Table of Contents

Preface. Writing About Literature. I. Why Write about Literature? II. For Whom Do You Write? III. Two Basic Approaches. IV. Choosing a Topic. V. Proving Your Point. VI. Writing the Paper. VII. Writing In-Class Essays or Essay Tests. VIII. Introducing Quotations (Q1-Q11). IX. Documentation. X. Stance and Style (S1-S6). XI. Grammar, Punctuation, and Usage: Common Problems. XII. Writing Samples. FICTION: THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION. 1. Reading the Story. Reviewing Chapter One. Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game. Tobias Wolff, Hunters in the Snow. Understanding and Evaluating Fiction. Suggestions for Writing. 2. Plot and Structure. Reviewing Chapter Two. Graham Greene, The Destructors. Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband. Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. Suggestions for Writing. 3. Characterization. Reviewing Chapter Three. Alice Walker, Everyday Use. Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill. Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man. Suggestions for Writing. 4. Theme. Reviewing Chapter Four. Tim Gautreaux, Welding with Children. Anton Chekhov, The Darling. Translated by Constance Garnett. Eudora Welty, A Worn Path. Nadine Gordimer, Once upon a Time. Suggestions for Writing. 5. Point of View. Reviewing Chapter Five. Willa Cather, Paul's Case. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants. Suggestions for Writing. 6. Symbol, Allegory, and Fantasy. Reviewing Chapter Six. D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown. Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. Suggestions for Writing. 7. Humor and Irony. Reviewing Chapter Seven. Frank O'Connor, The Drunkard. Margaret Atwood, Rape Fantasies. Albert Camus, The Guest. Translated by Justin O'Brien. Suggestions for Writing. 8. Evaluating Fiction. Reviewing Chapter Eight. Exercise. Edith Wharton, Roman Fever. F. Scott Fitzgerald, A New Leaf. Suggestions for Writing. Three Featured Writers: James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, and Joyce Carol Oates. Introduction. James Joyce. Araby. Eveline. The Boarding House. Flannery O'Connor. A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Everything That Rises Must Converge. Greenleaf. Joyce Carol Oates. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Life After High School. June Birthing. Suggestions for Writing. Stories for Further Reading. Chinua Achebe, Civil Peace. John Cheever, The Swimmer. Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour. William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily. Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers. Zora Neale Hurston, The Gilded Six-Bits. Henry James, The Real Thing. Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado. John Updike, A & P. POETRY: THE ELEMENTS OF POETRY. 1. What is Poetry?. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle. William Shakespeare, Winter. Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est. REVIEWING CHAPTER ONE. UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING POETRY. William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Robert Hayden, The Whipping. Emily Dickinson, The last Night that She lived. Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham. Gwendolyn Brooks, Kitchenette Building. William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Constantly risking absurdity. Langston Hughes, Suicide's Note. A. E. Housman, Terence, this is stupid stuff. Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica. Suggestions for Writing. 2. Reading the Poem. Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed. Philip Larkin, A Study of Reading Habits. A. E. Housman, Is my team plowing. REVIEWING CHAPTER TWO. John Donne, Break of Day. Emily Dickinson, There's been a Death, in the Opposite House. Mari Evans, When in Rome. Philip Levine, Animals Are Passing from Our Lives. May Swenson,Question. Sylvia Plath, Mirror. William Blake, The Clod and the Pebble. Linda Pastan, Ethics. Adrienne Rich, Storm Warnings. Suggestions for Writing. 3. Denotation and Connotation. Emily Dickinson, There is no Frigate like a Book. William Shakespeare, When my love swears that she is made of truth. Ellen Kay, Pathedy of Manners. EXERCISES. REVIEWING CHAPTER THREE. Henry Reed, Naming of Parts. Langston Hughes, Cross. William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us. Robert Frost, Desert Places. Elinor Wylie, Let No Charitable Hope. John Donne, A Hymn to God the Father. Elizabeth Bishop, One Art. Sharon Olds, 35/10. Suggestions for Writing. 4. Imagery. Robert Browning Meeting at Night. Robert Browning Parting at Morning. EXERCISES. REVIEWING CHAPTER FOUR. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring. William Carlos Williams, The Widow's Lament in Springtime. Thom Gunn, The Man with Night Sweats. Emily Dickinson, I felt a Funeral, in my Brain. Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin. Seamus Heaney, The Forge. Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking. Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays. Seamus Heaney, An August Night. Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man. John Keats, To Autumn. Suggestions for Writing. 5. Figurative Language 1: Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Apostrophe, Metonymy. Langston Hughes, Harlem (previously called Dream Deferred). Robert Frost, Bereft. Emily Dickinson, It sifts from Leaden Sieves. Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book. Maya Angelou, The Telephone. John Keats, Bright Star. EXERCISE. REVIEWING CHAPTER FIVE. Richard Wilbur, Mind. Emily Dickinson, I taste a liquor never brewed. Sylvia Plath, Metaphors. Philip Larkin, Toads. Adrienne Rich, Ghost of a Chance. John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress. Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry. Suggestions for Writing. 6. Figurative Language 2: Symbol, Allegory. Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken. Walt Whitman, A Noiseless Patient Spider. William Blake, The Sick Rose. Seamus Heaney, Digging. Robert Herrick To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. George Herbert Peace. EXERCISES. REVIEWING CHAPTER SIX. Richard Wilbur, The Writer. Robert Frost, Fire and Ice. Christina Rossetti, Up-Hill. Maya Angelou, Harlem Hopscotch. Walt Whitman, I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing. Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death. John Donne, Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness. Billy Collins, Weighing the Dog. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses. Suggestions for Writing. 7. Figurative Language 3: Paradox, Overstatement, Understatement, Irony. Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense. John Donne, The Sun Rising. Countee Cullen, Incident. Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll. William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias. EXERCISE. REVIEWING CHAPTER SEVEN. Maya Angelou, Lady Luncheon Club. John Donne Batter, my heart, three-personed God. Elisavietta Ritchie, Sorting Laundry. Billy Collins, The History Teacher. Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break. Robert Frost, A Considerable Speck. W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen. Lucille Clifton in the inner city. Robert Browning, My Last Duchess. Suggestions for Writing. 8. Allusion. Robert Frost "Out, Out —" William Shakespeare From Macbeth ("She should have died hereafter"). REVIEWING CHAPTER EIGHT. e. e. Cummings, in Just-. Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel. John Milton, On His Blindness. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy. Sharon Olds, My Son the Man. Margaret Atwood, Siren Song. T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi. William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan. Suggestions for Writing. 9. Meaning and Idea. Anonymous, Little Jack Horner. A. E. Housman, Loveliest of Trees. Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. REVIEWING CHAPTER NINE. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Rhodora: On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower? Robert Frost, Design. Emily Dickinson, I never saw a Moor. Emily Dickinson, "Faith" is a fine invention. John Keats, On the Sonnet. Billy Collins, Sonnet. William Blake, The Lamb. William Blake, The Tiger. John Donne, The Indifferent. John Donne, Love's Deity. Billy Collins, My Number. Edwin Denby, I had heard it's a fight. Suggestions for Writing. 10. Tone. Richard Eberhart, For a Lamb. Emily Dickinson, Apparently with no surprise. Michael Drayton, Since there's no help. Billy Collins Picnic, Lightning. REVIEWING CHAPTER TEN. William Shakespeare, My mistress' eyes. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Crossing the Bar. Thomas Hardy, The Oxen. Emily Dickinson, One dignity delays for all. Emily Dickinson 'Twas warm - at first - like Us. John Donne, The Apparition. John Donne, The Flea. Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach. Philip Larkin, Church Going. Suggestions for Writing. 11. Musical Devices. Ogden Nash, The Turtle. W. H. Auden, That night when joy began. Theodore Roethke, The Waking. Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur. EXERCISE. REVIEWING CHAPTER ELEVEN. William Shakespeare, Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool. Maya Angelou, Woman Work. Sharon Olds, Rite of Passage. Emily Dickinson, As imperceptibly as Grief. Mary Oliver, Music Lessons. William Stafford, Traveling through the dark. Ted Hughes, Thistles. Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay. Suggestions for Writing. 12. Rhythm and Meter. George Herbert Virtue. EXERCISES. REVIEWING CHAPTER TWELVE. William Blake, "Introduction" to Songs of Innocence. Walt Whitman, Had I the Choice. Robert Frost, The Aim Was Song. George Gordon, Lord Byron Stanzas. Sylvia Plath, Old Ladies' Home. Maya Angelou, Africa. Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home. James Wright, A Blessing. Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, break, break. Suggestions for Writing. 13. Sound and Meaning. Anonymous, Pease Porridge Hot. A. E. Housman, Eight O'Clock. Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense. Emily Dickinson, I heard a Fly buzz - when I died. EXERCISE. REVIEWING CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth. Margaret Atwood, Landcrab. Robert Frost, Tree at My Window. Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. John Donne, At the round earth's imagined corners. Galway Kinnell, Blackberry Eating. Maya Angelou, The Health-Food Diner. William Carlos Williams, The Dance. Suggestions for Writing. 14. Pattern. George Herbert, The Pulley. John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. William Shakespeare, That time of year. Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. EXERCISE. REVIEWING CHAPTER FOURTEEN. William Shakespeare, From Romeo and Juliet. John Donne Death, be not proud. Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Sheaves. Claude McKay, The White City. Claude McKay, America. Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask. Kim Addonizio Sonnenizio, on a Line from Drayton. Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night. Donald Justice, In Memory of the Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughn. Seamus Heaney, Villanelle for an Anniversary. Edwin Arlington Robinson, The House on the Hill. Emily Dickinson, These are the days when Birds come back. Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder. Ben Jonson, Still to be neat. Suggestions for Writing. 15. Evaluating Poetry 1: Sentimental, Rhetorical, Didactic Verse. God's Will for You and Me. Pied Beauty. A Poison Tree. The Most Vital Thing in Life. Lower New York: At Dawn. Composed upon Westminster Bridge. Pitcher. The Old-Fashioned Pitcher. Piano. The Days Gone By. The Engine I like to see it lap the Miles. When I Have Fears. O Solitude! Suggestions for Writing. 16. Evaluating Poetry 2: Poetic Excellence. John Donne, The Canonization. John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. Emily Dickinson, There's a certain Slant of light. Robert Frost Home Burial. T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish. Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck. FEATURED POETS. Emily Dickinson. A Light exists in Spring. A narrow Fellow in the Grass. Apparently with no surprise. As imperceptibly as Grief. Because I could not stop for Death. "Faith" is a fine invention. I died for Beauty — but was scarce. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain. I heard a Fly buzz — when I died. I like a look of Agony. I like to see it lap the Miles. I never saw a Moor. I taste a liquor never brewed. It sifts from Leaden Sieves. Much Madness is divinest Sense. One dignity delays for all. The last Night that She lived. There is no Frigate like a Book. There's a certain Slant of light. There's been a Death, in the Opposite House. These are the days when Birds come back. 'Twas warm - at — like Us. John Donne. A Hymn to God the Father. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. At the round earth's imagined corners. Batter my heart, three-personed God. Break of Day. Death, be not proud. Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness. Love's Deity. Song: Go and Catch a falling star. The Apparition. The Canonization. The Flea. The Good-Morrow. The Indifferent. The Sun Rising. Robert Frost. A Considerable Speck. Acquainted with the Night. After Apple-Picking. Bereft. Birches. Desert Places. Design. Fire and Ice. Home Burial. Mending Wall. Nothing Gold Can Stay. Once by the Pacific. "Out, Out ". Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. The Aim Was Song. The Road Not Taken. Tree at My Window. A CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION. Maya Angelou. Africa. Harlem Hopscotch. Lady Luncheon Club. The Health-Food Diner. The Telephone. Woman Work. Billy Collins. Introduction to Poetry. My Number. Picnic, Lightning. Sonnet. The History Teacher. Weighing the Dog. Seamus Heaney. An August Night. Digging. Follower. Mid-Term Break. The Forge. Villanelle for an Anniversary. Sharon Olds. I go Back to May 1937. My Son the Man. Rite of Passage. The Planned Child. The Victims. 35/10. Adrienne Rich. Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Diving into the Wreck. Ghost of a Chance. Living in Sin. Poetry: I. Storm Warnings. POEMS FOR FURTHER READING. W. H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts. Jimmy Santiago, Baca Main Character. Aphra Behn, On Her Loving Two Equally. D. C. Berry, On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High. Elizabeth Bishop, Manners. Gwendolyn Brooks, Sadie and Maud. Gwendolyn Brooks, a song in the front yard. Gwendolyn Brooks, Tornado at Talladega. Gladys Cardiff, Combing. Mary, Lady Chudleigh To the Ladies. Lucille Clifton, good times. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan. Hart Crane, Voyages (1). Stephen Crane, War Is Kind. e. e. cummings, the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls. e. e. cummings, Spring is like a perhaps hand. Emily Dickinson, A Light exists in Spring. Emily Dickinson, A narrow Fellow in the Grass. Emily Dickinson, I died for Beauty — but was scarce. Emily Dickinson, I like a look of Agony. John Donne, The Good-Morrow. John Donne, Song: Go and catch a falling star. Rita Dove, Nexus. Rita Dove, Persephone, Falling. Paul Laurence, Dunbar Sympathy. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Christ climbed down. Carolyn Forche, The Colonel. Robert Frost, Birches. Robert Frost, Mendig Wall. Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific. Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California. Thom Gunn, From the Wave. R. S. Gwynn, Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins. Daniel Halpern, On the Death of a Child. Thomas Hardy, Channel Firing. Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush. Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones. Seamus Heaney, Follower. A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young. Langston Hughes, Aunt Sue's Stories. Langston Hughes, Negro Servant. Langston Hughes, Theme for English B. Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. Ben Jonson, To Celia. Jenny Joseph, Warning. Donald Justice, Men at Forty. John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci. John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale. John Keats, To one who has been long in city pent. Philip Larkin, Aubade. Denise Levertov, The Blind Man's House at the Edge of the Cliff. Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars. William Matthews, Puberty. Marianne Moore, Silence. Harryette Mullen, Dim Lady. Sharon Olds, I Go Back to May 1937. Sharon Olds, The Planned Child. Sharon Olds, The Victims. Dorothy Parker, Resume. Marge Piercy, A Work of Artifice. Sylvia Plath, Mad Girl's Love Song. Sylvia Plath, Spinster. Sylvia Plath, Wuthering Heights. Alexander Pope, Epigram from the French. Ezra Pound, Salutation. John Crowe Ransom, Here Lies a Lady. Adrienne Rich, Poetry: 1. Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Mr. Flood's Party. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory. Theodore Roethke, I knew a woman. Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz. Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar. Anne Sexton, Young. William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds. Charles Simic, Watermelons. C. K. Smith, The Critic. Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning. Gary Soto, Small Town with One Road. Edmund Spenser, One day I wrote her name upon the strand. Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar. Wallace Stevens, The Course of a Particular. Wallace Stevens The Death of a Soldier. Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock. Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning. Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill. Derek Walcott, The Virgins. Walt Whitman, To a Stranger. Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. Walt Whitman, Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand. William Carlos Williams, Poem. William Carlos Williams, Spring and All. Yvor Winters, The Slow Pacific Swell. Yvor Winters, A Summer Commentary. William Wordsworth, I wandered lonely as a cloud. William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper. William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium. William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming. William Butler Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole. DRAMA: THE ELEMENTS OF DRAMA. 1. The Nature of Drama. Reviewing Chapter One. Understanding and Evaluating Drama. Susan Glaspell, Trifles. August Strindberg,The Stronger Translated by Edith and Warner Oland. Jane Martin, Beauty. Jose Rivera, Tape. Lynn Nottage, Poof! Edward Albee, The Sandbox. David Ives, Time Flies. Suggestions for Writing. 2. Realistic and Nonrealistic Drama. Reviewing Chapter Two. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll House Translated by Otto Reinert. Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie. Luis Valdez, Los Vendidos. Suggestions for Writing. 3. Tragedy and Comedy. Reviewing Chapter Three. Sophocles, Oedipus Rex Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice. Moliere Tartuffe, or The Impostor Translated by Richard Wilbur. Beth Henley, Am I Blue. Suggestions for Writing. PLAYS FOR FURTHER READING. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. August Wilson, Fences. Terrence McNally, Andre's Mother. Glossary of Terms. Copyrights and Acknowledgments. Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines.