MyLab Literature with Pearson eText for 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