Table of Contents
Introduction: Connecting with Literature
Sample Paper — Raymond Carver's "Creative Writing 101"
Reading Literature
Thinking and Writing about Literature
Part One — FICTION
- What is a Short Story?
*Old Testament, The Judgment of Solomon Grace Paley, Samuel - Reading, Thinking and Writing about Short Fiction
Close Reading Short Fiction Some Guidelines for Close Reading Sample Close Reading —Grace Paley, Samuel Critical Thinking about Short Fiction Writing about Short Fiction Sample Paper — Grace Paley's Commentary and "Samuel" Other Resources to Help Your Writing Sample Paper —Grace Paley's Point of View in "Samuel" - Plot and Point of View
Plot *Plot Summary *Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics *Questions for Critical Thinking about Plot *Writing about Plot *Alasdair Gray, Pillow Talk Point of View *Herta Muller, Workday *Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A. *Questions for Critical Thinking about Point of View *Writing about Point of View *Useful Terms to Remember - Character and Setting
Character *Roberto Bolano, Jim *Questions for Critical Thinking about Character *Writing about Character Jamaica Kincaid, Girl Setting *Daniel Orozco, Orientation *Questions for Critical Thinking about Setting *Writing about Setting Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings * Useful Terms to Remember - Style and Theme
Style *David Foster Wallace, Everything is Green *Lydia Davis, Blind Date Voice Tone Irony Symbol *Franz Kafka, I Wish I Were a Red Indian *Yasunari Kawabata, The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket *Questions for Critical Thinking about Style *Writing about Style Theme Interpreting the Theme of a Story *Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day *Rosario Morales, The Day It Happened *Questions for Critical Thinking about Theme *Writing about Theme *Useful Terms to Remember - CONVERSATIONS ON STORIES AND STORYTELLERS
Flannery O'Connor Good Country People A Good Man Is Hard to Find On Flannery O'Connor's Fiction Flannery O'Connor From Letters, 1954-55 Flannery O'Connor Writing Short Stories Flannery O'Connor The Element of Suspense in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Sally Fitzgerald Southern Sources of A Good Man Is Hard to Find Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado The Fall of the House of Usher On Critical Views of Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories Edgar Allan Poe The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale D.H. Lawrence On The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren A New Critical Reading of The Fall of the House of Usher J. Gerald Kennedy On The Fall of the House of Usher David S. Reynolds Poe's Art of Transformation in The Cask of Amontillado *Writing about Flannery O'Connor and Edgar Allan Poe - STORIES AND STORYTELLERS
Sherman Alexie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven COMMENTARY: Sherman Alexie,
Superman and Me *Dorothy Allison
Jason Who Will Be Famous Margaret Atwood
Happy Endings James Baldwin
Sonny's Blues COMMENTARY: James Baldwin,
Autobiographical Notes Toni Cade Bambara
The Lesson *Jose Antonio Burciaga
La Puerta Raymond Carver
Cathedral COMMENTARIES: Raymond Carver,
On Writing Raymond Carver,
Creative Writing 101 CONNECTION: Raymond Carver,
Popular Mechanics Anton Chekhov
The Lady with the Pet Dog COMMENTARY: Anton Chekhov,
Technique in Writing the Short Story CONNECTION: Joyce Carol Oates,
The Lady with the Pet Dog Kate Chopin
Desiree's Baby The Story of an Hour
COMMENTARY: Kate Chopin,
How I Stumbled upon Maupassant *Stephen Crane
The Open Boat COMMENTARY: Stephen Crane,
The Sinking of the Commodore
Junot Diaz
How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie Ralph Ellison
Battle Royal COMMENTARY: Ralph Ellison,
The Influence of Folklore on Battle Royal William Faulkner
A Rose for Emily COMMENTARY: William Faulkner,
The Meaning of A Rose for Emily
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper COMMENTARIES: Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar,
A Feminist Reading of Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
Susan Glaspell
A Jury of Her Peers COMMENTARIES: Elaine Showalter,
On Glaspell's A Jury of Her Peers
CONNECTIONS: Susan Glaspell,
Trifles Lynn Nottage,
POOF! Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown COMMENTARY: Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
CONNECTION, Edgar Allan Poe,
The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale Ernest Hemingway
Hills Like White Elephants Zora Neale Hurston
*
Sweat COMMENTARY: Zora Neale Hurston,
How it Feels to Be Colored Me CONNECTION, Alice Walker,
Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View Shirley Jackson
The Lottery COMMENTARY: Shirley Jackson,
The Morning of June 28, 1948, and The Lottery
Sarah Orne Jewett
*A White Heron Ha Jin
*Saboteur James Joyce
Araby CONNECTION: John Updike,
A&P Franz Kafka
A Hunger Artist R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz, A Hunger Artist
The Metamorphosis COMMENTARY: Gustav Janouch,
Kafka's View of The Metamorphosis
CONNECTION: Franz Kafka,
I Wish I Were a Red Indian D.H. Lawrence
The Rocking-Horse Winner CONNECTION: D.H. Lawrence,
On Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher
and The Cask of Amontillado
Jack London
To Build a Fire Guy de Maupassant
The Necklace CONNECTION: Kate Chopin,
How I Stumbled on Maupassant Herman Melville
Bartleby, the Scrivener CONNECTION: Herman Melville,
Blackness in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
Lorrie Moore
How to Become a Writer Joyce Carol Oates
The Lady with the Pet Dog Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
COMMENTARY: Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk:
Short Story Into Film CONNECTION: Anton Chekhov,
The Lady with the Pet Dog Tim O'Brien
The Things They Carried COMMENTARY: Bobbie Ann Mason,
On Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
Tillie Olsen
I Stand Here Ironing ZZ Packer
Brownies Grace Paley
*
A Conversation with My Father COMMENTARY: Paley,
A Conversation with Ann Charters CONNECTION: Grace Paley,
Samuel Luigi Pirandello
*
War CONNECTION: Luigi Pirandello,
Six Characters in Search of an Author Marjane Satrapi
*From
Persepolis: The Veil *COMMENTARY: Sydney Plum,
Reading The Veil
by Marjane Satrapi Leslie Marmon Silko
Yellow Woman COMMENTARY: Paula Gunn Allen,
Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow Woman John Steinbeck
The Chrysanthemums Amy Tan
Two Kinds John Updike
A&P CONNECTION: James Joyce,
A&P Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Harrison Bergeron Alice Walker
Everyday Use COMMENTARY: Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View
CONNECTION: Zora Neale Hurston,
Sweat Eudora Welty
A Worn Path COMMENTARY: Eudora Welty,
Is Phoenix Jackson's Grandson Really Dead? William Carlos Williams
The Use of Force Tobias Wolff
Say Yes PART TWO — POETRY 8. What is a poem? Marianne Moore,
Poetry (1935)
*Pablo Neruda,
Poetry Archibald MacLeish,
Ars Poetica Ann Menebroker,
A Mere Glimpse *Fred Voss,
How Many Times Can We Follow Dante Down Into Hell? *Victor Hernado Cruz
today is a day of great joy *Commentary: James Tate, "
Like it or not we are a part of our time." 9. Reading, Thinking, and Writing about Poetry Reading Poetry
Close Reading
Paraphrase
Guidelines for Reading Poetry
Sample Close Reading — Linda Pastan,
To a Daughter Leaving Home Critical Thinking about Poetry
Writing about Poetry
Sample Paper
—A Moving Lyric: Pastan's "To a Daughter Leaving Home" 10. RHYME Emily Dickinson,
A word is dead Alliteration
Assonance
Walt Whitman,
A Farm Picture Onomatopoeia
Rhyme
A. E. Housman,
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now *Georgia Douglas Johnson,
I Want to Die While You Love me A Range of Rhyme
Stevie Smith,
Not Waving but Drowning Connection: Anne Sexton,
An Obsessive Combination of Ontological Inscape, Trickery and Love Rhymed Poems for Further Reading
Sir Thomas Wyatt,
They Flee from Me Ben Jonson,
On My First Son Robert Herrick,
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time *Robert Browning,
A Woman's Last Word *e. e. cummings,
when God lets my body be Theodore Roethke,
My Papa's Waltz *Anne Sexton,
And One for My Dame *Dana Gioia, Summer Storm
Rhyme and Popular Songs
Lou Reed, Chelsea Girls
*Natalie Merchant,
Jealousy *Writing about Rhyme
*Useful Terms to Remember
11. POETIC METER *Edgar Lee Masters,
Petit, the Poet Accent and Meter
*Mary Coleridge,
A Clever Woman *Ralph Waldo Emerson, from
The Humble Bee *Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from
The Song of Hiawatha *Christina Rossetti,
What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow Blank Verse
*Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Books, books, books!
The Stanza
*Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
Life Poems for Further Reading
*Thomas Hood, from
The Bridge of Sighs *Mary Coleridge,
Eyes *Thomas Hardy
, I need not go *Robert Hayden,
A Road in Kentucky *Writing about Poetic Meter
*Useful Terms to Remember
12.
THE MEANING OF WORDS Tone
*Carl Sandburg,
Grass Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Miniver Cheevy Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Richard Cory Words and Their Meaning
Lewis Carroll,
Jabberwocky Denotative and Connotative Meaning
Diction
Syntax
Imagery
Elizabeth Bishop,
The Bight A Close Reading of
The Bight Figurative and Literal Language
Simile and Metaphor
*William Carlos Williams,
To Waken an Old Lady Personification
John Keats,
To Autumn Rolf Aggestam ,
Lightning Bolt *Les Murray,
The Cows on Killing Day * Other Figures of Speech
Symbol, Apostrophe, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Paradox, Oxymoron, Hyperbole, Understatement
Poems for Further Reading
*Sylvia Plath,
Metaphors *Louis Gluck,
The Wild Iris *Kate Gleason,
After Fighting for Hours *Writing about Tone and Figurative Language
*Useful Terms to Remember
13. TRADITIONAL FORMS *The Structural Elements: The Couplet, Stanza, Quatrain, Octave, Tercet
Narrative Poetry
The Ballad
Ballads for Further Reading
Anonymous
, The Daemon Lover Anonymous
, Barbara Allan *Amy Lowell,
Evelyn Ray The Ode
John Keats,
Ode on a Grecian Urn Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Ode to the West Wind The Elegy
Thomas Gray,
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard *Theodore Roethke,
Elegy for Jane The Sonnet
William Shakespeare,
That time of year thou mayst in me behold Sonnets for Further Reading
Francisco Petrarch,
Love's Inconsistency *Lady Mary Wroth,
When last I saw thee, I did not thee see John Donne,
Death, Be Not Proud *William Wordsworth
, Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802 Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Ozymandias Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
How Do I Love Thee? Countee Cullen,
Yet I Do Marvel *Edna St. Vincent Millay,
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why *Gwendolyn Brooks, The
Rites for Cousin Vit *June Jordan,
Something Like A Sonnet for Phillis Miracle Wheatley The Sestina and the Villanelle
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Dramatic Poetry
*William Shakespeare
, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow", from
Macbeth The Dramatic Monologue
Robert Browning
My Last Duchess The Pattern Poem
George Herbert, Easter Wings
*Guillame Apollinaire,
Hail World *Guillame Apollinaire,
It's Raining *The Epigram, the Aphorism, and the Limerick
Dorothy Parker, from
A Pig's Eye View of Literature: The lives and Times of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon, Lord Byron *James Richardson, from Vectors: Five Hundred Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays
Dylan Thomas,
The last time I slept with the Queen Wendy Cope, "
The fine English poet, John Donne" J. Walker,
On T. S. Eliot's Prufrock
Richard Leighton Green,
Apropos Coleridge's Kubla Khan
A. Cinna,
On Hamlet *
Poems for Further Reading Andrew Marvell,
To His Coy Mistress William Wordsworth,
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud *Christina Rossetti,
A Birthday Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
Ulysses Commentaries:
Erica Jong,
Devouring Time: Shakespeare's Sonnets; Percy Bysshe Shelley,
from A Defence of Poetry;
* Writing about Poetic Forms
*Useful Terms to Remember
14. OTHER FORMS of POETRY *H. D.,
The Pool Imagism
Imagist Poems for Further Reading
Ezra Pound,
In a Station at the Metro T. E. Hulme,
Images *D. H. Lawrence,
The White Horse H. D.,
Oread *Amy Lowell,
Meeting House Hill William Carlos Williams,
The Red Wheelbarrow Wallace Stevens,
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird *Classical Chinese Verse and Japanese Haiku
*Li Ta'I Po,
A Song of Changgan *Ezra Pound,
The River Merchant's Wife, A Letter *Charles Wright
After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard *An Introduction to Haiku
*Yone Noguchi, "
Bits of song . . ." *Matsuo Basho,
The summer grass — Down this road
It's spring
Old pond
*Lafcadio Hearne,
Old Pond *Taniguchi Buson,
On the anniversary of Basho's death The sparrow chirps
*Kobayashi Issa,
Sitting with my father Children's imitations of cormorants
*Masaoka Shiki,
A thawed pond Night and again
*Some Contemporary Haiku
*Robert Spiess,
an aging willow Ronald Baatz,
as though the whole earth *Matsuo Allard,
an icicle the moon *Alexis Rotella,
just friends *John Carley,
buoyed up on the rising tide *Cheryl Savageau,
Department of Labor Haiku *Poetry in Open Form and the Lyric Poem
*The Lyric Poem Today
*Philip Levine,
The Lost Angel *Confessional Mode
*Anne Sexton,
The Fortress *Connections: See Marilyn Chin, Audre Lorde, Sharon Olds , Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Alicia Suskin Ostriker
The Prose Poem
Marcia Southwick,
A Star Is Born in the Eagle Nebula *Eve Wood,
Recognition *Claribel Alegria,
Carmen Bomba: Poet Poems for further study
*Judith Ortiz Cofer,
Quincineara Li-Young Lee, Eating Alone
Nick Carbo,
American Adobo Marisa de los Santos,
Because I Love You, *Luis J. Rodriguez,
Carrying My Tools Commentaries: Ezra Pound,
On the Principles of Imagism *Amy Lowell,
Vers libre (free verse), a verse/form based on cadence *Writing About Other Poetic Forms
*Useful Terms to Remember
15. POETS RESPOND TO OTHER POETS John Keats,
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Quotation
Paraphrase
Allusion
Samuel Charters,
A Man Dancing Alone on an Island in Greece Imitation
Parody
Leigh Hunt,
Jenny Kissed Me T. S. Kerrigan,
Elvis Kissed Me *Argument
*Philip Larkin,
This Be The Verse *Carol Rumens,
This Be The Verse (Philip Larkin) Address and Tribute
Allen Ginsberg,
A Supermarket in California Commentary:
Marilyn Chin,
On the Canon *Writing about Poets' Responses to other Poets
16. POETS and THEIR WORLDS: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes, and Tomas Transtršmer The World of Emily Dickinson
*Commentary: Emily Dickinson, on Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
I think I was enchanted *Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
When our two souls stand up *Emily Bronte,
Last Lines *Christina Rossetti,
Remember *Christina Rossetti, from
Sing-Song EMILY DICKINSON
You love me — you are sure — I'm "wife" — I've finished that —
I taste a liquor never brewed
Wild Nights — Wild Nights!
"Hope" is the thing with feathers —
*Success is counted sweetest
There's a certain slant of light
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
After Great Pain — a formal feeling comes —
Much Madness is divinest Sense
I died for Beauty — but was scarce
I heard a fly buzz — when I died —
Because I could not stop for death —
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Commentaries:
Thomas Wentworth Higgins, from
Emily Dickinson's Letters Thomas Bailey Aldrich, In
Re Emily Dickinson Richard Wilbur,
On Emily Dickinson The World of Robert Frost
*Commentary: Octavio Paz,
Meeting Robert Frost *Thomas Hardy,
An August Midnight *Edward Arlington Robinson,
Eros Tyrannos *Edgar Lee Masters,
Mabel Osborne
*Edgar Lee Masters,
Lucinda Matlock *Edward Thomas,
Early One Morning ROBERT FROST
*In White The Pasture
Mending Wall
Home Burial Birches
To Earthward
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The Road Not Taken
After Apple Picking
Commentaries:
Rose C. Feld,
An Interview with Robert Frost *Carol Frost, From
Sincerity and Inventions: On Robert Frost Philip L. Gerber,
On Frost's After Apple Picking
James Wright,
The Music of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The World of Langston Hughes
Commentaries from the Harlem Renaissance
*W. E. B. DuBois, from
The Souls of Black Folk Alain Locke, from
The New Negro Poems
Langston Hughes,
The Negro Speaks of Rivers James Weldon Johnson,
The Creation Angelina Weld Grimke,
The Black Finger Angelina Weld Grimke,
Tenebris *Claude McKay,
The Tropics in New York Claude McKay,
If We Must Die *Jean Toomer, Lyrics from Cane
Countee Cullen, From
Heritage Countee Cullen,
Incident LANGSTON HUGHES
Mother to Son *Negro
*Love Again Blues
I, Too
Song for a Dark Girl
House in the World
Commentaries
Langston Hughes, A Toast to Harlem
Jessie Fauset,
Meeting Langston Hughes Arnold Rampersad,
Langston Hughes as Folk Poet A Conversation about Tomas Transtromer
17. POEMS and POETS W. H. Auden
Musee des Beaux Arts Stop All the Clocks Lay your sleeping head, my love Elizabeth Bishop
*Manners *Sandpiper
The Fish
One Art
Commentary, Brett C. Millier,
On Elizabeth Bishop's One Art
William Blake
from
Songs of Innocence: Introduction The Lamb
Holy Thursday
The Little Boy Lost
The Little Boy Found
from
Songs of Experience: Introduction The Sick Rose
The Tyger
London
A Poison Tree
The Garden of Love
Anne Bradstreet
To My Dear and Loving Husband Before the Birth of One of Her Children
In Memory of My Dear Grand-Child Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who
Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year
and a Half Old Gwendolyn Brooks
We Real Cool The Mother
The Bean Eaters
Connection: Robert Hayden,
On Negro Poetry Marilyn Chin
How I Got That Name *
Sad Guitar Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Kubla Khan, or, a Vision in a Dream Frost at Midnight
Connection: Richard Leighton Green,
Apropos Coleridge's Kubla Khan Billy Collins
*
The Only Day in Existence Momento Mori
*Today
e. e. Cummings
somewhere I have never traveled Buffalo Bill's
*goodby betty, don't remember me
in Just—
John Donne
A Valediction: Forbidding Morning The Sun Rising
*The Flea
Batter my heart, three-personed God
Connection: Wendy Cope,
That fine English poet John Donne Rita Dove
Singsong The Pond, Porch-View, Six p.m.,Early Spring
T. S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Commentary: Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren,
On T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock
Connection: J. Walker,
On T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" Louise Gluck
First Memory *Happiness
Seamus Heaney
Digging Mid-Term Break
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Windhover Pied Beauty
God's Grandeur
Thou art indeed just, Lord
Commentary: Bernard Bergonzi,
On Hopkins' The Windhover
John Keats
*
Bright Star Ode to a Nightingale When I have fears
Robert Lowell
Skunk Hour For the Union Dead
*Epilogue
Commentary: Robert Lowell,
An Explication of Skunk Hour Sharon Olds
Parents Day *I Go Back to May 1937
Sex without Love *Commentary: Ann Charters,
The Woman in the Dark Raincoat, a Reading by Sharon Olds Sylvia Plath
Morning Song Daddy
*Commentary: Richard Wilbur, "
Cottage Street, 1953" Adrienne Rich
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers Diving into the Wreck
Anne Sexton
* Obsessive Combination of Ontological Inscape, Trickery and Love *To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph
*
Pain for a Daughter *Connection: W. H. Auden,
Musee des Beaux Arts Gary Soto
Mexicans Begin Jogging *Oranges
Waiting at the Curb, Lynwood, California, 1967
Walt Whitman
From
A Song of Myself, 1, 6, 50-52 *Commentary: Walt Whitman reviews
Leaves of Grass Commentary: Ezra Pound,
What I Feel about Walt Whitman William Carlos Williams
Spring and All *Danse Russe
*from
March *The Widow's Lament in Springtime
Connection:
A Red Wheelbarrow (p. 000) and
To Waken an Old Lady *Commentary:
Spirit of 76, the poet writes to a publisher
William Wordsworth
Ode: Intimations of Immortality The world is too much with us
Commentary: William Wordsworth,
From the Introduction to Lyrical Ballads
James Wright
Evening A Blessing
Lying on a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Connection: James Wright,
The Music of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
*Commentary: Sven Birkerts,
James Wright's "Hammock," A Sounding William Butler Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree The Second Coming
*The Wild Swans at Coole
18. THEMES for THINKING and WRITING about POETRY *In Wonder at the Natural World *Commentary:
Henry David Thoreau, from
Walden, "It is difficult to begin without borrowing . . ."
*Thomas Lovell Beddoes,
A Lake *John Clare,
The Sky Lark *Robinson Jeffers,
Hurt Hawks *Mary Oliver,
Sleeping in the Forest *John Casteen,
Night Hunting Women's Consciousness, Women's Voices *Commentary: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from
Aurora Leigh, "Books, books, books!" *Ruth Stone,
In an Iridescent Time Alicia Suskin Ostriker,
The Change *Marilyn Hacker,
Rondeau After a Transatlantic Telephone Call *Anne Waldman, Stereo
*Jenny Bornholdt,
The Boyfriends *Daisy Zamora,
Precisely Black Consciousness, Black Voices Commentary:
Robert Hayden,
On Negro Poetry Phillis Wheatley,
On Being Brought from Africa to America *Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
Theology Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
Sympathy James Weldon Johnson,
Sunset in the Tropics Robert Hayden,
Those Winter Sundays Etheridge Knight,
The Idea of Ancestry Dudley Randall,
Ballad of Birmingham *Allen Polite,
Song Amiri Baraka,
Legacy Audre Lorde,
Hanging Fire Lucille Clifton,
to miss ann *Poetry of Protest and Social Concern Commentary:
David Wojahn,
On Political Poetry Nikki Giovanni,
Adulthood Carolyn Forche,
The Colonel *Pat Mora,
Elena Joan Jobe Smith,
Feminist Arm Candy for the Mafia Fred Voss,
I Once Needed a Chance Too *Sarah Holbrook,
Canvassing *Turning Protest into Song *Bob Dylan,
Blowin' in the Wind *Country Joe McDonald,
I-Feel-Like-I'm Fixin'-To-Die Rag The Faces of War *Commentary: Stephen Crane, from
The Red Badge of Courage *Herman Melville,
Shiloh Stephen Crane,
War is Kind Thomas Hardy,
The Man He Killed Wilfred Owen,
Dulce et Decorum Est Randall Jarrrell,
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner Ed Webster, from
San Joaquin Valley Poems *Forest Hamer,
My Father's Vietnam Tour Near Over 19. Contemporary Movements in Poetry Poetry of the Beat Generation Commentary:
John Clellon Holmes, from
This is the Beat Generation *Bonnie Bremser, Artist Meeting with the Beats, from
Poets and Odd Fellows *Ray Bremser,
Blues for BonnieTake 1, January 1960 *Allen Ginsberg,
Sunflower Sutra *Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Dog *Frank O'Hara,
The Day Lady Died *Diane Di Prima,
Revolutionary Letter #3 Gregory Corso,
I am 25 *Edward Sanders,
After a Year of Isolation Poetry of the Chaps and Zines Commentary:
Gerald Locklin,
The Small Presses and Little Magazines, A Few Reflections Ann Menebroker,
Repossessed *Tom Kryss,
Things Thrown Away a. levy,
perhaps (#5) *Robert E. McDonough,
Resume *Susan Grimm,
Things I Can Know Joan Jobe Smith,
The Carol Burnett Show Ronald Baatz,
The Oldest Songs Gerald Locklin,
So It Goes *Gerald Locklin,
Friday Night Lights *Writing about Themes in Poetry
PART THREE — DRAMA
20. What is a Play? August Strindberg,
The Stronger 21. Reading, Thinking and Writing about Drama Reading Drama
Guidelines for Reading Drama
Sample Close Reading — August Strindberg,
The Stronger Critical Thinking about Drama
Writing about Drama
Sample Paper —
A Reader's Response to the Opening Lines of Strindberg's The Stronger
22. The Elements of Drama Anton Chekhov,
A Monologue Plot
Characters
Dialogue
Staging
Theme
Willy Russell,
Educating Rita [excerpt]
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Drama
*Writing about the Elements of Drama
*Useful Terms to Remember
23. Plays and Playwrights Sophocles
Oedipus the King COMMENTARIES: Aristotle,
On the Elements and General Principles of Tragedy Sigmund Freud,
The Oedipus Complex *Fitzgerald on Translating Sophocles
William Shakespeare
* A Midsummer Night's Dream Hamlet, Prince of Denmark CONNECTION: CONVERSATION ON
HAMLET Bullough, Keats, Greenblatt, Stoppard, Gielgud, Lahr, Pennington
Henrik Ibsen
A Doll's House COMMENTARIES: Henrik Ibsen,
Notes for A Doll House
George Bernard Shaw,
On A Doll House
Joan Templeton,
Is A Doll House
a Feminist Text? Liv Ullmann,
On Preforming Nora in Ibsen's A Doll House
Susan Glaspell
Trifles COMMENTARY: Leonard Mustazza,
Generic Translation and Thematic Shifts in Glaspell's Trifles
and A Jury of Her Peers
CONNECTIONS: Susan Glaspell,
A Jury of Her Peers; Lynn Nottage,
POOF! Luigi Pirandello
*Six Characters in Search of an Author *COMMENTARIES: Richard Gilman, Thought is a Form of Action: on
Six Characters in Search of an Author * Luigi Pirandello, from Preface to
Six Characters in Search of an Author Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman COMMENTARIES: Arthur Miller, On Death of a Salesman as an American Tragedy
Helge Normann Nilsen, Marxism and the Early Plays of Arthur Miller
Lorraine Hansberry
A Raisin in the Sun COMMENTARY: Lorraine Hansberry, An Author's Reflections: Willy Loman, Walter Younger, and He Who Must Live
Lorraine Hansberry, My Shakespearean Experience
Lynn Nottage
POOF! Commentary: Lynn Nottage, On Writing
POOF! CONNECTION: Susan Glaspell,
Trifles Edwin Sanchez
*Pops 24. CONVERSATION ON HAMLET AS TEXT AND PERFORMANCE Geoffery Bullough, Sources of Shakespeare's Hamlet
John Keats, From a Letter to George and Thomas Keats, 21 December 1817
Stephen Greenblatt, On the Ghost in
Hamlet Tom Stoppard, Dogg's Hamlet: The Encore
Sir John Gielgud, On Playing Hamlet
John Lahr, Review of Hamlet
*Michael Pennington, On Hamlet's Madness
*Some Help with Writing about Drama
PART FOUR — WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE 25. Critical Perspectives and Literary Theory
Formalist Criticism
Biographical Criticism
Psychological Criticism
Mythological Criticism
Historical Criticism
Sociological Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism
Poststructuralist and Deconstructionist Criticism
Gender Criticism
Cultural Criticism
Selected Bibliography
26. Developing Your Ideas in an Essay Keeping a Journal or Notebook to Record Your Initial Responses to the Text
Using the Commentaries to Ask New Questions about What You Have Read
Generating Ideas for Brainstorming, Freewriting, and Listing
Organizing Your Notes into a Preliminary Thesis Sentence and Outline
Writing the Rough Draft
Revising Your Essay
Sample Revised Draft:
The Voice of the Storyteller in Eudora Welty's A Worn Path
Making a Final Check of Your Finished Essay
Peer ReviewCommon Problems in Writing about Literature
Guidelines for Writing an Essay about Literature
27. Basic Types of Literary Papers Explication
Sample Essay:
An Interpretation of Langston Hughes's The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Analysis
Sample Essay:
Nature and Neighbors in Robert Frost's Mending Wall
Comparison and Contrast
Sample Essay:
On the Differences between Susan Glaspell's Trifles
and A Jury of Her Peers
Writing about the Context of Literature
28. Writing Research PapersThree Keys to Literary Research
Finding and Focusing a Topic
Assigned TopicsChoosing Your Own Topic
Finding and Using Sources
Library ResearchUsing the Web for Research
Evaluating Print and Online Sources
Your Working Bibliography
Working with Sources and Taking Notes
Drafting Your Research Paper
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and QuotingDocumenting Your Sources
MLA FormatIn-Text or Parenthetical Citations
List of Works Cited
Footnotes and Endnotes
Revising Your Research Paper
Student Research Paper: Jennifer Silva,
Emily Dickinson and Religion Glossary of Literary Terms
Index of First Lines
Index of Authors and Titles Glossary of Literary Terms Index of First Lines/Authors and Titles