Literature

NOTE: Both Brief and Comprehensive Tables of Contents are listed below.

BRIEF CONTENTS

VOLUME 1: FICTION
Talking with Amy Tan
1. Reading a Story
2. Point of View
3. Character
4. Setting
5. Tone and Style
6. Theme
7. Symbol
8. Reading Long Stories
9. Genre Fiction
10. Latin American Fiction
11. Critical Casebook: Flannery O'Connor
12. Critical Casebook: Three Stories in Depth (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alice Walker)
13. Stories for Further Reading

VOLUME 2: POETRY
Talking With Kay Ryan
14. Reading a Poem
15. Listening To a Voice
16. Words
17. Saying and Suggesting
18. Imagery
19. Figures of Speech
20. Song
21. Sound
22. Rhythm
23. Closed Form
24. Open Form
25. Symbol
26. Myth and Narrative
27. Poetry and Personal Identity
28. Translation
29. Poetry in Spanish: Literature of Latin America
30. Recognizing Excellence
31. What Is Poetry?
32. Three Critical Casebooks: Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost
33. Critical Casebook: T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
34. Poems for Further Reading

VOLUME 3: DRAMA
Talking with David Ives
35. Reading a Play
36. Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy
37. Critical Casebook: Sophocles
38. Critical Casebook: Shakespeare
39. The Modern Theater
40. Evaluating a Play
41. Plays for Further Reading

VOLUME 4: WRITING
42. Writing About LIterature
43. Writing About a Story
44. Writing About a Poem
45. Writing About a Play
46. Writing a Research Paper
47. Writing As Discovery: Keeping a Journal
48. Writing an Essay Exam
29. Critical Approaches to Literature

Glossary of Literary Terms  

Literary Credits 

Photo Credits 

Index of Major Themes 

Index of First Lines of Poetry 

Index of Authors and Titles 

Index of Literary Terms 



COMPREHENSIVE CONTENTS

VOLUME 1   Fiction  

 

Talking with Amy Tan  

1. Reading a Story

THE ART OF FICTION  

TYPES OF SHORT FICTION  

 

Sufi Legend, Death Has an Appointment in Samarra  

A student tries to flee from Death in this brief, sardonic fable.  

Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun  

The North Wind and the Sun argue who is stronger and decide to try their powers on an unsuspecting traveler.

Bidpai, The Tortoise and the Geese  

A fable that gives another dimension to Andrew Lang’s quip, “He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.”

 

Chuang Tzu, Independence  

The Prince of Ch’u asks the philosopher Chuang Tzu to become his advisor and gets a surprising reply in this classic Chinese fable.  

Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Godfather Death  

Neither God nor the Devil came to the christening. In this stark folktale, a young man receives magical powers with a string attached.  

PLOT  

THE SHORT STORY  

John Updike, A & P  

In walk three girls in nothing but bathing suits, and Sammy finds himself no longer an aproned checkout clerk but an armored knight.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Wilhelm Grimm on Writing, On the Nature of Fairy Tales

THINKING ABOUT PLOT  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Plot  

TOPICS FOR WRITING on plot  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

2. Point of View

 

IDENTIFYING POINT OF VIEW  

TYPES OF NARRATORS  

how much does a narrator know?  

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS  

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily  

Proud, imperious Emily Grierson defied the town from the fortress of her mansion. Who could have guessed the secret that lay within?  

Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

The smoldering eye at last extinguished, a murderer finds that, despite all his attempts at a cover-up, his victim will be heard.

Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O.  

Since no one appreciates Sister, she decides to live at the Post Office. After meeting her family, you won’t blame her.

James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues  

Two brothers in Harlem see life differently. The older brother is the sensible family man, but Sonny wants to be a jazz musician.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

James Baldwin on Writing, Race and the African American Writer  

THINKING ABOUT POINT OF VIEW  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Point of View  

topics for writing ON POINT OF VIEW  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

3. Character

 

CHARACTERization

motvation

 

Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall  

For sixty years Ellen Weatherall has fought back the memory of that terrible day, but now once more the priest waits in the house.  

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 

Alone in the house, Connie finds herself helpless before the advances of Arnold Friend, a spellbinding imitation teenager.

Neil Gaiman, How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Two teenage boys try to navigate their way through a party filled with exotic, mysterious girls.

Raymond Carver, Cathedral  

He had never expected to find himself trying to describe a cathedral to a blind man. He hadn’t even wanted to meet this odd, old friend of his wife.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Raymond Carver on Writing, Commonplace but Precise Language  

THINKING ABOUT CHARACTER  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Character  

topics for writing ON CHARACTER  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

4. Setting

 

ELEMENTS OF SETTING  

HISTORICAL FICTION  

REGIONALISM  

NATURALISM  

Kate Chopin, The Storm  

Even with her husband away, Calixta feels happily, securely married. Why then should she not shelter an old admirer from the rain?  

Jack London, To Build a Fire  

Seventy-five degrees below zero. Alone except for one mistrustful wolf dog, a man finds himself battling a relentless force.  

ZZ Packer, Brownies

A Brownie troop of African American girls at camp declare war on a rival troop only to discover their humiliating mistake.

Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets  

A young woman flies with her father to China to meet two half sisters she never knew existed.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Amy Tan on Writing, Developing a Setting

THINKING ABOUT SETTING  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Setting  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SETTING  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

5. Tone and Style

 

TONE  

STYLE  

DICTION  

Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place  

All by himself each night, the old man lingers in the bright café. What does he need more than brandy?  

William Faulkner, Barn Burning  

This time when Ab Snopes wields his blazing torch, his son Sarty faces a dilemma: whether to obey or defy the vengeful old man.  

IRONY  

O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi  

A young husband and wife find ingenious ways to buy each other Christmas presents, in the classic story that defines the word “irony.”  

Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband 

When Edie meets the carnival pilot, her life gets more complicated than she expects.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Ernest Hemingway on Writing, The Direct Style  

THINKING ABOUT TONE AND STYLE  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Tone and Style  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE AND STYLE  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

6. Theme

 

PLOT VERSUS THEME  

summarizing the THEME  

FINDING THE THEME  

Stephen Crane, The Open Boat  

In a lifeboat circled by sharks, tantalized by glimpses of land, a reporter scrutinizes Fate and learns about comradeship.  

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street 

Does where we live tell what we are? A little girl dreams of a new house, but things don’t always turn out the way we want them to.

Luke, The Parable of the Prodigal Son  

A father has two sons. One demands his inheritance now and leaves to spend it with ruinous results.  

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Harrison Bergeron  

Are you handsome? Off with your eyebrows! Are you brainy? Let a transmitter sound thought-shattering beeps inside your ear.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Writing, The Themes of Science Fiction  

THINKING ABOUT THEME  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Theme  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON THEME  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

7. Symbol

 

ALLEGORY  

SYMBOLS  

RECOGNIZING SYMBOLS  

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums  

Fenced-in Elisa feels emotionally starved—then her life promises to blossom with the arrival of the scissors-grinding man.  

Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain

 Anders is in line when armed robbers enter the bank, and he can’t help but get involved.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas  

Omelas is the perfect city. All of its inhabitants are happy. But everyone’s prosperity depends on a hidden evil.  

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery  

Splintered and faded, the sinister black box had worked its annual terror for longer than anyone in town could remember.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Shirley Jackson on Writing, Biography of a Story  

THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Symbols  

Sample Student Paper on Symbols, An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLS  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

8. Reading Long Stories and Novels

 

ORIGINS OF THE NOVEL  

NOVELISTIC METHODS  

READING NOVELS  

Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych  

The supreme Russian novelist tells how a petty, ambitious judge, near the end of his wasted life, discovers a harrowing truth.  

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis  

“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” Kafka’s famous opening sentence introduces one of the most chilling stories in world literature.  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Franz Kafka on Writing, Discussing The Metamorphosis  

THINKING ABOUT LONG STORIES AND NOVELS  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Long Stories and Novels  

TOPICS FOR WRITING on long stories and novels  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

 

9. Genre Fiction  

 

 

ROMANCE VERSUS REALISM  

WHAT IS GENRE?  

TYPES OF GENRE FICTION  

GENRE AND POPULAR CULTURE 

 

Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder 

In 2055, you can go on a Time Safari to hunt dinosaurs 60 million years ago. But put one foot wrong, and suddenly the future’s not what it used to be.

 

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wife’s Story 

Another full moon, and another terrible transformation—a surprising reversal of a familiar story.

 

H. P. Lovecraft, The Outsider 

He had been locked in a gothic castle for his entire life, until the day he escaped, but what he discovered outside sent him running back to his dark captivity.

 

Dashiell Hammett, One Hour

Someone killed a man named Newhouse in broad daylight on a San Francisco street. Our detective is on the case.

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Ray Bradbury on Writing, Fall in Love at the Library 

TOPICS FOR WRITING  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

10. Latin American Fiction

 

“EL BOOM”  

MAGIC REALISM  

AFTER THE BOOM  

Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark  

A young man from Buenos Aires is trapped by a flood on an isolated ranch. To pass the time, he reads the Gospel to a family with unforeseen results.  

Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings  

What do you do when a worn-out angel crashes in your yard? Sell tickets or call the priest?

Juan Rulfo, Tell Them Not to Kill Me!

A violent episode from decades past catches up with an old man. Will he be saved from the firing squad?

 

Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite  

When Luisa went to visit her dying uncle, she had no idea that her life was about to change forever.  

Writing effectively  

Jorge Luis Borges on Writing, On Storytelling 

TOPICS FOR WRITING  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

11. Critical Casebook: Flannery O’Connor  

 

FLANNERY O’CONNOR  

A Good Man Is Hard to Find  

Wanted: The Misfit, a cold-blooded killer. An ordinary family vacation leads to horror—and one moment of redeeming grace.  

Revelation  

Mrs. Turpin thinks herself Jesus’s favorite child, until she meets a troubled college girl. Soon violence flares in a doctor’s waiting room.  

Parker’s Back  

A tormented man tries to find his way to God and to his wife—by having himself tattooed.  

 

FLANNERY O’CONNOR ON WRITING  

Insights into “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”  

On Her Catholic Faith  

 

CRITICS ON FLANNERY O’CONNOR  

J. O. Tate, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit  

Louise S. Cowan, The Character of Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation”  

Damian J. Ference, from “No Vague Believer”

Dean Flower, Listening to Flannery O’Connor  

Lucinda Williams, Meeting Flannery O’Connor

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

TOPICS FOR WRITING

 

12. Critical Casebook: Three Stories in Depth   

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

Young Goodman Brown

Urged on through deepening woods, a young Puritan sees—or dreams he sees—good villagers hasten toward a diabolic rite.

 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ON WRITING

Reflections on Truth and Clarity in Literature

The Obscurest Man in American Letters 

CRITICS ON HAWTHORNE

 

Herman Melville, Excerpt from a Review of Mosses from an Old Manse 

Edgar Allan Poe, The Genius of Hawthorne’s Short Stories 

CRITICS ON “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN”

 

Richard H. Fogle, Ambiguity in “Young Goodman Brown” 

Paul J. Hurley, Evil Wherever He Looks 

Nancy Bunge, Complacency and Community 

 

 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman  

The Yellow Wallpaper  

A doctor prescribes a “rest cure” for his wife after the birth of their child. The new mother tries to settle in to life in the isolated and mysterious country house they have rented for the summer. The cure proves worse than the disease in this Gothic classic.

 

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN ON WRITING  

Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

Whatever Is  

The Nervous Breakdown of Women  

 

CRITICS ON “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER”  

Juliann Fleenor, Gender and Pathology in “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Imprisonment and Escape: The Psychology of Confinement  

 

 

ALICE WALKER  

Everyday Use  

When successful Dee visits from the city, she has changed her name to reflect her African roots. Her mother and sister notice other things have changed, too.  

 

ALICE WALKER ON WRITING  

Reflections on Writing and Women’s Lives  

CRITICS ON “EVERYDAY USE”  

Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement  

Mary Helen Washington, “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist  

Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”  

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

TOPICS FOR WRITING  

 

 

 

13. Stories For Further Reading

 

Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path  

The new headmaster of the village school was determined to fight superstition, but the villagers did not agree.  

Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona  

The only one who can help Victor when his father dies is a childhood friend he’s been avoiding for years.  

Isabel Allende, The Judge’s Wife

Revenge can take many different forms, but few are as strange as the revenge taken in this passionate tale.

Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings  

John and Mary meet. What happens next? This witty experimental story offers five different outcomes.  

Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  

At last, Peyton Farquhar’s neck is in the noose. Reality mingles with dream in this classic story of the American Civil War.  

T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake  

Murky and strewn with beer cans, the lake appears a wasteland. On its shore three “dangerous characters” learn a lesson one grim night.  

Willa Cather, Paul’s Case  

Paul’s teachers can’t understand the boy. Then one day, with stolen cash, he boards a train for New York and the life of his dreams.  

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour  

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name.”  

Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal  

A young black man is invited to deliver his high school graduation speech to a gathering of a Southern town’s leading white citizens. What promises to be an honor turns into a nightmare of violence, humiliation, and painful self-discovery.  

Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat  

Delia’s hard work paid for her small house. Now her drunken husband Sykes has promised it to another woman.  

Ha Jin, Saboteur

When the police unfairly arrest Mr. Chiu, he hopes for justice. After witnessing their brutality, he quietly plans revenge.

James Joyce, Araby  

If only he can find her a token, she might love him in return. As night falls, a Dublin boy hurries to make his dream come true.  

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl  

“Try to walk like a lady, and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” An old-fashioned mother tells her daughter how to live.  

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies  

Mr. Kapasi’s life had settled into a quiet pattern—and then Mrs. Das and her family came into it.  

D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner  

Wild-eyed “as if something were going to explode in him,” the boy predicts each winning horse, and gamblers rush to bet a thousand pounds.  

Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill

Sundays had long brought joy to solitary Miss Brill, until one fateful day when she happened to share a bench with two lovers in the park.

Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace 

A woman enjoys one night of luxury—and then spends years of her life paying for it.

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried  

What each soldier carried into the combat zone was largely determined by necessity, but each man’s necessities differed.  

Daniel Orozco, Orientation  

“Those are the offices and these are the cubicles.” Welcome to the first day of your new job.  

David Foster Wallace, Everything Is Green

Mayfly and Mitch discuss difficult matters in their trailer.

Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House  

Whatever hour you woke, a door was shutting. From room to room the ghostly couple walked, hand in hand.  

 

 

VOLUME 2   Poetry

 

Talking with Kay Ryan  

 

14. Reading A Poem

 

POETRY OR VERSE  

HOW TO READ A POEM  

Paraphrase  

William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree  

Lyric Poetry  

Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays  

Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers  

Narrative Poetry  

Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spence  

Robert Frost, “Out, Out—”  

DRAMATIC POETRY  

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess  

DIDACTIC POETRY  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Adrienne Rich on Writing, Recalling “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”  

THINKING ABOUT PARAPHRASING  

William Stafford, Ask Me  

William Stafford, A Paraphrase of “Ask Me”  

CHECKLIST: Writing a Paraphrase  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PARAPHRASING  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

15. Listening To a Voice

 

TONE  

Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz  

Stephen Crane, The Wayfarer

Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book  

Walt Whitman, To a Locomotive in Winter  

Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles  

Gwendolyn Brooks, Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward  

Weldon Kees, For My Daughter  

THE SPEAKER IN THE POEM  

Natasha Trethewey, White Lies  

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Luke Havergal  

Anonymous, Dog Haiku  

William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud  

Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal Entry  

Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride

William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow  

IRONY  

Robert Creeley, Oh No  

W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen  

Sharon Olds, Rite of Passage  

Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links  

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig  

Thomas Hardy, The Workbox  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper  

Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta  

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Wilfred Owen on Writing, War Poetry  

THINKING ABOUT TONE  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Tone  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE  

Sample Student Paper, Word Choice, Tone, and Point of View in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

16. Words

 

LITERAL MEANING: WHAT A POEM SAYS FIRST  

William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say  

DICTION  

John Masefield, Cargoes

Robert Graves, Down, Wanton, Down!  

John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You  

THE VALUE OF A DICTIONARY  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath  

J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead  

Samuel Menashe, Bread  

Carl Sandburg, Grass  

WORD CHOICE AND WORD ORDER  

Robert Herrick, Upon Julia’s Clothes  

Kay Ryan, Blandeur  

Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid  

Richard Eberhart, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment  

Wendy Cope, Lonely Hearts  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town  

Billy Collins, The Names  

Anonymous, Carnation Milk  

Gina Valdés, English con Salsa  

William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold 

William Wordsworth, Mutability

Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Lewis Carroll, Humpty Dumpty Explicates “Jabberwocky”  

THINKING ABOUT DICTION  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Diction  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON WORD CHOICE  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

17. Saying and Suggesting

 

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION  

William Blake, London  

Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock  

E. E. Cummings, next to of course god america i  

Maria Hummel, The Tree

Timothy Steele, Epitaph  

Diane Thiel, The Minefield  

H. D., Sea Rose

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears  

Anne-Marie Thompson, Audiation

Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Richard Wilbur on Writing, Concerning “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”  

THINKING ABOUT DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION  

CHECKLIST: Writing About What a Poem Says and Suggests  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

18. Imagery

 

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro  

Taniguchi Buson, The piercing chill I feel  

IMAGERY  

T. S. Eliot, The winter evening settles down  

Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar  

Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish  

Emily Dickinson, A Route of Evanescence  

Jean Toomer, Reapers  

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty  

ABOUT HAIKU  

Arakida Moritake, The falling flower  

Matsuo Basho, Heat-lightning streak  

Matsuo Basho, In the old stone pool  

Taniguchi Buson, On the one-ton temple bell  

Taniguchi Buson, Moonrise on mudflats  

Kobayashi Issa, only one guy  

Kobayashi Issa, Cricket  

HAIKU FROM JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS  

Suiko Matsushita, Rain shower from mountain  

Suiko Matsushita, Cosmos in bloom  

Hakuro Wada, Even the croaking of frogs  

Neiji Ozawa, The war—this year  

CONTEMPORARY HAIKU  

Nick Virgilio, The Old Neighborhood

Lee Gurga, Visitor’s Room

Penny Harter, broken bowl  

Jennifer Brutschy, Born Again  

Adelle Foley, Learning to Shave  

Garry Gay, Hole in the ozone  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

John Keats, Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art  

Walt Whitman, The Runner  

H. D., Heat  

William Carlos Williams, El Hombre  

Billy Collins, Embrace  

Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter  

Chana Bloch, Tired Sex  

Gary Snyder, Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout  

Kevin Prufer, Pause, Pause  

Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Ezra Pound on Writing, The Image  

THINKING ABOUT IMAGERY  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Imagery  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON IMAGERY  

Sample Student Paper, Faded Beauty: Elizabeth Bishop’s Use of Imagery in “The Fish”  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

19. Figures of Speech

 

WHY SPEAK FIGURATIVELY?  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle  

William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  

Howard Moss, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  

METAPHOR AND SIMILE  

Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall  

William Blake, To see a world in a grain of sand  

Sylvia Plath, Metaphors  

N. Scott Momaday, Simile  

Emily Dickinson, It dropped so low – in my Regard  

Jill Alexander Essbaum, The Heart  

Craig Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home  

OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH  

James Stephens, The Wind  

Robinson Jeffers, Hands  

Margaret Atwood, You fit into me  

George Herbert, The Pulley  

Dana Gioia, Money  

Carl Sandburg, Fog  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

Jane Kenyon, The Suitor  

Robert Frost, The Secret Sits  

Kay Ryan, Turtle  

Emily Brontë, Love and Friendship  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Robert Frost on Writing, The Importance of Poetic Metaphor  

THINKING ABOUT METAPHORS  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Metaphors  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON FIGURES OF SPEECH  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

20. Song

 

SINGING AND SAYING  

Ben Jonson, To Celia  

James Weldon Johnson, Sence You Went Away  

William Shakespeare, Fear no more the heat o’ the sun  

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory  

Paul Simon, Richard Cory  

BALLADS  

Anonymous, Bonny Barbara Allan  

Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham  

BLUES  

Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams, Jailhouse Blues  

W. H. Auden, Funeral Blues  

RAP  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

Neko Case, This Tornado Loves You

Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Bob Dylan on Writing, Rhythm, Rime, and Songwriting from the Outside

THINKING ABOUT POETRY AND SONG  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Song Lyrics  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SONG LYRICS  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

21. Sound

 

SOUND AS MEANING  

Alexander Pope, True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance  

William Butler Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus?  

Edgar Allan Poe, from Ulalume

William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal  

Aphra Behn, When maidens are young  

ALLITERATION AND ASSONANCE  

Frances Cornford, The Watch

James Joyce, All day I hear  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The splendor falls on castle walls  

RIME  

William Cole, On my boat on Lake Cayuga  

Hilaire Belloc, The Hippopotamus  

Bob Kaufman, No More Jazz at Alcatraz  

William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan  

Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur  

How to read a POEM ALOUD  

Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane  

William Shakespeare, When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue

T. S. Eliot, Virginia  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

T. S. Eliot on Writing, The Music of Poetry  

THINKING ABOUT A POEM’S SOUND  

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Poem’s Sound  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SOUND  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

22. Rhythm

 

STRESSES AND PAUSES  

STRESS AND Meaning  

line endings  

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break  

George Gordon, Lord Byron, So We’ll Go No More a-Roving

Dorothy Parker, Résumé  

METER  

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme  

Edith Sitwell, Mariner Man  

A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty  

William Carlos Williams, Smell!  

Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums!  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Gwendolyn Brooks on Writing, Hearing “We Real Cool”  

THINKING ABOUT RHYTHM  

CHECKLIST: Scanning a Poem  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON RHYTHM  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

23. Closed Form

 

the value of form  

FORMAL PATTERNS  

Ernest Dowson, “Days of Wine and Roses”

John Donne, Song (“Go and catch a falling star”)  

Thomas M. Disch, Zewhyexary

THE SONNET  

William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds  

Michael Drayton, Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part  

Edna St. Vincent Millay, What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why  

Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You  

Mark Jarman, Unholy Sonnet: Hands Folded   

A. E. Stallings, Aftershocks

Amit Majmudar, Rites to Allay the Dead  

R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet  

Sherman Alexie, The Facebook Sonnet

Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

THE EPIGRAM  

Sir John Harrington, Of Treason  

William Blake, To H—  

Langston Hughes, Two Somewhat Different Epigrams  

Dorothy Parker, The Actress  

John Frederick Nims, Contemplation  

Hilaire Belloc, Fatigue  

Wendy Cope, Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”  

Anonymous, Epitaph On A Dentist

OTHER FORMS  

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night  

Robert Bridges, Triolet  

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask 

Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

A. E. Stallings on Writing, On Form and Artifice  

THINKING ABOUT A SONNET  

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Sonnet  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON closed form

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

24. Open Form

 

Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway  

FREE VERSE  

E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s  

W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death  

William Carlos Williams, The Dance  

Stephen Crane, The Heart  

Walt Whitman, Cavalry Crossing a Ford  

Ezra Pound, Salutation  

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird  

PROSE POETRY  

Charles Simic, The Magic Study of Happiness  

Gertrude Stein, from Tender Buttons

VISUAL POETRY  

George Herbert, Easter Wings  

John Hollander, Swan and Shadow  

CONCRETE POETRY  

Dorthi Charles, Concrete Cat  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

E. E. Cummings, in Just-  

Francisco X. Alarcón, Frontera / Border  

Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red  

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Traveling Onion  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Walt Whitman on Writing, The Poetry of the Future  

THINKING ABOUT FREE VERSE  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Line Breaks  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON OPEN FORM  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

25. Symbol

 

THE MEANINGS OF A SYMBOL  

T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript  

Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork  

THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT  

IDENTIFYING SYMBOLS  

Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones  

ALLEGORY  

Matthew, The Parable of the Good Seed  

George Herbert, Redemption  

Edwin Markham, Outwitted  

Suji Kwock Kim, Occupation  

Antonio Machado, Proverbios y Cantares (XXIX)  

   Translated by Dana Gioia, Traveler  

Christina Rossetti, Up-Hill  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

William Carlos Williams, The Young Housewife  

Ted Kooser, Carrie  

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese  

Tami Haaland, Lipstick  

Lorine Niedecker, Popcorn-can cover  

Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man  

Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar  

William Blake, The Tyger  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

William Butler Yeats on Writing, Poetic Symbols  

THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Symbols  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLISM  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

26. Myth and Narrative

 

The subjects and uses OF MYTH  

origins OF MYTH  

Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay  

William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us  

H. D., Helen  

Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen  

ARCHETYPE  

Louise Bogan, Medusa  

John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci  

PERSONAL MYTH  

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming  

Diane Thiel, Memento Mori in Middle School

MYTH AND POPULAR CULTURE  

Charles Martin, Taken Up  

for review and further study

A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses 

Anne Sexton, Cinderella  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Diane Thiel on Writing, Map of Myth

THINKING ABOUT MYTH  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Myth  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON MYTH  

Sample Student Paper, The Bonds Between Love and Hatred in H. D.’s “Helen”  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

27. Poetry and Personal Identity

 

CONFESSIONAL POETRY  

Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus  

IDENTITY POETICS  

Rhina Espaillat, Bilingual/Bilingüe  

CULTURE, RACE, AND ETHNICITY  

Claude McKay, America  

Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Riding into California  

Francisco X. Alarcón, The X in My Name  

Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quinceañera  

Sherman Alexie, The Powwow at the End of the World  

Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It  

GENDER  

Anne Stevenson, The Victory  

Rafael Campo, For J. W.  

James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

Adrienne Rich, Women  

FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY  

Brian Turner, The Hurt Locker  

Philip Larkin, Aubade  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Rhina Espaillat on Writing, Being a Bilingual Writer  

THINKING ABOUT POETIC VOICE AND IDENTITY  

CHECKLIST: Writing About Voice and Personal Identity  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PERSONAL IDENTITY  

terms for review  

 

 

28. Translation

 

IS POETIC TRANSLATION POSSIBLE?  

WORLD POETRY  

Li Po, Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon (Chinese text)  

Li Po, Yue Xia Du Zhuo (phonetic Chinese transcription)  

Li Po, Moon-beneath Alone Drink (literal translation)  

Translated by Arthur Waley, Drinking Alone by Moonlight  

COMPARING TRANSLATIONS  

Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (Latin text)  

Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (literal translation)  

Translated by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Horace to Leuconoë  

Translated by A. E. Stallings, A New Year’s Toast  

TRANSLATING FORM  

Omar Khayyam, Rubai XII (Persian text)  

Omar Khayyam, Rubai XII (literal translation)  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, A Book of Verses underneath the Bough  

Translated by Dick Davis, I Need a Bare Sufficiency  

Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Some for the Glories of this World  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, I sometimes think that never blows so red

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, The Moving Finger writes  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire  

PARODY  

Anonymous, We four lads from Liverpool are  

Andrea Patterson, Because I Could Not Dump

Francis Heaney, We Long Bony Dorks

Aaron Abeyta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Arthur Waley on Writing, The Method of Translation  

THINKING ABOUT PARODY  

CHECKLIST: Writing a Parody  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PARODY  

terms for review  

 

 

29. Poetry in Spanish: Literature of Latin America

 

Sor Juana, Presente en que el Cariño Hace Regalo la Llaneza  

Translated by Diane Thiel, A Simple Gift Made Rich by Affection  

Pablo Neruda, Muchos Somos  

Translated by Alastair Reid, We Are Many  

Jorge Luis Borges, On his blindness  

Translated by Robert Mezey, On His Blindness  

Octavio Paz, Con los ojos cerrados  

Translated by Eliot Weinberger, With eyes closed  

SURREALISM IN LATIN AMERICAN POETRY  

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas  

César Vallejo, La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños  

Translated by Thomas Merton, Anger  

CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN POETRY  

José Emilio Pacheco, Alta Traición  

Translated by Alastair Reid, High Treason  

Elva Macías, Comí los frutos elegidos

Translated by Kimberly Gooden, I Ate the Fruits Chosen by the Wind

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Alastair Reid on Writing, Translating Neruda  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SPANISH POETRY  

 

 

30. Recognizing Excellence  

 

Anonymous, O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face  

Emily Dickinson, A Dying Tiger – moaned for Drink  

SENTIMENTALITY  

Rod McKuen, Thoughts on Capital Punishment  

William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark  

RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE  

William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium  

Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness  

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias  

Robert Hayden, The Whipping  

Elizabeth Bishop, One Art  

Langston Hughes, I, Too

John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale  

Dylan Thomas, In My Craft or Sullen Art  

Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain!  

Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus  

Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee  

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Edgar Allan Poe on Writing, A Long Poem Does Not Exist  

THINKING ABOUT EVALUATING A POEM  

CHECKLIST: Writing an Evaluation  

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON EVALUATING A POEM  

TERMS FOR REVIEW  

 

 

31. What Is Poetry?

 

some definitions of poetry  

Dante, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Mina Loy, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, José Garcia Villa, Christopher Fry, Elizabeth Bishop, Joy Harjo, Octavio Paz, Denise Levertov, Lucille Clifton, Charles Simic, –

 

 

32. Three Critical Casebooks: Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost 

 

EMILY DICKINSON 

Success is counted sweetest 


I taste a liquor never brewed 


Wild Nights – Wild Nights! 


I felt a Funeral, in my Brain 


I’m Nobody! Who are you? 


The Soul selects her own Society 


Some keep the Sabbath going to Church 


Much Madness is divinest Sense 


This is my letter to the World 


I heard a Fly buzz – when I died 


I started Early – Took my Dog 


Because I could not stop for Death 


Tell all the Truth but tell it slant 


 

EMILY DICKINSON ON WRITING

Recognizing Poetry 


Self-Description 


 

CRITICS ON EMILY DICKINSON 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Meeting Emily Dickinson 

Thomas H. Johnson, The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscriptsx

Richard Wilbur, The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson 

Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Dickinson and Death (A Reading of “Because I could not stop for Death”) 

Judith Farr, A Reading of “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” 

 

LANGSTON HUGHES 

The Negro Speaks of Rivers 


The Negro

My People 


Song for a Banjo Dance

Mother to Son 


Song for a Dark Girl 


Prayer 


Luck


Theme for English B 


Nightmare Boogie 


Harlem [Dream Deferred] 


Ballad of Booker T.  

Homecoming 


 

LANGSTON HUGHES ON WRITING 

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain 


The Harlem Renaissance 


 

CRITICS ON LANGSTON HUGHES  

Arnold Rampersad, Hughes as an Experimentalist 

Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson, The Voices in Langston Hughes 

Darryl Pinckney, Black Identity in Langston Hughes 

Peter Townsend, Langston Hughes and Jazz 

Onwuchekwa Jemie, A Reading of “Dream Deferred” 

 

ROBERT FROST   

Mowing   

Mending Wall  

After Apple-picking

The Road Not Taken 

Birches

Design

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Fire and Ice  

Acquainted with the Night   

Desert Places

The Silken Tent 

Home Burial 

 

ROBERT FROST ON WRITING 

The Sound of Sense  

The Figure a Poem Makes  

“There Are Two Types of Realist”: An Interview with Robert Frost


 

CRITICS ON ROBERT FROST 

Katherine Kearns, On “Mending Wall”  

Ezra Pound, An Honest Writer

Rhina Espaillat, Translating Frost into Spanish  

William H. Pritchard, from “Forms of Guardedness”  

Dana Gioia, Robert Frost’s Dramatic Narratives  

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

TOPICS FOR WRITING 


 

 

33. Critical Casebook:  T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”  

 

T. S. ELIOT 


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 


 

PUBLISHING “PRUFROCK” 

THE REVIEWERS ON PRUFROCK 

Unsigned, Review from Times Literary Supplement 

Unsigned, Review from Literary World 

Conrad Aiken, from “Divers Realists,” The Dial 

Babette Deutsch, from “Another Impressionist,” The New Republic 

Marianne Moore, from “A Note on T. S. Eliot’s Book,” Poetry 

May Sinclair, from “Prufrock and Other Observations: A Criticism,” The Little Review 

 

T. S. ELIOT ON WRITING 

Poetry and Emotion 


The Objective Correlative 


The Difficulty of Poetry 


 

CRITICS ON “PRUFROCK”  

Denis Donoghue, One of the Irrefutable Poets 

Christopher Ricks, What’s in a Name? 

Philip R. Headings, The Pronouns in the Poem: “One,” “You,” and “I” 

Maud Ellmann, Will There Be Time? 

Burton Raffel, “Indeterminacy” in Eliot’s Poetry 

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

TOPICS FOR WRITING 

 

 

34. Poems for Further Reading


 

Julia Alvarez, By Accident  

Anonymous (Scottish ballad), Lord Randall 

Anonymous (Navajo chant), Last Words of the Prophet 

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach 

John Ashbery, At North Farm 

W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening 

W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts 

Jimmy Santiago Baca, Spliced Wire 

Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station 

William Blake, The Sick Rose 

Gwendolyn Brooks, the mother 

Gwendolyn Brooks, the rites for Cousin Vit 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways 

Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 

Charles Bukowski, Dostoevsky 

Geoffrey Chaucer, Merciless Beauty 

G.K. Chesterton, The Donkey

John Ciardi, Most Like an Arch This Marriage 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 

Billy Collins, Care and Feeding 

Hart Crane, My Grandmother’s Love Letters 

E. E. Cummings, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond 

Marisa de los Santos, Perfect Dress 

Michael Donaghy, Our Life Stories  

John Donne, Death be not proud 

John Donne, The Flea 

John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi 

Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California 

Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain 

Thomas Hardy, Hap 

Seamus Heaney, Digging 

William Ernest Henley, Invictus  

George Herbert, Love 

Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover 

A. E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 

A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young 

Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 

Robinson Jeffers, Fire on the Hills


Ha Jin, Missed Time 

Ben Jonson, On My First Son 

Donald Justice, On the Death of Friends in Childhood 

John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 

John Keats, When I have fears that I may cease to be 

Ted Kooser, Abandoned Farmhouse 

Philip Larkin, Home is so Sad 

Philip Larkin, Poetry of Departures 

D. H. Lawrence, Piano 

Li-Young Lee, Out of Hiding


Denise Levertov, O Taste and See 

Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Learning to love America 

Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour 

Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress 

David Mason, Ballade at 3 AM


Claude McKay, The Harlem Dancer

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Recuerdo 

John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent 

Marianne Moore, Poetry 

Marilyn Nelson, A Strange Beautiful Woman 

Lorine Niedecker, Sorrow Moves in Wide Waves 

Sylvia Plath, Daddy 

Alexander Pope, A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing 

Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter 

John Crowe Ransom, Piazza Piece 

Henry Reed, Naming of Parts 

Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin 

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy 

Christina Rossetti, When I am dead, my dearest

Kay Ryan, That Will to Divest


William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes 

William Shakespeare, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun 

Charles Simic, Butcher Shop 

Christopher Smart, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry 

Cathy Song, Stamp Collecting 

Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream 

Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning 

Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill 

Amy Uyematsu, Deliberate


Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes 

Edmund Waller, Go, Lovely Rose 

Walt Whitman, from Song of the Open Road 

Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing 

Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astonomer


William Carlos Williams, Spring and All 

William Carlos Williams, Queen-Anne’s-Lace 

William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge 

Mary Sidney Wroth, In this strange labyrinth 

Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me that sometime did me sekë 

William Butler Yeats, He wishes for the Cloths of heaven

William Butler Yeats, The Magi 

William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old 


 

 

VOLUME 3 Drama

 

Talking with David Ives  

 

35. Reading a Play


 

interpreting plays  

THEATRICAL CONVENTIONS 

Elements of a Play 

Susan Glaspell, Trifles

Was Minnie Wright to blame for the death of her husband? While the menfolk try to unravel a mystery, two women in the kitchen turn up revealing clues.  

Analyzing Trifles 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Susan Glaspell on Writing, Creating Trifles 

THINKING ABOUT A PLAY 

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Play 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON trifles 

Sample Student Paper, Outside Trifles 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 


 

 

36. Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy  

 

TRAGEDY 

Christopher Marlowe, Scene from Doctor Faustus (Act x, Scene x) 

In this scene from the classic drama, a brilliant scholar sells his soul to the devil. How smart is that?  

COMEDY 

Oscar Wilde, Scene from The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 1, Scene 1—Lady Bracknell Interviews Her Daughter’s Suitor)  

Lady Bracknell is no softie when interviewing a potential future son-in-law.

David Ives, Soap Opera 

Should a man choose a mere human lover instead of pure perfection? The world turns on the answer.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

David Ives on Writing, On the One-Act Play 

THINKING ABOUT COMEDY 

CHECKLIST: Writing About Comedy 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ABOUT TRAGEDY 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ABOUT COMEDY 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 

 

 

37. Critical Casebook: Sophocles  

 

THE THEATER OF SOPHOCLES 

THE CIVIC ROLE OF GREEK DRAMA 

ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF TRAGEDY 

SOPHOCLES 

THE ORIGINS OF OEDIPUS THE KING 

Sophocles, Oedipus the King (Translated by David Grene) 

The dark story of Oedipus is considered by many to be the greatest example of classical Greek tragedy.

THE BACKGROUND OF ANTIGONÊ 

Sophocles, Antigone (Translated by David Grene) 

In one of the monumental plays of classical Greek drama, a daughter of Oedipus strives to give the body of her slain brother a proper burial. Soon she finds herself in conflict with a king.

 

CRITICS ON SOPHOCLES 

Aristotle, Defining Tragedy 

Sigmund Freud, The Destiny of Oedipus 

A. E. Haigh, The Irony of Sophocles 

David Wiles, The Chorus as Democrat 

Jean Anouihl, Tragic Destiny  

Patricia M. Lines, What Is Antigone’s Tragic Flaw? 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

A. E. Haigh on Writing, The Style of Sophocles  

THINKING ABOUT GREEK TRAGEDY 

CHECKLIST: Writing About Greek Drama 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SOPHOCLES 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 

 

38. Critical Casebook: Shakespeare  

 

THE THEATER OF SHAKESPEARE 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

A NOTE ON OTHELLO 

PICTURING OTHELLO 

William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice 

Here is a story of jealousy, that “green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on”—of a passionate, suspicious man and his blameless wife, of a serpent masked as a friend.  

THE BACKGROUND OF HAMLET 

PICTURING HAMLET 

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 

In perhaps the most celebrated play in English, a ghost demands that young Prince Hamlet avenge his father’s “most foul and unnatural murder.” But how can Hamlet be sure that the apparition is indeed his father’s spirit?  

THE BACKGROUND OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM 

Picturing a midsummer night’s dream 

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

“The course of true love never did run smooth” is the right motto for this romantic comedy in which love, magic, and mistaken identity combine for madcap results.  

 

CRITICS ON SHAKESPEARE 

Anthony Burgess, An Asian Culture Looks at Shakespeare 

W. H. Auden, Iago as a Triumphant Villain 

Maud Bodkin, Lucifer in Shakespeare’s Othello 

Virginia Mason Vaughan, Black and White in Othello 

A. C. Bradley, Hamlet’s Melancholy 

Rebecca West, Hamlet and Ophelia 

Edgar Allan Poe, Hamlet as a Fictional Character 

Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare’s Universality  

Clare Asquith, Shakespeare’s Language as a Hidden Political Code 

Germaine Greer, Shakespeare’s “Honest Mirth” 

Linda Bamber, Female Power in A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

Ben Jonson on Writing, On His Friend and Rival William Shakespeare 

UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE 

CHECKLIST: Writing About Shakespeare 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON shakespeare 

Sample Student Paper, Othello: Tragedy or Soap Opera? 

 

 

39. The Modern Theater


 

REALISM 

NATURALISM 

SYMBOLISM AND EXPRESSIONISM 

AMERICAN MODERNISM 

 

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, revised by Viktoria Michelsen)  x

The founder of modern drama portrays a troubled marriage. Helmer, the bank manager, regards his wife Nora as a “little featherbrain”—not knowing the truth may shatter his smug world.  

Henrik Ibsen on Writing, Correspondence on the Final Scene of A Doll’s House 

 

Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

Painfully shy and retiring, shunning love, Laura dwells in a world as fragile as her collection of tiny figurines—until one memorable night a gentleman comes to call.  

Tennessee Williams on Writing, How to Stage The Glass Menagerie 

 

TRAGICOMEDY AND THE ABSURD 

RETURN TO REALISM 

EXPERIMENTAL DRAMA 

 

Milcha Sanchez-Scott, The Cuban Swimmer 

Nineteen-year-old Margarita Suárez wants to win a Southern California distance swimming race. Is her family behind her? Quite literally!  

Milcha Sanchez-Scott on Writing, Writing The Cuban Swimmer 

 

DOCUMENTARY DRAMA 

Anna Deavere Smith, Scenes from Twilight: Los Angeles,

The violence that tore apart a city, in the words of those who were there.  

Anna Deavere Smith on Writing, On Documentary Theaterx

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

THINKING ABOUT DRAMATIC REALISM 

CHECKLIST: Writing About a Realist Play 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON REALISM 

Sample Student Paper, Helmer vs. Helmer 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 

 

 

40. Evaluating a Play

 

WRITING EFFECTIVELY  

JUDGING A PLAY 

CHECKLIST: Evaluating a Play 

TOPICS FOR WRITING ON EVALUATION 

 

 

41. Plays for Further Reading 

David Henry Hwang, The Sound of a Voice 

A strange man arrives at a solitary woman’s home in the remote countryside. As they fall in love, they discover disturbing secrets about one another’s past.  

David Henry Hwang on Writing, Multicultural Theater 

 

Edward Bok Lee, El Santo Americano 

A wrestler and his unhappy wife drive through the desert to a surprising conclusion.

Edward Bok Lee on Writing, On Being a Korean American Writer 

 

Jane Martin, Pomp and Circumstance 

The King interviews a musician for the position of court composer

 

Brighde Mullins, Click

A long-distance phone call leads to darkly comic misunderstandings between this man and woman.

Brighde Mullins on Writing, Advice for Young Playwrights

 

August Wilson, Fences 

A proud man’s love for his family is choked by his rigidity and self-righteousness, in this powerful drama by one of the great American playwrights of our time.  

August Wilson on Writing, A Look into Black America 

 

 

VOLUME 4   Writing  

 

42. Writing About Literature


 

READ ACTIVELY 

Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay 

PLAN YOUR ESSAY 

PREWRITING: GENERATE IDEAS AND ISSUES 

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises 

DEVELOP YOUR ARGUMENT

STRENGTHEN YOUR ARGUMENT: RHETORICAL APPEALS  x

Logical Argumentation and Evidence 

Emotional Argumentation

Credibility: Tone, Balance, and Organization

CHECKLIST: Developing an Argument 

DRAFT YOUR ARGUMENT 

Sample Student Paper, Rough Draft 

REVISE YOUR ARGUMENT 

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Argument 

FINAL ADVICE ON REWRITING 

SAMPLE STUDENT ARGUMENT PAPER  


Sample Student Paper, Argument

DOCUMENT SOURCES TO AVOID PLAGIARISM 

THE FORM OF YOUR FINISHED PAPER 

SPELL-CHECK AND GRAMMAR-CHECK PROGRAMS 

Anonymous (after a poem by Jerrold H. Zar), A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell Checkers 


 

 

43. Writing About a Story


 

READ ACTIVELY 

THINK ABOUT THE STORY 

PREWRITING: generate ideas and issues

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises

draft your argument

CHECKLIST: Drafting Your Argument

REVISE YOUR DRAFT 

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Argument 

WHAT’S YOUR PURPOSE? COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT FICTION 

Explication 

Sample Student Paper, Explication 

Analysis 

Sample Student Paper, Analysis 

The Card Report 

Sample Student Card Report 

Comparison and Contrast 

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast 

Response Paper 

Sample Student Response Paper 

TOPICS FOR WRITING 

 

 

44. Writing About a Poem


 

READ ACTIVELY 

Robert Frost, Design 

THINK ABOUT THE POEM 

PREWRITING: generate ideas and issues

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises 

draft your argument

CHECKLIST: Drafting your Argument 

REVISE YOUR DRAFT 

CHECKLIST: Revising Your Draft 

COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT POETRY 

Explication 

Sample Student Paper, Explication 

A Critic’s Explication of Frost’s “Design” 

Analysis  x

Sample Student Paper, Analysis 

Comparison and Contrast 

Abbie Huston Evans, Wing-Spread 

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast 

HOW TO QUOTE A POEM 

TOPICS FOR WRITING 

Robert Frost, In White 

 

45. Writing About a Play

 

READ CRITICALLY 

COMMON APPROACHES TO WRITING ABOUT DRAMA 

Explication 

Analysis 

Comparison and Contrast 

Card Report 

Sample Student Card Report 

A Drama Review 

Sample Student Drama Review 

HOW TO QUOTE A PLAY 

TOPICS FOR WRITING 

 

46. Writing a Research Paper

 

BROWSE THE RESEARCH 

CHOOSE A TOPIC 

BEGIN YOUR RESEARCH 

Reliable Web Sources 

Print Resources 

Online Databases 

CHECKLIST: Finding Reliable Sources 

Visual Images 

CHECKLIST: Using Visual Images 

EVALUATE YOUR SOURCES 

Trustworthy Resources Build Your Paper’s Credibility 

CHECKLIST: Evaluating Your Sources 

ORGANIZE YOUR RESEARCH

CREATE AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFINE YOUR THESIS 

ORGANIZE YOUR PAPER 


WRITE AND REVISE

MAINTAIN ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 

What Is Plagiarism?  

Papers for Sale Are Papers that “Fail”

A Warning Against Internet Plagiarism

ACKNOWLEDGE ALL SOURCES 

Using Quotations 

Citing Ideas 

DOCUMENT SOURCES USING MLA STYLE 

List of Sources 

Parenthetical References 

Works-Cited List 

Citing Print Sources in MLA Style 

Citing Web Sources in MLA Style 

Sample List of Works Cited 

ENDNOTES AND FOOTNOTES 

Adding Footnotes  

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

WRITING ASSIGNMENT FOR A RESEARCH PAPER

Sample Student Research Paper  

Sample Student Research Paper  

Reference Guide for mla Citations 

 

47. Writing As Discovery: Keeping a Journal 

THE REWARDS OF KEEPING A JOURNAL 

Sample Journal Entry 

Sample Student Journal 

 

48. Writing an Essay Exam

CHECKLIST: Taking an Essay Exam 


 

49. Critical Approaches to Literature


 

FORMALIST CRITICISM 

Cleanth Brooks, The Formalist Critic 

Michael Clark, Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues” 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM 

Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” 

Emily Toth, The Source for Alcée Laballière in “The Storm” 

 

HISTORICAL CRITICISM 

Hugh Kenner, Imagism 

Seamus Deane, Joyce’s Vision of Dublin 

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM 

Sigmund Freud, The Nature of Dreams 

Daniel Hoffman, The Father-Figure in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

 

MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM 

Carl Jung, The Collective Unconscious and Archetypes 

Edmond Volpe, Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” 

 

SOCIOLOGICAL CRITICISM 

Georg Lukacs, Content Determines Form 

Daniel P. Watkins, Money and Labor in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” 

 

GENDER CRITICISM 

Nina Pelikan Straus, Transformations in The Metamorphosis 

Richard R. Bozorth, “Tell Me the Truth About Love” 

 

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM 

Stanley Fish, An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily” 

Robert Scholes, “How Do We Make a Poem?” 

 

CULTURAL STUDIES 

Mark Bauerlein, What Is Cultural Studies? 

Camille Paglia, A Reading of William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” 

 

TERMS FOR REVIEW 




Glossary of Literary Terms  

Literary Credits 

Photo Credits 

Index of Major Themes 

Index of First Lines of Poetry 

Index of Authors and Titles 

Index of Literary Terms