Preface.
A GUIDE TO WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE.
1. UNDERSTANDING LITERATURE.
Imaginative Literature. Conventional Themes. The Literary Canon. Luisa Valenzuela, All about Suicide. Wole Soyinka, Telephone Conversation. Interpreting Literature. Evaluating Literature. The Function of Literary Criticism. Checklist: Evaluating Literary Criticism.
2. READING AND WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE.
Reading Literature. Previewing. Highlighting. Checklist: Using Highlighting Symbols. Maya Angelou, My Arkansas. Annotating. Writing about Literature. Planning an Essay. Drafting an Essay. Revising and Editing an Essay. Checklist: Using Sources. Checklist: Conventions of Writing about Literature. Exercise: Two Student Papers. Student Paper: Initiation into Adulthood. Student Paper: Hard Choices.
3. WRITING SPECIAL KINDS OF PAPERS.
Writing a Comparison-Contrast Paper. Checklist: Writing a Comparison-Contrast Paper. Sample Student Paper: Comparing Two Fictional Characters. Student Paper: The Dangerous Consequences of Societal Limbo. Suggested Topics for Comparison-Contrast Papers. Writing an Explication. Checklist: Writing an Explication. Sample Student Paper: Explicating a Poem. Student Paper: A Lingering Doubt. Suggested Topics for Explication Papers. Writing a Character Analysis. Checklist: Writing a Character Analysis. Sample Student Paper: Analyzing a Character in a Play. Student Paper: Linda Loman: Breaking the Mold. Suggested Topics for Character Analysis Papers. Writing about a Work's Historical Context. Checklist: Writing about a Work's Historical Context. Sample Student Paper: Setting a Literary Work in Its Historical Context. Student Paper: Dreaming of Home. Suggested Topics for Historical Papers.
4. THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT YOUR WRITING.
Distinguishing Fact from Opinion. Evaluating Supporting Evidence. Detecting Bias in Your Writing. Understanding Logic. Inductive Reasoning. Deductive Reasoning. Toulmin Logic. Recognizing Logical Fallacies.
5. WRITING LITERARY ARGUMENTS.
Planning a Literary Argument. Choosing a Debatable Topic. Developing an Argumentative Thesis. Defining Your Terms. Considering Your Audience. Refuting Opposing Arguments. Using Evidence Effectively. Supporting Your Literary Argument. Establishing Credibility. Being Fair. Using Visuals as Evidence. Organizing a Literary Argument. Writing a Literary Argument. Student Paper: The Politics of "Everyday Use".
6. WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER.
Choosing a Topic. Doing Exploratory Research. Narrowing your Topic. Doing Focused Research. Library Research. Internet Research. Taking Notes. Integrating Sources. Drafting a Thesis Statement. Making an Outline. Writing your Paper. Sample Literature Paper with MLA Documentation. Student Paper: And Again She Makes the Journey: Character and Act in Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path".
7. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM AND DOCUMENTING SOURCES.
Avoiding Plagiarism. Document All Material That Requires Documentation. Enclose Borrowed Words in Quotation Marks. Do Not Imitate a Source's Syntax and Phrasing. Differentiate Your Words from Those of Your Source. Checklist: Plagiarism and Internet Sources. Documenting Sources. Parenthetical References in the Text. Checklist: Guidelines for Punctuating Parenthetical References. The List of Works Cited. Content Notes.
8. WRITING ESSAY EXAMS ABOUT LITERATURE.
Planning an Essay Exam Answer. Review Your Material. Consider Your Audience and Purpose. Read through the Entire Exam. Read Each Question Carefully. Brainstorm to Find Ideas. Shaping an Essay Exam Answer. State Your Thesis. Make a Scratch Outline. Drafting and Revising an Essay Exam Answer. Sample Student Essay Exam Answer.
FICTION.
9. UNDERSTANDING FICTION.
Origins of Modern Fiction. The History of the Novel. The History of the Short Story. Defining the Short Story. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants. Recognizing Kinds of Fiction.
10. FICTION SAMPLER: THE SHORT-SHORT.
Gary Gildner, Sleepy Time Gal. Jonathan Safran Foer, A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease. Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings. Jamaica Kincaid, Girl. Amanda Holzer, Love and Other Catastrophes: A Mix Tape. Monica Ware, Mislaid Plans.
11. READING AND WRITING ABOUT FICTION.
Reading Fiction. Active Reading. Alberto Alvaro Ríos, The Secret Lion. Writing about Fiction. Planning an Essay. Drafting an Essay. Student Paper: Symbols in "The Secret Lion" (First Draft). Revising and Editing an Essay. Student Paper: Symbols in "The Secret Lion" (Second Draft). Student Paper: "The Secret Lion": Everything Changes (Final Draft).
12. PLOT.
Conflict. Stages of Plot. Order and Sequence. Checklist: Writing about Plot. Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour. Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day. Nadine Gordimer, Once upon a Time. Stephen Dobyns, Kansas. William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily. Writing Suggestions: Plot.
13. CHARACTER.
Round and Flat Characters. Dynamic and Static Characters. Motivation. Checklist: Writing about Character. John Updike, A&P. Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill. Gish Jen, The Water Faucet Vision. Charles Baxter, Gryphon. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Third and Final Continent. Writing Suggestions: Character.
14. SETTING.
Historical Setting. Geographical Setting. Physical Setting. Checklist: Writing about Setting. Kate Chopin, The Storm. Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona. Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal. Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing. Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh. Writing Suggestions: Setting.
15. POINT OF VIEW.
First-Person Narrators. Unreliable Narrators. Third-Person Narrators. Omniscient Narrators. Limited Omniscient Narrators. Objective Narrators. Selecting an Appropriate Point of View. Limited Omniscient Point of View. First-Person Point of View (Child). First-Person Point of View (Adult). Omniscient Point of View. Objective Point of View. Checklist: Selecting An Appropriate Point of View: Review. Checklist: Writing about Point of View. Richard Wright, Big Black Good Man. Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado. William Faulkner, Barn Burning. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Disappearance. Alice Munro, An Ounce of Cure. Writing Suggestions: Point of View.
16. STYLE, TONE, AND LANGUAGE.
Style and Tone. The Uses of Language. Formal and Informal Diction. Imagery. Figures of Speech. Checklist: Writing about Style, Tone, and Language. James Joyce, Araby. Robert H. Abel, Appetizer. Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried. Writing Suggestions: Style, Tone, and Language.
17. SYMBOL, ALLEGORY, AND MYTH.
Symbol. Literary Symbols. Recognizing Symbols. Allegory. Myth. Checklist: Writing about Symbol, Allegory, and Myth. Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. Alice Walker, Everyday Use. Raymond Carver, Cathedral. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown. Writing Suggestions: Symbol, Allegory, and Myth.
18. THEME.
Interpreting Themes. Identifying Themes. Checklist: Writing about Theme. Eudora Welty, A Worn Path. David Michael Kaplan, Doe Season. D.H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner. Hisaye Yamamoto, Seventeen Syllables. Gina Ochsner, Hidden Lives of Lakes. Writing Suggestions: Theme.
19. FICTION IN FILM.
Fiction in Film: John Updike's "A&P". Fiction in Film: Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing". Fiction in Film: Alice Walker's "Everyday Use". Fiction in Film: Raymond Carver's "Cathedral". Fiction in Film: Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path".
20. JOYCE CAROL OATES'S "WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" A CASEBOOK FOR READING, RESEARCH, AND WRITING.
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?. Joyce Carol Oates, When Characters from the Page Are Made Flesh on the Screen. Gretchen Schulz and R. J. R. Rockwood, from In Fairyland, without a Map: Connie's Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". Mike Tierce and John Michael Crafton, from Connie's Tambourine Man: A New Reading of Arnold Friend. Bob Dylan, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. Laura Kalpakian, from a review of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been: Selected Early Stories". Stephen Slimp, from Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". Don Moser, from The Pied Piper of Tucson. Anonymous, The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Charles Perrault, Little Red Riding Hood. Topics for Further Research. Student Paper: Mesmerizing Men and Vulnerable Teens: Power Relationships in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and "Teenage Wasteland".
21. FICTION FOR FURTHER READING.
Chinua Achebe, Dead Man's Path. James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues. Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson. T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake. Albert Camus, The Guest. John Cheever, The Swimmer. Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog. Stephen Crane, The Open Boat. Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible. Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Ha Jin, Saboteur. James Joyce, Eveline. Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist. Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener. V.S. Naipaul, B. Wordsworth. Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge. Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums. Amy Tan, Two Kinds. Anne Tyler, Teenage Wasteland.
POETRY.
22. UNDERSTANDING POETRY.
Marianne Moore, Poetry. Nikki Giovanni, Poetry. Origins of Modern Poetry. Bob Holman, 6 Short Poems. Defining Poetry. William Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me behold. Louis Zukofsky, I walk in the old street. E.E. Cummings, l(a. Recognizing Kinds of Poetry. Narrative Poetry. Lyric Poetry.
23. POETRY SAMPLER: VISUAL AND CONCRETE POETRY.
George Herbert, Easter Wings. May Swenson, Women. Greg Williamson, Group Photo with Winter Trees. Charles Bernstein, This Poem Intentionally Left Blank Tupac Shakur, 1 for April Hamilton Finlay, Acrobats. Reed Altemus, Flake upper phase. Bob Gruman, Mathematiku No. 10.
24. READING AND WRITING ABOUT POETRY.
Reading Poetry. Active Reading. Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays. Seamus Heaney, Digging. Writing about Poetry. Planning an Essay. Drafting an Essay. Student Paper: A Comparison of Two Poems about Fathers (First Draft). Revising and Editing an Essay. Student Paper: A Comparison of Two Poems about Fathers (Second Draft). Student Paper: Digging For Memories (Final Draft).
25. VOICE.
Emily Dickinson, I'm nobody! Who are you?. The Speaker in the Poem. Louise Glück, Gretel in Darkness. Leonard Adamé, My Grandmother Would Rock Quietly and Hum. Langston Hughes, Negro. Robert Browning, My Last Duchess. Further Reading: The Speaker in the Poem. Leslie Marmon Silko, Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer. Janice Mirikitani, Suicide Note. James Tate, Nice Car, Camille. Pat Mora, Veiled. The Tone of the Poem. Robert Frost, Fire and Ice. Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed. Amy Lowell, Patterns. Further Reading: The Tone of the Poem. Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World. William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us. Sylvia Plath, Morning Song Claude McKay, The White City. Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. Deborah Garrison, Please Fire Me. Mary Oliver, The Old Poets of China. Irony. Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias. Ariel Dorfman, Hope. Further Reading: Irony. W.H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen. Anne Sexton, Cinderella. Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham. Sherman Alexie, How to Write the Great American Indian Novel. Checklist: Writing about Voice. Writing Suggestions: Voice.
26. WORD CHOICE, WORD ORDER.
Sipho Sepamla, Words, Words, Words. Word Choice. Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. William Stafford, For the Grave of Daniel Boone. Further Reading: Word Choice. James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin. E.E. Cummings, in Just-. Robert Pinsky, ABC. Theodore Roethke, I Knew a Woman. Kay Ryan, Blandeur. Levels of Diction. Margaret Atwood, The City Planners. Jim Sagel, Baca Grande. Wanda Coleman, Sears Life. Mark Halliday, The Value of Education. Further Reading: Levels of Diction. Barbara L. Greenberg, The Faithful Wife. Richard Wilbur, For the Student Strikers. Charles Bukowski, Dog Fight. Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool. Word Order. Edmund Spenser, One day I wrote her name upon the strand. E.E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town. Further Reading: Word Order. A.E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young. Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--. Checklist: Writing about Word Choice and Word Order. Writing Suggestions: Word Choice, Word Order.
27. IMAGERY.
Jane Flanders, Cloud Painter. William Carlos Williams, Red Wheelbarrow. Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro. Gary Snyder, Some Good Things to Be Said for the Iron Age. Suzanne E. Berger, The Meal. William Carlos Williams, The Great Figure. Further Reading: Imagery. Richard Wilbur, Sleepless at Crown Point. Michael Chitwood, Division. Lam Thi My Da, Washing Rice. Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay. Jean Toomer, Reapers. Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est. Kobayashi Issa, Haiku. William Shakespeare, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Billy Collins, Litany. Octavio Paz, Daybreak. Octavio Paz, Nightfall. Checklist: Writing about Imagery. Writing Suggestions: Imagery.
28. FIGURES OF SPEECH.
William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?. Simile, Metaphor, and Personification. Langston Hughes, Harlem. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Constantly Risking Absurdity. Audre Lorde, Rooming houses are old women. Further Reading: Simile, Metaphor, and Personification. Robert Burns, Oh, my love is like a red, red rose. N. Scott Momaday, Simile. Sylvia Plath, Metaphors. John Updike, Ex-Basketball Player. Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. Marge Piercy, The Secretary Chant. John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Martín Espada, My Father as a Guitar. Hyperbole and Understatement. Sylvia Plath, Daddy. David Huddle, Holes Commence Falling. Further Reading: Hyperbole and Understatement. Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband. Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress. Robert Frost, "Out, Out--". Donald Hall, My Son, My Executioner. Margaret Atwood, you fit into me. Metonymy and Synecdoche. Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta Going to the Wars. Further Reading: Metonymy and Synecdoche. Thomas Lux, Henry Clay's Mouth. Apostrophe. Sonia Sanchez, On Passing thru Morgantown, Pa. Further Reading: Apostrophe. Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California. Checklist: Writing about Figures of Speech. Writing Suggestions: Figures of Speech.
29. SOUND.
Walt Whitman, Had I the Choice. Rhythm. Gwendolyn Brooks, Sadie and Maud. Meter. Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles--. Further Reading: Rhythm and Meter. Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Etheridge Knight, For Malcolm, a Year After. Frank O'Hara, To the Poem. Alliteration and Assonance. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle. N. Scott Momaday, Comparatives. Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder. Rhyme. Ogden Nash, The Lama. Richard Wilbur, A Sketch. Further Reading: Alliteration, Assonance, and Rhyme. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty. W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening. Galway Kinnell, Blackberry Eating. Lydia Davis, A Mown Lawn. Robert Francis, Pitcher. Mona Van Duyn, The Beginning. Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky. Checklist: Writing about Sound. Writing Suggestions: Sound.
30. FORM.
John Keats, On the Sonnet. Billy Collins, Sonnet. Closed Form. Blank Verse. Stanza. The Sonnet. William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,. Further Reading: The Sonnet. John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Gwendolyn Brooks, First Fight. Then Fiddle. Mona Van Duyn, Minimalist Sonnet: Summer Virus. The Sestina. Alberto Alvaro Ríos, Nani. Further Reading: The Sestina. Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina. The Villanelle. Theodore Roethke, The Waking. Further Reading: The Villanelle. Mary Jo Salter, Video Blues. The Epigram. Further Reading: The Epigram. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, What Is an Epigram?. William Blake, Her Whole Life Is an Epigram. Martín Espada, Why I Went to College. Haiku. Further Reading: Haiku. Matsuo Basho, Four Haiku. Carolyn Kizer, After Basho. José Juan Tablada, Haiku Jack Kerouac, American Haiku Open Form. Carl Sandburg, Chicago. Louise Glück, Life Is a Nice Place. E.E. Cummings, the sky was can dy. Further Reading: Open Form. Walt Whitman, from Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. Diane Wakoski, Sleep. Robert Hayden, Monet's "Waterlilies". William Carlos Williams, Spring and All. Carolyn Forché, The Colonel. Pat Mora, Immigrants. Czeslaw Milosz, Christopher Robin. Checklist: Writing about Form. Writing Suggestions: Form.
31. SYMBOL, ALLEGORY, ALLUSION, MYTH.
William Blake, The Sick Rose. Symbol. Robert Frost, For Once, Then, Something. Jim Simmerman, Child's Grave, Hale County, Alabama. Emily Dickinson, Volcanoes be in Sicily. Further Reading: Symbol. Langston Hughes, Island. Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven. Allegory. Christina Rossetti, Uphill. Further Reading: Allegory. Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck. Allusion. Wole Soyinka, Future Plans. William Meredith, Dreams of Suicide. Further Reading: Allusion. Delmore Schwartz, The True-Blue American. Maxine Kumin, Where Any of Us Myth. Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel. Further Reading: Myth. William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan. Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes. W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts. T.S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi. Elizabeth Holmes, The Fathers. Checklist: Writing about Symbol, Allegory, Allusion, Myth. Writing Suggestions: Symbol, Allegory, Allusion, Myth.
32. DISCOVERING THEMES IN POETRY.
Poems about Parents. Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz. Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays. Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Courage that My Mother Had Seamus Heaney, Digging. Raymond Carver, Photograph of my Father in His Twenty-Second Year. Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Father in the Navy: A Childhood Memory. Mitsuye Yamada, The Night Before Goodbye Wanda Coleman, Dear Mama Simon J. Ortiz, My Father's Song. Adrienne Rich, A Woman Mourned by Daughters. Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night. Poems about Nature. William Wordsworth, I wandered lonely as a cloud. Christina Rossetti, Summer. Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover. Robert Frost, Birches. William Stafford, Traveling through the Dark. Simone Muench, Dogwood. Joy Harjo, Morning Song. Richard Wilbur, In Trackless Woods. Poems about Love. Robert Browning, Meeting at Night. Robert Browning, Parting at Morning. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?. Edna St. Vincent Millay, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed. Dorothy Parker, General Review of the Sex Situation. W.H. Auden, Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Sandra Cisneros, In My Little Museum of Erotica. Joseph Brodsky, Love Song. Tupac Shakur, Love Is Just Complicated. Jeffrey McDaniel, The Quiet Word. Pablo Neruda, Absence. Poems about War. Rupert Brooke, The Soldier. William Butler Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead. Boris Slutsky, How Did They Kill My Grandmother?. Denise Levertov, What Were They Like?. Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It. Eliza Griswold, Buying Rations in Kabul. Carl Phillips, On the Notion of Tenderness in Wartime. Wislawa Szymborska, The End and the Beginning. Writing Suggestions: Discovering Themes in Poetry.
33. THE POETRY OF LANGSTON HUGHES: A CASEBOOK FOR READING, RESEARCH, AND WRITING.
Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Langston Hughes, Mother to Son. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. Langston Hughes, I, Too. Langston Hughes, Song for a Dark Girl. Langston Hughes, Ballad of the Landlord. Langston Hughes, Theme for English B. Langston Hughes, Dream Boogie. Langston Hughes, Birmingham Sunday (September 15, 1963). Langston Hughes, Old Walt. Langston Hughes, Genius Child. Langston Hughes, Park Bench. Langston Hughes, Lenox Avenue: Midnight. Langston Hughes, Un-American Investigators. Langston Hughes, Dinner Guest: Me. Langston Hughes, Ballad of Booker T. Langston Hughes, from The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. Langston Hughes, To Negro Writers. Langston Hughes, from My Adventures as a Social Poet. Arnold Rampersad, from The Origins of Poetry in Langston Hughes. Herman Beavers, from Dead Rocks and Sleeping Men: Aurality in the Aesthetic of Langston Hughes. Steven C. Tracy, from "Midnight Ruffles of Cat-Gut Lace": The Boogie Poems of Langston Hughes. Karen Jackson Ford, from Do Right to Write Right: Langston Hughes's Aesthetics of Simplicity. George B. Hutchinson, from Langston Hughes and the 'Other' Whitman. Topics for Further Research. Student Paper: Challenging the Father/Challenging the Self: Langston Hughes's 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'.
34. POETRY FOR FURTHER READING.
Elizabeth Alexander, Apollo. Sherman Alexie, Defending Walt Whitman. Lewis Allen, Strange Fruit. Maya Angelou, Africa. Anonymous, Bonny Barbara Allan. Anonymous, Go Down Moses. Anonymous, Western Wind. Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach. Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish. William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper. William Blake, The Lamb. William Blake, London. William Blake, To see a World in a Grain of Sand. William Blake, The Tyger. Eavan Boland, The Emigrant Irish. Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book. Gwendolyn Brooks, The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock. Gwendolyn Brooks, Medgar Evers. George Gordon, Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty. Thomas Campion, There is a garden in her face. Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales Lucille Clifton, Praise Song. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan. Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry. Billy Collins, The Names. Hart Crane, To Brooklyn Bridge. E.E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill's. E.E. Cummings, next to of course god america I. Emily Dickinson, After great pain, a formal feeling comes--. Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death--. Emily Dickinson, 'Faith' is a fine invention. Emily Dickinson, 'Heaven'--is what I cannot reach!. Emily Dickinson, I dwell in Possibility--. Emily Dickinson, I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--. Emily Dickinson, I never saw a Moor--. Emily Dickinson, I taste a liquor never brewed--. Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense--. Emily Dickinson, Safe in their Alabaster Chambers--. Emily Dickinson, Some keep the Sabbath going to Church--. Emily Dickinson, The Soul selects her own Society--. Emily Dickinson, Success is counted sweetest. Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--. Emily Dickinson, There is no Frigate like a Book. Emily Dickinson, There's a certain Slant of light. Emily Dickinson, This is my letter to the World. Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights--Wild Nights!. John Donne, Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God. John Donne, Death Be Not Proud. John Donne, The Flea John Donne, Song. Rita Dove, Fox Trot Fridays. Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask. Stephen Dunn, Waiting with Two Members of a Motorcycle Gang for My Child to Be Born. T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. James A. Emanuel, Emmett Till. Louise Erdrich, Indian Boarding School: The Runaways. Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night. Robert Frost, Desert Places. Robert Frost, Design. Robert Frost, Mending Wall. Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken. Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Federico García Lorca, Arbolé, Arbolé . Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa. H.D. Helen. Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain. Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break. Edward Hirsch, Fast Break. Garrett Kaoru Hongo, And Your Soul Shall Dance. Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur. Ha Jin, Ways of Talking. Donald Justice, On the Death of Friends in Childhood. Mary Karr, A Blessing from My Sixteen Years' Son. John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad. John Keats, Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art. John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. John Keats, When I Have Fears. Aron Keesbury, On the Robbery across the Street. Yusef Komunyakaa, Ignis Fatuus. Ted Kooser, In the Hall of Bones. Ted Kooser, Selecting a Reader. Philip Larkin, Aubade. Li-Young Lee, The Gift. Li-Young Lee, Little Father. Philip Levine, Before the War. Archibald Macleish, Ars Poetica Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. Claude McKay, If We Must Die. James Merrill, Page from the Koran. W.S. Merwin, To My Brother. John Milton, from Paradise Lost. John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent. Pablo Neruda, The United Fruit Co. Sharon Olds, First Thanksgiving. Sharon Olds, The One Girl at the Boys' Party. Mary Oliver, An Afternoon in the Stacks. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Claims. Grace Paley, Here. Linda Pastan, Ethics. Linda Pastan, Marks. Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll. Miguel Pinero, La Bodega Sold Dreams. Robert Pinsky, Shirt Sylvia Plath, Mirror. Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter. Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Henry Reed, Naming of Parts. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory. Jaime Sabines, The Moon. Sonia Sanchez, right on: white america. Carl Sandburg, Fog. Vijay Seshadri, Baby Baby. William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds. William Shakespeare, Not marble, nor the gilded monuments. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind. Charles Simic, Old Soldier. Louis Simpson, American Poetry. Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning. Cathy Song, Lost Sister. Gary Soto, Saturday at the Canal. Wole Soyinka, Hamlet. Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar. Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream. Wallace Stevens, The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm. Mark Strand, 2032. Virgil Suárez, La Florida. Wislawa Szymborska, ABC. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses. Gina Valdes, My Mother Sews Blouses. Mona Van Duyn, In Bed with a Book. James Welch, The Man from Washington. Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America. Walt Whitman, A Noiseless Patient Spider. Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself. Richard Wilbur, Man Running. C.K. Williams, Doves. William Carlos Williams, The Dance. William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802. William Wordsworth, London, 1802. William Wordsworth, My heart leaps up when I behold. William Wordsworth, She dwelt among the untrodden ways. William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper. Charles Wright, In Praise of Han Shan. Richard Wright, from Six Haiku. William Butler Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop. William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium. William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming. Kevin Young, The Hunch. Adam Zagajewski, Poetry Searches for Radiance.
35. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SELECTED POETS.
DRAMA.
36. UNDERSTANDING DRAMA.
Origins of Modern Drama. The Ancient Greek Theater. The Elizabethan Theater. The Modern Theater. Tragedy and Comedy. Tragedy. Comedy. Defining Drama. Anton Chekhov, The Brute. A Note on Translations. Recognizing Kinds of Plays.
37. DRAMA SAMPLER: TEN-MINUTE PLAYS.
Jane Martin, Beauty. José Rivera, Tape. Billy Goda, No Crime. Arlene Hutton, I Dream Before I Take the Stand. Warren Leight, Nine Ten.
38. READING AND WRITING ABOUT DRAMA.
Reading Drama. Active Reading. Writing about Drama. Planning an Essay. Drafting an Essay. Student Paper: The Women's Role in Trifles (First Draft). Revising and Editing an Essay. Student Paper: Confinement and Rebellion in Trifles (Second Draft). Student Paper: Desperate Measures: Acts of Defiance in Trifles (Final Draft).
39. PLOT.
Plot Structure. Plot and Subplot. Plot Development. Flashbacks. Foreshadowing. Checklist: Writing about Plot. Emily Roderer, Scheherazade. Susan Glaspell, Trifles. Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll House. Writing Suggestions: Plot.
40. CHARACTER.
Characters' Words. Formal and Informal Language. Plain and Elaborate Language. Tone. Irony. Characters' Actions. Stage Directions. Actors' Interpretations. Checklist: Writing about Character. August Strindberg, The Stronger. David Auburn, Proof. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Writing Suggestions: Character.
41. STAGING.
Stage Directions. The Uses of Staging. Costumes. Props. Scenery and Lighting. Music and Sound Effects. A Final Note. Checklist: Writing about Staging. Tracey Scott Wilson, Small World. Milcha Sanchez-Scott, The Cuban Swimmer. Sophocles, Oedipus the King. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Writing Suggestions: Staging.
42. THEME.
Titles. Conflicts. Dialogue. Characters. Staging. A Final Note. Checklist: Writing about Theme. David Henry Hwang, Trying to Find Chinatown. Sophocles, Antigone. Chiori Miyagawa, Antigone's Red. August Wilson, Fences. Writing Suggestions: Theme.
43. TENNESSEE WILLIAMS'S THE GLASS MENAGERIE: A CASEBOOK FOR READING, RESEARCH, AND WRITING.
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie. Tennessee Williams, Author's Production Notes (Preface to the Published Edition). Jacqueline O'Connor, from Dramatizing Dementia: Madness in the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams, from Tennessee Williams: Memoirs. Jean Evans, Interview. Thomas L. King, from Irony and Distance in The Glass Menagerie. Nancy Marie Patterson Tischler, from Student Companion to Tennessee Williams. Roger B. Stein, from The Glass Menagerie Revisited: Catastrophe without Violence. Tom Scanlan, from Family, Drama, and American Dreams. James Fisher, from "The Angels of Fructification": Tennessee Williams, Tony Kushner, and Images of Homosexuality on the American Stage. Tennessee Williams, Portrait of a Girl in Glass. Topics for Further Research. Student Paper: Laura's Gentleman Caller.
APPENDIX: USING LITERARY CRITICISM IN YOUR WRITING.
Formalism. A Formalist Reading: Kate Chopin's "The Storm". For Further Reading: Formalism. Reader-Response Criticism. Reader-Response Readings: Kate Chopin's "The Storm". For Further Reading: Reader-Response Criticism. Sociological Criticism. Feminist Criticism. A Feminist Reading: Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing". For Further Reading: Feminist Criticism. Queer Theory. Marxist Criticism. A Marxist Reading: Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing". For Further Reading: Marxist Criticism. New Historicism. A New Historicist Reading: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper". For Further Reading: New Historicist Criticism. Psychoanalytic Criticism. Psychoanalytic Terms. A Psychoanalytic Reading: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". For Further Reading: Psychoanalytic Criticism. Structuralism. A Structuralist Reading: William Faulkner's "Barn Burning". For Further Reading: Structuralism. Deconstruction. A Deconstructionist Reading: Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find". For Further Reading: Deconstruction. Cultural Studies.
APPENDIX: LITERARY HISTORY: FROM ARISTOTLE TO THE PRESENT.
Beginnings: The Greeks and Romans (c. 450 B.C.-A.D. 400). The Middle Ages (c. A.D. 400-1500). The Renaissance (c. 1500-1660). The Enlightenment (1660-1798). The Romantic Period (1798-1837). The Victorian Period (1837-1901). The Modern Period (since 1901).
Glossary of Literary Terms.
Credits.
Index of First Lines of Poetry.
Index of Authors and Titles.
