Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing
, by Kennedy, X. J.- ISBN: 9780134668468 | 0134668464
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 1/7/2019
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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