Contents
To Instructors
Organization,
Revisions, Additions, Other Changes, and Retentions,
Writing and Literature,
Acknowledgments,
To Instructors, Acknowledgments, |
Part I: Introduction.
Chapter 1: The Process of Reading, Responding to, and Writing About Literature
What Is Literature, and Why Do We Study It?
Types of Literature: The Genres
Reading Literature and Responding to It Actively
Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace
Reading and Responding in a Computer File or Notebook
Major Stages in Thinking and Writing about Literary Topics: Discovering Ideas, Preparing to Write, Making an Initial Draft, and Completing the Essay
Discovering Ideas (“Brainstorming”)
Box: The Need to Present an Argument When Writing Essays about Literature
Preparing to Write
Box: The Need for the Actual Physical Process of Writing
Making an Initial Draft of Your Essay
Box: Referring to Authors' Names
Box: The Use of Verb Tenses in the Discussion of Literary Works
Illustrative Essay, (First Draft:) How Setting in “The Necklace” Is Related to the Character of Mathilde's Character
Completing the Essay: Developing and Strengthening Your Essay through Revision
Checking Your Development and Organization
Illustrative Essay, (Improved Draft): How Maupassant Uses Setting in “The Necklace” to Show Mathilde's Character
Commentary on the Essay
Summary: Guidelines for Writing about Literature
Writing Top;ics to Enhance the Writing Process
Chapter 1A: A Short Guide to Using Quotations and Making References in Essays about Literature
Integrate Passages and Ideas into Your Essay
Distinguish Your Own Thoughts from Those of Your Author
Integrate Material by Using Quotation Marks
Blend Quotations into Your Own Sentences
Indent and Block Long Quotations
Use Ellipses to Show Omissions
Use Square Brackets to Enclose Words That You Add within Quotations
Do Not Overquote
Preserve the Spellings in Your Sources
Part II: Writing Essays on Designated Literary Topics
Chapter 2: Writing About a Close Reading: Analyzing Entire Short Poems or Selected Short Passages
The Purpose and Requirements of a Close-Reading Essay
The Location of the Passage in a Longer Work
Writing About the Close Reading of a Passage in a Prose Work, Drama, or Longer Poem
Box: Number the Passage for Easy Reference
New Illustrative Essay: A Close Reading of a Passage in Frank O’Connor’s “First Confession”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing an Essay on the Close Reading of a Poem
lustrative Essay: A Close Reading of Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed,”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics for a Close-Reading Essay
Chapter 3: Writing About Point of View: The Position or Stance of the Work’s Narrator or Speaker
An Exercise in Point of View: Reporting an Accident
Conditions that Affect Point of View
Determining a Work’s Point of View
Box: Point of View and Opinions
Mixed Points of View
Box: Point of View and Verb Tense
Summary: Guidelines for Points of View
Writing About Point of View
New Illustrative Essay: Shirley Jackson’s Dramatic Point of View in “The Lottery,”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Point of View
Chapter 4: Writing About Character: The People in Literature
Character Traits
How Authors Disclose Character in Literature
Types of Characters: Round and Flat
Reality and Probability: Verisimilitude
Writing about Character
Organize Your Essay about Character
New Illustrative Essay: The Character of Mathilde Loisel in Maupassant’s “The Necklace,”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Character
Chapter 5: Writing About Plot: The Development of Conflict and Tension in Literature
Plot: The Motivation and Causality of Literature
Determining the Conflicts in a Story, Drama, or Narrative Poem
Writing about the Plot of a Particular Work
Organize Your Essay about Plot
New Illustrative Essay: The Plot of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Plot
Chapter 6: Writing About Structure: The Organization of Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
Formal Categories of Structure
Formal and Actual Structure
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
Writing About Structure in Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
Organize Your Essay about Structure
New Illustrative Essay: The Structure of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Structure
Chapter 7: Writing About Setting: The Background of Place, Objects, and Culture in Literature
What Is Setting?
The Importance of Setting in Literature
Writing About Setting
Organize Your Essay about Setting
New Illustrative Essay: Poe’s Use of Setting to Create a Mood of Horror and Repulsion in “The Cask of Amontillado,
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Setting
Chapter 8: Witing About an Idea or Theme: The Meaning and the “Messages” in Literature
Ideas and Assertions
Ideas and Values
The Place of Ideas in Literature
How to Locate Ideas
Writing About a Major Idea in Literature
Organize Your Essay on a Major Idea or Theme
New Illustrative Essay: The Idea of the Importance of Minor and "Trifling" Details in Susan Glaspell's Trifles
Commnetary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Ideas
Chapter 9: Writing About Imagery: The Literary Work’s Link to the Senses
Responses and the Writer’s Use of Detail
The Relationship of Imagery to Ideas and Attitudes
Types of Imagery
Organize Your Essay on about Imagery
New Illustrative Essay: Dickinson’s Kinesthetic Imagery in “My Triumph Lasted Till the Drums,” (J1227, F1212),
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Imagery
Chapter 10: Writing About Metaphor and Simile: A Source of Depth and Range in Literature
Metaphors and Similes: The Major Figures of Speech
Characteristics of Metaphors and Similes
John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer"
Box: Vehicle and Tenor
Writing About Metaphors and Similes
Organize Your Essay about Metaphor and Simile,
Illustrative Essay: A Study of Shakespeare’s Metaphors in “Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought,”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Metaphors and Similes
Chapter 11: Writing About Symbolism and Allegory: Keys to Extended Meaning
Symbolism and Meaning
Allegory
Fable, Parable, and Myth
Allusion in Symbolism and Allegory
Writing about Symbolism or Allegory
Organize Your Essay about Symbolism and Allegory
Illustrative Essay (Symbolism in a Poem): Symbolism and Allusion in William Butler Yeats’s “The Second Coming"
Commentary on the Essay
Illustrative Essay (Allegory in a Story): The Allegory of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown"
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Symbolism and Allegory
Chapter 12: Writing About Tone: The Writer’s Control over Attitudes and Feeling
Tone and Attitudes
Tone and Humor
Tone and Irony
Writing About Tone
Organize Your Essay about Tone
New Illustrative Essay: Chopin’s Irony in “The Story of an Hour”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Tone
Chapter 13: Writing About Prosody: Sound, Rhythm, and Rhyme in Poetry
Important Definitions for Studying Prosody
Segments: Individually Meaningful Sounds
Poetic Rhythm
The Major Metrical Feet
Substitution
Box: Special Meters
Accentual, Strong-Stress, and “Sprung” Rhythms
The Caesura: the Pause that Aims for Variety and Natural Rhythms in Poetry
Segmental Poetic Devices
Rhyme: The Duplication and Similarity of Sounds
Rhyme and Meter
Rhyme Schemes
Writing about Prosody
Organize Your Essay about Prosody
Box: Referring to Sounds in Poetry
New Illustrative Essay: Tennyson’s Control of Rhythm and Segments in Lines 349–360 of “The
Passing of Arthur”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Rhythm and Rhyme in Poetry
Part III: Writing about More General Literary Topics
Chapter 14: Writing About a Problem: Challenges to Overcome in Reading
Strategies for Developing an Essay About a Problem
Writing About a Problem
Organize Your Essay about a Problem
New Illustrative Essay: The Problem of Historical Time in Amy Lowell’s “Patterns”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Literary Problems
Chapter 15: Writing Essays of Comparison-Contrast and Extended Comparison-Contrast: Learning by Seeing Literary Works Together
Guidelines for the Comparison-Contrast Essay
The Extended Comparison-Contrast Essay
Writing a Comparison-Contrast Essay
Organize Your Comparison-Contrast Essay
New Illustrative Essay (Comparing and Contrasting Two Works): The Views of War in Amy Lowell’s “Patterns” and Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
Commentary on the Essay
Illustrative Essay (Extended Comparison-Contrast): Literary Treatments of the Tension Between Private and Public Life
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics Based on Comparison and Contrast
Chapter 16: Writing About a Work in Its Historical, Intellectual, and Cultural Context
History, Culture, and Multiculturalism
Literature in Its Time and Place
Writing about a Work in Its Historical and Cultural Context
Organize Your Essay about a Work and its Context
Illustrative Essay: Langston Hughes’s References to Black Servitude and Black Pride in “Negro”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics about Works in Their Historical, Intellectual, and Cultural Context
Chapter 17: Writing a Review Essay: Developing Ideas and Evaluating Literary Works for General Audiences
Writing a Review Essay
Organize Your Review Essay
Illustrative Essay: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Story “Young Goodman Brown”: A View of Mistaken Zeal
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics for Review Essays
Chapter 18: Writing and Documenting the Research Essay: Using Extra Resources for Understanding
Selecting a Topic
Setting up a Bibliography
Online Library Services
Taking Notes and Paraphrasing Material
Box: Important Considerations about Computer-Aided Research
Classify Your Cards and Group them Accordingly
Documenting Your Work
When in Doubt, Consult with Your Instructor
Organize Your Research Essay
Box: Plagiarism: An Embarrassing but Vital Subject—and a Danger to Be Overcome
New Illustrative Research Essay: The Structure of Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”
Commentary on the Essay
Writing Topics for Research Essays
Chapter 19: Writing Examinations on Literature
Answer the Questions that Are Asked
Systematic Preparatio
Two Basic Types of Questions About Literature
Part IV: Appendices
Appendix A: Critical Approaches Important in the Study of Literature
Moral / Intellectual
Topical / Historical
New Critical / Formalist
Structuralist
Feminist Criticism/Gender Studies/Queer Theory
Economic Determinist / Marxist
Psychological / Psychoanalytical
Archetypal / Symbolic / Mythic
Deconstructionist
Reader-Response
Appendix B: MLA Recommendations for Documenting Electronic Sources
Citing Nonelectronic (Print) Sources
Citing a Work in an Anthology
Citing Electronic Sources
Appendix C: Works Used for References and Illustrative Essays
Stories:
Kate Chopin,.............................................................................. The Story of an Hour,
........... A woman is shocked by news of her husband’s death, but there is still a greater shock in store for her.
Anita Scott Coleman......................................................... Unfinished Masterpieces,
Worthiness cannot rise when it is depressed by poverty and inequality.
...........
Nathaniel Hawthorne,....................................................... Young Goodman Brown,
........... Living in colonial Salem, Young Goodman Brown has a bewildering encounter that affects his outlook on life and his attitudes toward people.
Shirley Jackson,....................................................................................... The Lottery,
........... What if the winner of a community-sponsored lottery did not receive the cash prize that is ordinarily awarded?
Katherine Mansfield,................................................................................. Miss Brill,
........... Miss Brill goes to the park for a quietly exciting afternoon, but what happens there is not what she was expecting.
Guy de Maupassant,...................................................... The Necklace [in Chapter 1)
........... To go to a ball, Mathilde Loisel borrows a necklace from a rich friend, but the evening has unforeseen consequences that alter her life.
Frank O’Connor,.............................................................................. First Confession,
........... Jackie as a young man recalls his mixed memories of the events surrounding his first childhood experience with confession.
Edgar Allan Poe,................................................................ The Cask of Amontillado,
........... Fifty years later, Montresor describes his reactions to the insults of Fortunato.
Mark Twain,........................................................................................................ Luck,
........... A follower of a famous British General tells what really happened,
Eudora Welty,........................................................................................ A Worn Path,
........... Phoenix Jackson, a devoted grandmother, walks a well-worn path on a mission of great love.
Poems:
Matthew Arnold.................................................................................. Dover Beach,
............... When you lose certainty, what remains for you?
William Blake............................................................................................. The Tyger,
............... What mysterious force creates evil as well as good?
Gwendolyn Brooks............................................................................... We Real Cool,
............... Just how cool are they, really? How successful are they going to be?
Robert Browning............................................................................. My Last Duchess,
An arrogant Duke shows his dead wife’s portrait to the envoy of the Count.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge..................................................................... Kubla Khan,
............... What does Kubla Khan create to give himself the greatest joy?
Emily Dickinson............................................................................My Triumph Lasted Till the Drums [in Chapter 9]
...........What, finally, happens to the speaker's sense of triujph?
John Donne....................................................... Holy Sonnet 10: Death Be not Proud,
........... How does eternal life put down death?
Robert Frost.......................................................................................... Desert Places,
............... What is more frightening than the emptiness of outer space?
Robert Frost.............................................................................. The Road Not Taken,
............... How important is choosing the road that has been less traveled?
Thomas Hardy................................................................................... Channel Firing,
............... What is loud enough to waken the dead, and then, what do the dead say about it?
Thomas Hardy .............................................................................. The Man He Killed,
............... A combat soldier muses about the irony of battlefield conflict.
Langston Hughes.............................................................................................. Negro [in Chapter 16]
............... What are just some of the outrages experienced throughout history by Blacks?
John Keats................................................................................................ Bright Star,
............... The speaker dedicates himself to constancy and steadfastness.
John Keats........................ On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer [in Chapter 10],
............... How can reading a translation be as exciting as discovering a new planet, or a new ocean?
Irving Layton.................................................................................... Rhine Boat Trip,
............... What terrible memory counterbalances the beauty of German castles, fields, and traditions?
Amy Lowell................................................................................................... Patterns,
............... What does a woman think when she learns that her fiancé will never return from overseas battle?
John Masefield.............................................................................................Cargoes,
...............How do modern cargo ships differ from those of the past?
Wilfred Owen.................................................................. Anthem for Doomed Youth,
............... War forces poignant changes in normally peaceful ceremonies.
Dudley Randall....................................................................... Ballad of Birmingham,
............... A mother’s plans for her child’s safety are thwarted.
Christina Rossetti.............................................................................................. Echo,
............... A love from the distant past still lingers in memory.
Luis Omar Salinas.......................................................................... In a Farmhouse,
The eight-year-old speaker raises deep and serious issues.
William Shakespeare..... Sonnet 30: When, to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought,
............... The speaker remembers his past, judges his life, and finds great value in the present.
William Shakespeare......................................................... Sonnet 73: That Time of Year
........... Thou Mayst in Me Behold [in Chapter 5],
............... Even though age is closing in, the speaker finds reason for dedication in the present.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,......................... Lines 349–360 of “The Passing of Arthur,”
........... The ordeal of Sir Bedivere as he carries King Arthur from mountainous heights to a low and level lake.
Shelly Wagner,........................................................................................... The Boxes,
............... A bereaved mother thinks of some of the boxes around the house with which her son might have played.
Walt Whitman...........................................................................Reconciliation,
.................In what way is the speaker reconciled to his former enemy?
William Wordsworth................................................. Lines Written in Early Spring,
............... The songs of woodland birds lead the speaker to moral thoughts.
William Butler Yeats................................................................ The Second Coming,
............... What new and dangerous forces are being turned loose in our modern world?
Plays:
Anton Chekhov.............................................................. The Bear: A Joke in One Act,
............... A bachelor Russian landowner and a widow meet and immediately become angry at each other, but their lives are about to undergo great change.
Susan Glaspell................................................................................................. Trifles,
........... In the kitchen of a small family farmhouse early in the twentieth century, the wives of lawmen investigating a murder discover vitally important details, and their knowledge forces them to make an urgent decision.
A Glossary of Important Literary Terms
Credits
Index of Titles, Topics, Authors, and First Lines of Poetry
Writing About Literature. Twelfth Edition. 2010 Stories:
Anita Scott Coleman, Unfinished Masterpieces, Crisis Publishing Co. Inc.
Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill, ? Public Domain? It would seem so.
Frank O’Connor, First Confession, Random House
Eudora Welty, A Worn Path, Harcourt, Inc.
Poems:
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool, Brooks Permissions
Robert Frost, Desert Places, Henry Holt
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, Henry Holt
Langston Hughes, Negro, Random House
Irving Layton, Rhine Boat Trip, McClelland and Stuart
Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham, Broadside Press
Luis Omar Salinas, In a Farmhouse, Louisiana State UP
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, Scribner; Simon and Schuster
Shelly Wagner, The Boxes, Texas Tech UP