Literature for Life

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 written six more collections, 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, the Robert Frost Medal of the Poetry Society of America, 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 four books and five children.

Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and critic. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, including Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and three collections of criticism, most notably Can Poetry Matter? (1992), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. A best-selling literary anthologist, Gioia has edited or co-edited over two dozen collections of poetry, fiction, and drama. He has also written two opera libretti and has collaborated with composers in genres ranging from classical to jazz and rock. For six years (2003-2009) he served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts where he gained strong bipartisan support for the previously imperiled agency and helped launch the largest literary programs in federal history, including The Big Read, Poetry Out Loud, and Shakespeare in American Communities. He was twice unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. For two years he directed the arts and culture programs for the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. and Colorado.  He is currently the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California.  He divides his time between Los Angeles and Sonoma County, California.

Nina Revoyr is the author of four novels, The Necessary Hunger, Southland, and The Age of Dreaming. Southland was a Book Sense 76 pick, won the Lambda Literary Award, and was a Los Angeles Times "Best Book" of 2003. The Age of Dreaming was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.  Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles.

READING AND THINKING ABOUT LITERATURE

1. LITERATURE AND LIFE
2. READING A STORY
3. READING A POEM
4. READING A PLAY
5. READING AN ESSAY

WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE

6. WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
7. WRITING ABOUT A STORY
8. WRITING ABOUT A POEM
9. WRITING ABOUT A PLAY
10. WRITING ABOUT AN ESSAY
11. WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
REFERENCE GUIDE FOR MLA CITATIONS

THEMES OF LITERATURE, THEMES OF LIFE

12. FAMILIES
13. LOVE
14. LIFE’S JOURNEY
15. THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
16. PERSONAL IDENTITY
17. NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
18. WAR AND PEACE

19, CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

Detailed Table of Contents
 
1. LITERATURE AND LIFE

Why Are You In this Course?
Why Study Literature and Writing?
Getting a Job
• Career Growth
• Reading and Writing Are Critical Skills
Fifty Famous English Majors
• You May Have Several Careers
• Are You Prepared?
Literature for Life
Kenneth McClane, “Sonny’s Blues” Saved My Life
• The Value of Literature
• By Way of an Ending
Charles Bukowski, Dostoevsky
Emily Dickinson, There is no Frigate like a Book

2. READING A STORY
The Art of Fiction
Types of Short Fiction
Elements of Fiction
• Plot
• Point of View
• Character
• Setting
• Tone and Style
• Symbol
• Theme
John Updike A & P
Edgar Allan Poe The Tell-Tale Heart
Katherine Mansfield Miss Brill
CHECKLISTS: Analyzing a Story

3. READING A POEM
Types of Poetry: Lyric, Narrative, Dramatic

W. H. Auden                Funeral Blues
Edwin Arlington Robinson Richard Cory
Margaret Atwood         Siren Song

Reading a Poem
Elements of Poetry
• Tone
Emily Dickinson     Wild Nights — Wild Nights!
• Words
Gina Valdés     English Con Salsa
• Denotation and Connotation
Robert Frost     Nothing Gold Can Stay
• Imagery
Langston Hughes      Harlem [Dream Deferred]
• Figures of Speech
• Sound
• Rhythm
• Form: Closed Form and Open Form
Michael Drayton  Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part
Matsuo Basho  Temple bells die out
Matsuo Basho  Heat-lightning streak
Taniguchi Buson  Moonrise on mudflats
Kobayashi Issa  only one guy
Anonymous  Epitaph on a Dentist
E. E. Cummings  in Just-
• Symbol
What Is Poetry?
CHECKLISTS: Analyzing a Poem

4. READING A PLAY
Reading a Play
Theatrical Conventions
Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy
Elements of a Play
Susan Glaspell Trifles
Analyzing Trifles
• Conflict
• Plot
• Subplot
• Protagonist
• Exposition
• Dramatic Question
• Climax
• Resolution and Dénouement
• Rising and Falling Action
• Unity of Time, Place, and Action
• Symbols
CHECKLISTS: Analyzing a Play

5. READING AN ESSAY
What Is an Essay?
History of the Essay
Types of Essays
• Narrative Essay
• Descriptive
• Expository
• Argumentative
Elements of Essays
• Voice
• Style
• Structure
• Theme
Joan Didion On Morality
Amy Tan  Mother Tongue
CHECKLIST: Analyzing an Essay

 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE

6. WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Read Actively
 Robert Frost Nothing Gold Can Stay
 SAMPLE STUDENT READING ANNOTATION
Plan Your Essay
Prewriting: Discover Your Ideas
SAMPLE STUDENT PREWRITING EXERCISES
• Brainstorm
• Cluster
• List
• Freewrite
• Journal
• Outline
Develop a Literary Argument
CREATE AN ARGUMENT
• Purpose
• Audience
• Thesis
BUILD AN ARGUMENT
• Claims
• Persuasion
• Evidence
• Warrants
• Credibility
CHECKLIST: Developing an Argument
 SAMPLE STUDENT ROUGH DRAFT
Revise Your Draft
CHECKLIST: Revising Your Draft
SAMPLE STUDENT ARGUMENT PAPER
Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism
The Form of Your Finished Paper
Spell-Check and Grammar Check Programs
 Anonymous A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell Checkers

7. WRITING ABOUT A STORY
Read Actively
 SAMPLE STUDENT READING ANNOTATION
Prewriting: Discover Your Ideas
 SAMPLE STUDENT PREWRITING EXERCISES
Write a Rough Draft
CHECKLIST: Writing a Rough Draft
Revise Your Draft
CHECKLIST: Revising Your Draft
What’s Your Purpose? Common Approaches to Writing About Fiction
• Explication
SAMPLE STUDENT EXPLICATION PAPER
• Analysis
SAMPLE STUDENT ANALYSIS PAPER
• Comparison and Contrast
SAMPLE STUDENT COMPARISON AND CONTRAST PAPER
• Response Paper
SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE PAPER
Topics for Writing

8. WRITING ABOUT A POEM

Read Actively
Robert Frost Design
 SAMPLE STUDENT READING ANNOTATION
Prewriting: Discover Your Ideas
 SAMPLE STUDENT PREWRITING EXERCISES
Write a Rough Draft
CHECKLIST: Writing a Rough Draft
Revise Your Draft
CHECKLIST: Revising Your Draft
Common Approaches to Writing About Poetry
• Explication
SAMPLE STUDENT EXPLICATION PAPER
• Analysis
SAMPLE STUDENT ANALYSIS PAPER
• Comparison and Contrast
 Abbie Huston Evans Wing-Spread
SAMPLE STUDENT COMPARISON AND CONTRAST PAPER
How to Quote a Poem
Topics for Writing
Robert Frost In White

9. WRITING ABOUT A PLAY

Read Critically
 SAMPLE STUDENT READING ANNOTATION
Common Approaches to Writing About Drama
• Explication
• Analysis
• Comparison and Contrast
• Drama Review
SAMPLE STUDENT DRAMA REVIEW
How to Quote a Play
Topics for Writing

10. WRITING ABOUT AN ESSAY
Read Actively
Think About the Essay
Prewriting: Discover and Shape Your Ideas
Common Approaches to Writing About Drama
• Explication
• Analysis
• Comparison and Contrast
• Response Paper
SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE PAPER
Topics for Writing

11. WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
Browse the Research
Choose a Topic
Begin Your Research
CHECKLIST: Finding Reliable Sources
CHECKLIST: Using Visual Images
Evaluate Your Sources
CHECKLIST: Evaluating Your Sources
Organize Your Research
Refine Your Thesis
Organize Your Paper
Acknowledge All Sources
• Quotations
• Citing Ideas
Documents Sources using MLA Style
SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: Research Paper

REFERENCE GUIDE FOR MLA CITATIONS

 THEMES OF LITERATURE, THEMES OF LIFE

12. FAMILIES

FICTION

PARENTS AND CHILDREN
Amy Tan A Pair of Tickets
William Faulkner Barn Burning
Luke Parable of the Prodigal Son
Alice Walker Everyday Use
Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Parents and Children

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
ALICE WALKER’S “EVERYDAY USE”

Alice Walker on Writing
Alice Walker The Black Woman Writer in America

Criticism and Cultural Contexts
Barbara T. Christian “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement
Mary Helen Washington “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist
Elaine Showalter Quilt as Metaphor in “Everyday Use”
Houston A. Baker and
  Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”

Images: Alice Walker and Her World
Alice Walker in conversation
Scenes from Everyday Use (2003 film adaptation)
Alice Walker at home surrounded by quilt art
Lone Star Quilt Pattern

Suggestions for Writing: “Everyday Use” in Context

BROTHERS AND SISTERS
James Baldwin Sonny’s Blues
Tobias Wolff The Rich Brother
Eudora Welty Why I Live at the P.O.
Louise Erdrich The Red Convertible

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Brothers and Sisters

POETRY

CHILDREN LOOKING AT PARENTS, PARENTS LOOKING AT CHILDREN
Robert Hayden  Those Winter Sundays
Theodore Roethke My Papa’s Waltz
Rhina P. Espaillat Bilingual / Bilingüe
Sylvia Plath Daddy
Weldon Kees For My Daughter
Sharon Olds Rite of Passage

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Parents and Children

FAMILY LEGACIES
Robert Hayden The Whipping
Ted Kooser A Room in the Past
Seamus Heaney Digging
Julia Alvarez By Accident
Li-Young Lee The Gift
Diane Thiel The Minefield

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Family Legacies

POET IN DEPTH: FAMILY BONDS
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS
Gwendolyn Brooks  Sadie and Maud
Gwendolyn Brooks the mother
Gwendolyn Brooks  the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks   The Bean Eaters
Gwendolyn Brooks   Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward

Suggestions for Writing: Gwendolyn Brooks’s Poetry

ESSAYS

CHILD INTO ADULT
Brent Staples The Runaway Son
Raymond Carver My Father’s Life
Annie Dillard An American Childhood

Suggestions for Writing: Essays About Childhood and Growing Up

 
DRAMA

FAMILY DRAMA
Sophocles Oedipus the King (Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
 SOPHOCLES’S OEDIPUS THE KING

Historical and Cultural Contexts
Ellen Meese Background for Reading Oedipus the King
1. THE ORIGINS OF GREEK THEATER
2. THE CIVIC ROLE OF GREEK DRAMA
3. TRAGEDY AND THE TRAGIC HERO
4. THE ORIGINS OF OEDIPUS THE KING
5. THE OEDIPUS LEGEND

Criticism and Cultural Contexts
Aristotle Defining Tragedy
Sigmund Freud The Destiny of Oedipus
E. R. Dodds  On Misunderstanding Oedipus
A. E. Haigh The Irony of Sophocles

Images: Oedipus in Art and Performance
Athenian Theater
Etruscan Pottery: Oedipus and the Sphinx
Oedipus and Antigone by Rudolph Tegner
Production photos from Oedipus the King

Suggestions for Writing: Oedipus the King in Context

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Suggestions for Writing: A Raisin in the Sun

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About Families

13. LOVE

FICTION

DISCOVERING LOVE
Margaret Atwood Happy Endings
O. Henry The Gift of the Magi
Alice Munro How I Met My Husband

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Discovering Love

 
LOVE GONE WRONG
William Faulkner A Rose for Emily
Zora Neale Hurston Sweat
Flannery O’Connor Parker’s Back
Max Apple Vegetable Love

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Love Gone Wrong

WRITER IN DEPTH: TROUBLED MARRIAGES
A COLLECTION OF STORIES BY KATE CHOPIN
Kate Chopin  The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin The Storm
Kate Chopin Désirée’s Baby

Suggestions for Writing: Chopin’s Stories About Troubled Marriages

POETRY

LOVE POEMS
Anne Bradstreet  To My Dear and Loving Husband
Elizabeth Barrett Browning How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
William Butler Yeats  When You Are Old
E. E. Cummings  somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond
Rafael Campo  For J. W.
Wislawa Szymborska  True Love
Wendy Cope  Lonely Hearts

Suggestions for Writing: Love Poems

LOVE, SEX, AND DESIRE
Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress
John Donne The Flea
Edna St. Vincent Millay  What lips my lips have kissed
Sharon Olds Sex Without Love
Marilyn Nelson  The Ballad of Aunt Geneva
Kim Addonizio  First Poem for You

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Love, Sex, and Desire

POET IN DEPTH: LOVE AND LOVE’S ILLUSIONS
A COLLECTION OF SONNETS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
William Shakespeare When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes
William Shakespeare Let me not to the marriage of true minds
William Shakespeare My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare When my love swears that she is made of truth

Suggestions for Writing: Shakespeare’s Sonnets

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
 T. S. ELIOT’S “THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK”

T. S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Historical Contexts
Publishing “Prufrock”
Early Reviewers of “Prufrock”

Criticism and Cultural Contexts
Denis Donoghue One of the Irrefutable Poets
Christopher Ricks What’s in a Name?
Maud Ellmann Will There Be Time?
M. L. Rosenthal Adolescents Singing

Images: Eliot and His Age
Portrait of Eliot by Wyndham Lewis
Poetry Magazine, June 1915
Signature
Photographs of Eliot at age 19
Prufrock Goes Graphic

Suggestions for Writing: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Context

ESSAYS AND OTHER NON-FICTION

REMEMBERING LOVE

Paul 1 Corinthians 13
Cynthia Ozick Lovesickness
Judith Ortiz Cofer I Fell in Love, or My Hormones Awakened
Mike Ives Would Hemingway Cry?
H. L. Mencken Remembering Sara: Diary Entry

Suggestions for Writing: Non-Fiction About Remembering Love

DRAMA

LOVE: COMIC AND TRAGIC
David Ives Sure Thing

 Suggestions for Writing:Ives’s Sure Thing

William Shakespeare Othello, the Moor of Venice
                                     Picturing Othello: production photos

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO

Historical Contexts
The Theater of Shakespeare
Source Material for Othello

Criticism and Cultural Contexts
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

Images: Othello in Performance
Globe Theater 
A Portfolio of Players: Famous Othellos in Performance
Othello in translation
Othello as Ballet
Othello as Opera

Suggestions for Writing: Othello in Context
Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About Love

 
14. LIFE’S JOURNEY

FICTION

CHILDHOOD & ADOLESCENCE
James Joyce  Araby
ZZ Packer  Brownies
Michael Chabon  The Little Knife

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Childhood and Adolescence

DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS
Nathanial Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown
Flannery O’Connor A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

 Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Dangerous Encounters
 
CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
JOYCE CAROL OATES’S “WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

Fact Into Fiction
Don Moser The Pied Piper of Tucson: He Cruised in a Golden Car, Looking for Action

Fiction Into Film
Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film
Brenda O. Daly An Unfilmable Conclusion: Joyce Carol Oates at the Movies
Rebecca Sumner      Smoothing Out the Rough Spots: The Film Adaptation of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
B. Ruby Rich      Good Girls, Bad Girls: Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk

  
Images: “Where Are You Going?” and Media
Life Magazine Spread
Scenes from Smooth Talk 

Suggestions for Writing: ”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” in Context

BARGAINING WITH DEATH
Somerset Maugham An Appointment in Samarra
Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm Godfather Death
Chinua Achebe Dead Men’s Path

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Bargaining with Death

DEATH AND TRANSFORMATION
Franz Kafka  The Metamorphosis  

Suggestions for Writing: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

POETRY

CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
William Blake London
Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool
Countee Cullen Incident
Judith Ortiz Cofer Quinceañera
Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Childhood and Adolescence

LIFE’S CHALLENGES
Thomas Hardy The Ruined Maid
A. E. Housman When I was one-and-twenty
John Updike The Ex-Basketball Player
Elizabeth Bishop One Art
Natasha Threthewey White Lies
Antonio Machado Caminante / Traveler

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Life’s Challenges

FACING DEATH
Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night
John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be
W. S. Merwin For the Anniversary of My Death
José Emilio Pacheco La Ceniza / Ashes
E. E. Cummings Buffalo Bill ’s
Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Facing Death

FAITH, DOUBT, AND MORTALITY
John Donne Death be not proud
Christina Rossetti Uphill
Thomas Hardy Hap
Emily Dickinson  Because I could not stop for Death
Kevin Young Late Blues
Gary Soto Heaven

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Faith, Doubt, and Mortality

POET IN DEPTH: LIFE AND ITS CROSSROADS
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY ROBERT FROST
Robert Frost The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost Fire and Ice
Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost Desert Places

Suggestions for Writing: Robert Frost’s Poetry

ESSAYS

TURNING POINTS

James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son
George Orwell Shooting an Elephant
Sacha Z. Scoblic Rock Star, Meet Teetotaler
Steve Martin Disneyland
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On the Fear of Death

Suggestions for Writing: Essays About Turning Points

DRAMA

LIFE PASSAGES

Tennessee Williams A Glass Menagerie
Terrence McNally Andre’s Mother

Suggestions for Writing: Drama About Life Passages

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About Life’s Journey

15. THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

FICTION

CONFORMITY, REBELLION, AND DISSENT 
Shirley Jackson The Lottery
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Harrison Bergeron
Ursula K. Le Guin The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ha Jin Saboteur

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Conformity, Rebellion, and Dissent

INDIVIDUALS IN ISOLATION
Ernest Hemingway A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Ralph Ellison Battle Royal
John Cheever The Swimmer

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Individuals in Isolation

POETRY

LONELINESS AND COMMUNITY
William Carlos Williams  Danse Russe
E. E. Cummings  anyone lived in a pretty how town
Stevie Smith  Not Waving but Drowning
Allen Ginsberg  A Supermarket in California
Anne Sexton  Her Kind
Pablo Neruda  Muchos Somos / We Are Many

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Loneliness and Community

INDIVIDUALISM VERSUS CONFORMITY
Walt Whitman I Hear America Singing
Paul Laurence Dunbar Sympathy
Robert Frost Mending Wall
W. H. Auden  The Unknown Citizen
Mary Oliver Wild Geese
Marilyn Nelson A Strange Beautiful Woman

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Individualism Versus Conformity

 
POET IN DEPTH: SELECTING YOUR OWN SOCIETY
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON
Emily Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Emily Dickinson The Soul selects her own Society
Emily Dickinson This is my letter to the World
Emily Dickinson Much Madness is divinest Sense
Emily Dickinson Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

Suggestions for Writing: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
 THE POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON
Emily Dickinson ON Writing
Emily Dickinson Recognizing Poetry 
Emily Dickinson Self Description
Criticism and Cultural Contexts
Thomas Wentworth Higginson Meeting Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts
Richard Wilbur The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson
Sandra M. Gilbert
    and Susan Gubar  The Freedom of Emily Dickinson

Images: Dickinson and Her World
Dickinson Homestead Photo
Dickinson’s Room
Portrait of Emily Dickinson
U.S. Commemorative Stamp
Manuscript Facsimile

Suggestions for Writing: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson in Context

ESSAYS

INSPIRING SOCIAL CHANGE
Martin Luther King Jr.  Letter from Birmingham Jail
Henry David Thoreau On Civil Disobedience
Maxine Hong Kingston No Name Woman

Suggestions for Writing: Essays About Inspiring Social Change

DRAMA

THE INDIVIDUAL VERSUS AUTHORITY
Sophocles Antigonê

Suggestions for Writing: Sophocles’s Antigonê

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About the Individual and Society
 
16. PERSONAL IDENTITY

FICTION

BECOMING AN INDIVIDUAL
Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper
David Leavitt  A Place I’ve Never Been
Sherman Alexie  This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Becoming an Individual

PERSONAL CHANGE
John Steinbeck  The Chrysanthemums
Raymond Carver  Cathedral
Jhumpa Lahiri  Interpreter of Maladies
Yiyun Li  A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Personal Change

POETRY

MEN AND WOMEN
Sylvia Plath  Metaphors
Anne Stevenson  Sous-entendu 
Carole Satyamurti  I Shall Paint My Nails Red
Charles Bukowski  my old man
Denise Levertov  The Ache of Marriage
Wendy Cope  Rondeau Redoublé 
Donald Justice  Men at Forty
Marge Piercy  Barbie Doll 

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Men and Women

CULTURAL AND PERSONAL ORIGINS
Francisco X. Alarcon  The X in My Name 
Paul Laurence Dunbar  We Wear the Mask 
Shirley Geok-lin Lim  Learning to Love America 
Edwin Arlington Robinson New England
Rhina Espaillat  Bodega
Andrew Hudgins  Elegy for My Father, Who Is not Dead 
Ted Kooser  So This Is Nebraska

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Cultural and Personal Origins

POET IN DEPTH: “I, TOO, SING AMERICA”
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY LANGSTON HUGHES
Langston Hughes  The Negro Speaks of Rivers 
Langston Hughes  I, Too  
Langston Hughes  Weary Blues 
Langston Hughes  Theme for English B
Langston Hughes  Dream Boogie  
Langston Hughes  Mother to Son  

Suggestions for Writing: Langston Hughes’s Poetry

CRITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS CASEBOOK
THE POETRY OF LANGSTON HUGHES

Langston Hughes on Writing
Langston Hughes The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
Langston Hughes On the Harlem Renaissance

Criticism and Cultural Contexts
Rita Dove and
     Marilyn Nelson The Voices in Langston Hughes
Arnold Rampersad Hughes as an Experimentalist
Darryl Pinckney Black Identity in Langston Hughes

Images: Hughes and His World
Portrait of Langston Hughes
Photograph of Langston Hughes with Fans
Photograph of Lenox Avenue, Harlem
Postage Stamp of Langston Hughes
Cover Art of FIRE!!

Suggestions for Writing: The Poetry of Langston Hughes in Context

ESSAYS
DEFINING SELF
Frederick Douglass Learning to Read and Write
Virginia Woolf What If Shakespeare Had a Sister?
Richard Rodriguez “Blaxicans” and Other Reinvented Americans

Suggestions for Writing: Essays About Defining Self

DRAMA
PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
Henrik Ibsen A Doll’s House

Suggestions for Writing: Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About Personal Identity

17. NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

FICTION

HUMANITY VERSUS NATURE
Jack London To Build a Fire
Stephen Crane Open Boat
T. Coraghessan Boyle Greasy Lake

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Humanity Versus Nature

LIVING WITH NATURE
Ursula K. Le Guin She Unnames Them
Leslie Marmon Silko The Man to Send Rain Clouds
Terry Bisson Bears Discover Fire 

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Living with Nature

ANIMALS AS ALLEGORY: THREE ANIMAL FABLES
Aesop The Grasshopper and the Ant
Bidpai The Camel and His Friends
Chuang Tzu Independence

Suggestions for Writing: Animal Fables

POETRY

NATURE
William Blake To see a world in a grain of sand
Walt Whitman When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
William Butler Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree
H. D. Storm
Robinson Jeffers Carmel Point
Elizabeth Bishop The Fish
Dana Gioia California Hills in August
Benjamin Alire Sáenz To the Desert

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Nature

ANIMALS: SYMBOLIC AND REAL   
William Blake The Tyger
Lewis Carroll Jabberwocky
John Keats Ode to a Nightingale
Thomas Hardy The Darkling Thrush
Wallace Stevens Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Robinson Jeffers Rock and Hawk
Phillis Levin Brief Bio
Kay Ryan Turtle

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Animals

JUST FOR FUN: PET HAIKU
Anonymous Dog Haiku
Anonymous Cat Haiku

Suggestions for Writing: Pet Haiku

POET IN DEPTH: DIVINE BEAUTY
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Gerard Manley Hopkins God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins The Windhover
Gerard Manley Hopkins Spring and Fall

Suggestions for Writing: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Poetry

ESSAYS

OUR PLACE IN NATURE

John Muir A Wind-Storm in the Forests
Wallace Stegner Wilderness Letter
Rachel Carson The Shape of Ancient Seas
bell hooks Earthbound: On Solid Ground

Suggestions for Writing: Essays About Our Place in Nature

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About Nature and the Environment

18. WAR AND PEACE

FICTION

WAR AND VIOLENCE
Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried
Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Mary Yukari Waters Shibusa

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About War and Violence

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Andre Dubus A Father’s Story
Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado
Guy de Maupassant Mother Savage

Suggestions for Writing: Stories About Crime and Punishment

POETRY

SOLDIERS AND WARFARE
Richard Lovelace To Lucasta
Carl Sandburg Grass
Henry Reed The Naming of Parts
Richard Eberhart The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
Marilyn Nelson Star-Fix
Yusef Komunyakaa Facing It
R. S. Gwynn Body Bags

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Soldiers and Warfare

PEACE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
William Blake A Poison Tree
Emma Lazarus The New Colossus
Claude McKay If We Must Die
William Stafford At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border
E. E. Cummings i sing of Olaf glad and big
Linda Pastan Ethics
Denise Levertov Making Peace

Suggestions for Writing: Poems About Peace and Social Justice
 

POET IN DEPTH: “THE PITY OF WAR”
A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY WILFRED OWEN
Wilfred Owen The Pity of War (prose introduction)
Wilfred Owen Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen Futility

Suggestions for Writing: Wilfred Owen’s Poetry

NON-FICTION

THE COST OF WAR

Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address
Sullivan Ballou Last Letter to his Wife
Ryan Kelly Letters to My Mother from Iraq
Myrna E. Bein A Journey Taken with my Son

Suggestions for Writing: Non-Fiction About the Cost of War

VISIONS OF PEACE

Mohandas Gandhi Non-Violence—the Greatest Force
Leo Tolstoy from The Kingdom of God Is Within You
 

Suggestions for Writing: Non-Fiction About Visions of Peace

DRAMA

WAR IN DRAMA: TWO CONTRASTING SPEECHES FROM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare  “Band of Brothers”: Speech from Henry V (Act 4, Scene 3)
William Shakespeare “Discretion is the better part of valor”: Speech from Henry IV, Part I (Act 5, Scene 4)

Suggestions for Writing: Shakespeare’s Contrasting Speeches on War

Further Suggestions for Writing: Literature About War and Peace

CRITiCAL STRATEGIES

19. CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE
Formalist Criticism
 Michael Clark     Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues”
Biographical Criticism
 Brett C. Millier     On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”
Historical Criticism
Joseph Moldenhauer     “To His Coy Mistress” and the Renaissance Tradition
Psychological Criticism
Daniel Hoffman    The Father-Figure in “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Mythological Criticism
Edmond Volpe    Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”
Sociological Criticism
 Kathryn Lee Seidel   The Economics of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”
Gender Criticism
Richard R. Bozorth     “Tell Me the Truth About Love”
Reader-Response Criticism
 Stanley Fish     An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily”
Deconstructionist Criticism
 Roland Barthes       The Death of the Author
Cultural Studies
 Camille Paglia           A Reading of William Blake’s “London”

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES
INDEX OF LITERARY TERMS

 
Contents by Genre
FICTION
Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path
Aesop, The Grasshopper and the Ant
Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Max Apple, Vegetable Love
Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues
Bidpai, The Camel and His Friends
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Terry Bisson, Bears Discover Fire 
T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake
Raymond Carver, Cathedral
Michael Chabon, The Little Knife
John Cheever, The Swimmer
Kate Chopin, Désirée’s Baby
Kate Chopin, The Storm
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Chuang Tzu, Independence
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
Andre Dubus, A Father’s Story
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal
Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible
William Faulkner, Barn Burning
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, Godfather Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Ernest Hemingway, A Clean Well-Lighted Place
O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), The Gift of the Magi
Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
Ha Jin, Saboteur
James Joyce, Araby
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
David Leavitt, A Place I’ve Never Been
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula K. Le Guin, She Unnames Them
Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Jack London, To Build a Fire
Luke, Parable of the Prodigal Son
Katharine Mansfield, Miss Brill
Somerset Maugham, An Appointment in Samarra
Guy de Maupassant, Mother Savage
Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
ZZ Packer, Brownies
Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Leslie Marmon Silko, The Man to Send Rain Clouds
John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums
Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets
John Updike, A & P
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Harrison Bergeron
Alice Walker, Everyday Use
Mary Yukari Waters, Shibusa
Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O.
Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother

POETRY
Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You  
Francisco X. Alarcon, The X in My Name
Julia Alvarez, By Accident
Anonymous, Cat Haiku
Anonymous, Dog Haiku
Anonymous, Epitaph on a Dentist
Anonymous, A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell Checkers
Margaret Atwood, Siren Song
W. H. Auden, Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen
Basho, Heat-lightning streak
Basho, Temple bells die out
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish
William Blake, London
William Blake, A Poison Tree
William Blake, To see a world in a grain of sand
William Blake, The Tyger
Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters
Gwendolyn Brooks, the mother
Gwendolyn Brooks, the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks, Sadie and Maud
Gwendolyn Brooks, Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
Charles Bukowski,  Dostoevsky
Charles Bukowski,  my old man
Taniguchi Buson, Moonrise on mudflats
Rafael Campo, For J. W.
Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quinceañera
Wendy Cope, Lonely Hearts
Wendy Cope, Rondeau Redoublé
Countee Cullen, Incident
E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town
E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s
E. E. Cummings, i sing of Olaf glad and big
E. E. Cummings, in Just-
E. E. Cummings, somewhere I have never traveled,gladly beyond
Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death
Emily Dickinson, I’m Nobody, Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
Emily Dickinson, Some Keep the Sabbath by going to Church
Emily Dickinson, The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Emily Dickinson, There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson, This is my letter to the World
Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
John Donne, Death be not proud
John Donne, The Flea
Michael Drayton, Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sympathy
Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask
Richard Eberhart, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Rhina P. Espaillat, Bilingual / Bilingüe
Rhina P. Espaillat, Bodega
Abbie Hurston Evans, Wing-Spread
Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost, Desert Places
Robert Frost, Design
Robert Frost, Fire and Ice
Robert Frost, In White
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
Dana Gioia, California Hills in August
R.S. Gwynn, Body Bags
H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Storm
Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy, Hap
Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden, The Whipping
Seamus Heaney, Digging
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall
Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover
A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty
Andrew Hudgins, Elegy for My Father, Who Is not Dead
Langston Hughes, Dream Boogie
Langston Hughes, Harlem [Dream Deferred]
Langston Hughes, I, Too
Langston Hughes, Mother to Son
Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
Langston Hughes, Weary Blues
Kobayashi Issa, only one guy
Robinson Jeffers, Carmel Point
Robinson Jeffers, Rock and Hawk
Donald Justice, Men at Forty
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats, When I have fears that I may cease to be
Weldon Kees, For My Daughter
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It
Ted Kooser, A Room in the Past
Ted Kooser, So This is Nebraska
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
Li-Young Lee, The Gift
Denise Levertov, The Ache of Marriage
Denise Levertov, Making Peace
Phillis Levin, Brief Bio
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Learning to Love America
Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta
Antonio Machado, Caminante / Traveler
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
Claude McKay, If We Must Die
W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What lips my lips have kissed
Marilyn Nelson, The Ballad of Aunt Geneva
Marilyn Nelson, Star-Fix
Marilyn Nelson, A Strange Beautiful Woman
Pablo Neruda, Muchos Somos / We Are Many
Sharon Olds, Rite of Passage
Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen, Futility
José Emilio Pacheco, La Ceniza / Ashes
Linda Pastan, Ethics
Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
Sylvia Plath, Metaphors
Henry Reed, The Naming of Parts
Edwin Arlington Robinson, New England
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory
Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
Christina Rossetti, Uphill
Kay Ryan, Turtle
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, To the Desert
Carl Sandburg, Grass
Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red
Anne Sexton, Her Kind
William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
William Shakespeare, When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes
William Shakespeare, When my love swears that she is made of truth
Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning
Gary Soto, Heaven
William Stafford, At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Anne Stevenson, Sous-entendu
Wislawa Szymborska, True Love
Diane Thiel, The Minefield
Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill
Natasha Threthewey, White Lies
John Updike, The Ex-Basketball Player
Gina Valdés, English Con Salsa
Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
William Carlos Williams, Danse Russe
William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree
William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old
Kevin Young, Late Blues

DRAMA
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
David Ives, Sure Thing
Terrence McNally, Andre’s Mother
William Shakespeare, “Band of Brothers”: Speech from Henry V
William Shakespeare, “Discretion is the better part of valor”: Speech from Henry IV, Part I
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice
Sophocles, Antigonê
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
Tennessee Williams, A Glass Menagerie

ESSAYS AND NON-FICTION
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
Sullivan Ballou, Last Letter to his Wife
Myrna E. Bein, A Journey Taken with my Son
Rachel Carson, The Shape of Ancient Seas
Raymond Carver, My Father’s Life
Judith Ortiz Cofer, I Fell in Love, or My Hormones Awakened
Joan Didion, On Morality
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write
Mohandas Gandhi, Non-Violence—The Greatest Force
Dana Gioia, Reading Makes a Better Society
Bell hooks, Earthbound: On Solid Ground
Mike Ives, Would Hemingway Cry?
Ryan Kelly, Letters to My Mother from Iraq
Martin Luther King Jr.,  Letter from Birmingham Jail
Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On the Fear of Death
Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
Steve Martin, Disneyland
Kenneth McClane, “Sonny’s Blues” Saved My Life
H. L. Mencken, Remembering Sara: Diary Entry
John Muir, A Wind-Storm in the Forests
George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant
Cynthia Ozick, Lovesickness
Paul, 1 Corinthians 13
Richard Rodriguez, “Blaxicans” and Other Reinvented Americans
Sacha Z. Scoblic, Rock Star, Meet Teetotaler
Brent Staples, The Runaway Son
Wallace Stegner, Wilderness Letter
Amy Tan, Mother Tongue
Henry David Thoreau, On Civil Disobedience
Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Virginia Woolf, What If Shakespeare Had a Sister?

 
CRITICAL PROSE
Aristotle, Defining Tragedy
W. H. Auden, Iago as a Triumphant Villain
Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author
Maud Bodkin, Lucifer in Shakespeare’s Othello
Richard R. Bozorth, “Tell Me the Truth About Love”
Anthony Burgess, An Asian Culture Looks at Shakespeare
Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement
Michael Clark, Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues”
Brenda O. Daly, An Unfilmable Conclusion: Joyce Carol Oates at the Movies
Emily Dickinson, Recognizing Poetry 
Emily Dickinson, Self Description
E. R. Dodds, On Misunderstanding Oedipus
Denis Donoghue, One of the Irrefutable Poets
Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson, The Voices in Langston Hughes
Maud Ellmann, Will There Be Time?
Stanley Fish, An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily”
Sigmund Freud, The Destiny of Oedipus
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar , The Freedom of Emily Dickinson
A. E. Haigh, The Irony of Sophocles
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Meeting Emily Dickinson
Daniel Hoffman, The Father-Figure in “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Langston Hughes, On the Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
Thomas H. Johnson, The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts
Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”
Joseph Moldenhauer, “To His Coy Mistress” and the Renaissance Tradition
Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tucson: He Cruised in a Golden Car, Looking for Action
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film
Wilfred Owen, The Pity of War
Camille Paglia, A Reading of William Blake’s “London”
Darryl Pinckney, Black Identity in Langston Hughes
Arnold Rampersad, Hughes as an Experimentalist
B. Ruby Rich, Good Girls, Bad Girls: Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk
Christopher Ricks, What’s in a Name?
M. L. Rosenthal, Adolescents Singing
Kathryn Lee Seidel, The Economics of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”
Elaine Showalter, Quilt as Metaphor in “Everyday Use”
Rebecca Sumner, Smoothing Out the Rough Spots: The Film Adaptation of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Virginia Mason Vaughan, Black and White in Othello
Edmond Volpe, Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”
Alice Walker, The Black Woman Writer in America
Mary Helen Washington, “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist
Richard Wilbur, The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson

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