. Haigh on Writing, The Style of Sophocles

THINKING ABOUT GREEK TRAGEDY

CHECKLIST: Writing About Greek Drama

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SOPHOCLES

TERMS FOR REVIEW

38. CRITICAL CASEBOOK: Shakespeare

THE THEATER OF SHAKESPEARE

CLASSIC MOMENTS FROM SHAKESPEARE

Jacques’s “All the world’s a stage” Speech from As You Like It (Act II, Scene vii)

Balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene ii)

“To Be or Not to Be” Speech from Hamlet (Act III, Scene i)

Portia’s “Quality of Mercy” Speech from The Merchant of Venice (Act IV, Scene i)

King Henry’s “Band of Brothers” Speech from Henry V (Act IV, Scene iii)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A NOTE ON OTHELLO

PICTURING OTHELLO

William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice.   Here is a story of jealousy, that “green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on”–of a passionate, suspicious man and his blameless wife, of a serpent masked as a friend.

THE BACKGROUND OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

PICTURING A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream    “The course of true love never did run smooth” is the right motto for this romantic comedy in which love, magic, and mistaken identity combine for madcap results.

CRITICS ON SHAKESPEARE

Anthony Burgess, An Asian Culture Looks at Shakespeare

W. H. Auden, Iago as a Triumphant Villain

Maud Bodkin, Lucifer in Shakespeare’s Othello

Virginia Mason Vaughan , Black and White in Othello

Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare’s Universality

Clare Asquith , Shakespeare’s Language as a Hidden Political Code

Linda Bamber , Female Power in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Ben Jonson on Writing , On His Friend and Rival William Shakespeare

UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE

CHECKLIST: Writing About Shakespeare

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SHAKESPEARE

Sample Student Paper, Othello: Tragedy or Soap Opera?

39. THE MODERN THEATER

REALISM

NATURALISM

SYMBOLISM AND EXPRESSIONISM

AMERICAN MODERNISM

Lorraine Hansberry , A Raisin in the Sun    In this Civil Rights-era classic, a poor family from Chicago’s South Side tries to cope with the forces of poverty, external challenges, and internal conflict.

Lorraine Hansberry on Writing, A Letter to My Mother

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, revised by Viktoria Michelsen)   The founder of modern drama portrays a troubled marriage. Helmer, the bank manager, regards his wife, Nora, as a “little featherbrain”–not knowing that the truth may shatter his smug world.

Henrik Ibsen on Writing, Correspondence on the Final Scene of A Doll’s House

Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie    Painfully shy and retiring, shunning love, Laura dwells in a world as fragile as her collection of tiny figurines–until one memorable night a gentleman comes to call.

Tennessee Williams on Writing, How to Stage The Glass Menagerie

TRAGICOMEDY AND THE ABSURD

RETURN TO REALISM

EXPERIMENTAL DRAMA

Milcha Sanchez-Scott, The Cuban Swimmer    Nineteen-year-old Margarita Suarez wants to win a Southern California distance swimming race. Is her family behind her? Quite literally!

Milcha Sanchez-Scott on Writing, Writing The Cuban Swimmer

DOCUMENTARY DRAMA

Anna Deavere Smith, Scenes from Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992    The violence that tore apart a city, in the words of those who were there. 

Anna Deavere Smith on Writing, On Documentary Theater

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

THINKING ABOUT DRAMATIC REALISM

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Realist Play

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON REALISM

Sample Student Paper, Helmer vs. Helmer

TERMS FOR REVIEW

40. EVALUATING A PLAY

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

JUDGING A PLAY

CHECKLIST: Evaluating a Play

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON EVALUATION

41. PLAYS FOR FURTHER READING

David Henry Hwang, The Sound of a Voice   A strange man arrives at a solitary woman’s home in the remote countryside. As they fall in love, they discover disturbing secrets about one another’s past.

David Henry Hwang on Writing, Multicultural Theater

Edward Bok Lee, El Santo Americano    A wrestler and his unhappy wife drive through the desert to a surprising conclusion.

Edward Bok Lee on Writing, On Being a Korean American Writer

Jane Martin, Beauty    We’ve all wanted to be someone else at one time or another. But what would happen if we got our wish?

Brighde Mullins, Click    A long-distance phone call leads to darkly comic misunderstandings between this man and woman. 

Brighde Mullins on Writing, Advice for Young Playwrights

August Wilson, Fences    A proud man’s love for his family is choked by his rigidity and self-righteousness, in this powerful drama by one of the great American playwrights of our time.

August Wilson on Writing , A Look into Black America

WRITING

42. WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE

READ ACTIVELY

Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

PLAN YOUR ESSAY

PREWRITING: GENERATE IDEAS AND ISSUES

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises

DEVELOP YOUR ARGUMENT

STRENGTHEN YOUR ARGUMENT: RHETORICAL APPEALS

Logical Argumentation: Evidence and Organization

Emotional Argumentation

Credibility: Tone and Balance

CHECKLIST: Developing an Argument

DRAFT YOUR ARGUMENT

Sample Student Rough Draft : Argument Paper

REVISE YOUR ARGUMENT

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Argument

FINAL ADVICE ON REWRITING

Sample Student Argument Paper

DOCUMENT SOURCES TO AVOID PLAGIARISM

THE FORM OF YOUR FINISHED PAPER

SPELL-CHECK AND GRAMMAR-CHECK PROGRAMS

Anonymous (after a poem by Jerrold H. Zar), A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell-Checkers

43. WRITING ABOUT A STORY

READ ACTIVELY

THINK ABOUT THE STORY

PREWRITING: GENERATE IDEAS AND ISSUES

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises

DRAFT YOUR ARGUMENT

CHECKLIST: Drafting Your Argument

REVISE YOUR DRAFT

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Argument

WHAT’S YOUR PURPOSE? COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT FICTION

Explication Paper

Sample Student Paper, Explication

Analysis Paper

Sample Student Paper, Analysis

Card Report Analysis

Sample Student Card Report

Comparison and Contrast Paper

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast

Response Paper

Sample Student Response Paper

TOPICS FOR WRITING

44. WRITING ABOUT A POEM

READ ACTIVELY

Robert Frost, Design

THINK ABOUT THE POEM

PREWRITING: GENERATE IDEAS AND ISSUES

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises 1785—1787

DRAFT YOUR ARGUMENT

CHECKLIST: Drafting Your Argument

REVISE YOUR DRAFT

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Draft

COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT POETRY

Explication Paper

Sample Student Paper, Explication

A Critic’s Explication of Frost’s “Design”

Analysis Paper

Sample Student Paper, Analysis

Comparison and Contrast Paper

Abbie Huston Evans, Wing-Spread

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast

HOW TO QUOTE A POEM

TOPICS FOR WRITING

Robert Frost , In White

45. WRITING ABOUT A PLAY

READ CRITICALLY

COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT DRAMA

Explication Paper

Analysis Paper

Comparison and Contrast Analysis

Card Report

Sample Student Card Report

A Drama Review

Sample Student Drama Review

HOW TO QUOTE A PLAY

TOPICS FOR WRITING

46. WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER

BROWSE THE RESEARCH

CHOOSE A TOPIC: FORMULATE YOUR ARGUMENT

BEGIN YOUR RESEARCH

Reliable Web Sources

Print Resources

Online Databases

CHECKLIST: Finding Reliable Sources

Visual Images

CHECKLIST: Using Visual Images

EVALUATE YOUR SOURCES

CHECKLIST: Evaluating Your Sources

ORGANIZE YOUR RESEARCH

CREATE AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFINE YOUR THESIS

ORGANIZE YOUR PAPER

WRITE AND REVISE

MAINTAIN ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

What Is Plagiarism?

Papers For Sale Are Papers That “F”ail

A Warning Against Internet Plagiarism

ACKNOWLEDGE ALL SOURCES

Using Quotations

Citing Ideas

DOCUMENT SOURCES USING MLA STYLE

Keep a List of Sources

Use Parenthetical References

Create a Works-Cited List

Cite Sources in MLA Style

Sample List of Works Cited

Additional Resources on MLA Style

ENDNOTES AND FOOTNOTES

Adding Footnotes

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Sample Student Research Paper 

REFERENCE GUIDE FOR MLA CITATIONS

47. WRITING AS DISCOVERY: KEEPING A JOURNAL

THE REWARDS OF KEEPING A JOURNAL

SAMPLE JOURNAL ENTRY

Sample Student Journal

48. WRITING AN ESSAY EXAM

CHECKLIST: Taking An Essay Exam

49. CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

FORMALIST CRITICISM

Cleanth Brooks, The Formalist Critic

Michael Clark, Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues”

BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM

Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”

Emily Toth , The Source for Alcée Laballière in “The Storm”

HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Hugh Kenner, Imagism

Seamus Deane , Joyce’s Vision of Dublin

PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM

Sigmund Freud, The Nature of Dreams

Harold Bloom, Poetic Influence

MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM

Carl Jung, The Collective Unconscious and Archetypes

Edmond Volpe , Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”

SOCIOLOGICAL CRITICISM

Georg Lukacs, Content Determines Form

Alfred Kazin , Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln

GENDER CRITICISM

Nina Pelikan Straus, Transformations in The Metamorphosis

Elaine Showalter, Toward a Feminist Poetics

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM

Stanley Fish, An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily”

Robert Scholes , “How Do We Make a Poem?”

CULTURAL STUDIES

Camille Paglia , A Reading of William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”

Vincent B. Leitch , Poststructuralist Cultural Critique

TERMS FOR REVIEW

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

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