Preface
To the Instructor
About the Authors
Fiction
Talking with Amy Tan
1. Reading a Story
The Art of Fiction
Types of Short Fiction
W. Somerset Maugham, The Appointment in Samarra
Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun
*Bidpai, The tortoise and the geese
Chuang Tzu, Independence
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Godfather Death
Plot
The Short Story
John Updike, A & P
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
John Updike, Why Write?
Thinking About Plot
Checklist: Writing About Plot
Writing Assignment on Plot
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
2. Point of View
Identifying Point of View
Types of Narrators
Stream of Consciousness
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
*Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O.
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
James Baldwin, Race and the African American Writer
Thinking About Point of View
Checklist: Writing About Point of View
Writing Assignment on Point of View
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
3. Character
Types of Characters
Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill
*Naguib Mahfouz, The Lawsuit
Raymond Carver, Cathedral
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Raymond Carver, Commonplace but Precise Language
Thinking About Character
Checklist: Writing About Character
Writing Assignment on Character
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
4. Setting
Elements of Setting
Historical Fiction
Regionalism
Naturalism
Kate Chopin, The Storm
*Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House
T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake
Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Amy Tan, Setting the Voice
Thinking About Setting
Checklist: Writing About Setting
Writing Assignment on Setting
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
5. Tone and Style
Tone
Style
Diction
Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
William Faulkner, Barn Burning
Irony
O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi
Ha Jin, Saboteur
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Ernest Hemingway, The Direct Style
Thinking About Tone and Style
Checklist: Writing About Tone and Style
Writing Assignment on Tone and Style
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
6. Theme
Plot vs. Theme
Theme as Unifying Device
Finding the Theme
Chinua Achebe, Dead Men's Path
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Luke 15:11–32, The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Themes of Science Fiction
Thinking About Theme
Checklist: Writing about Theme
Writing Assignment on theme
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
7. Symbol
Allegory
Symbols
Recognizing Symbols
John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums
*John Cheever, The Swimmer
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Shirley Jackson, Biography of a Story
Thinking About Symbols
Checklist: Writing About Symbols
Writing Assignment on Symbols
Student Paper, An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
8. Critical Casebook: Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Connor, Revelation
Flannery O'Connor on Writing
From "On Her Own Work"
On Her Catholic Faith
From "The Grotesque in Southern Fiction"
Critics on Flannery O'Connor
J.O. Tate, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit
Mary Jane Schenck, Deconstructing "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
*Louise S. Cowan, The Character of Mrs. Turpin in "Revelation"
9. Critical Casebook: Two Stories in Depth
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown
*Nathaniel Hawthorne on Writing
*Reflections on Truth and Clarity in Literature
*Criticizing His Own Work
*Critics on Hawthorne
*Herman Melville , Excerpt from a review of “Mosses from and 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
Alice Walker
Everyday Use
Alice Walker on Writing
The Black Woman Writer in America
Reflections on Writing and Women's Lives
Critics on “Everyday Use”
Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement
Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”
Writing Effectively
Topics for Writing on “Young Goodman Brown”
Topics for Writing on “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Topics for Writing on “Everyday Use”
10. Stories for Further Reading
*Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings
*Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
*Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat
James Joyce, Araby
Franz Kafka, Before The Law
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner
*Lorrie Moore, How to Become a Writer
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Poetry
Talking with Kay Ryan
11. Reading a Poem
Poetry or Verse
Reading 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
Writers on Writing
Adrienne Rich, Recalling “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
Thinking About Paraphrase
William Stafford, Ask Me
William Stafford, A Paraphrase of “Ask Me”
Checklist: Writing a Paraphrase
Writing Assignment on Paraphrasing
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
12. Listening to a Voice
Tone
Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
Countee Cullen, For a Lady I Know
Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book
Walt Whitman, To a Locomotive in Winter
Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles
*Kevin Young, Doo Wop
Weldon Kees, For My Daughter
The Person in the Poem
Natasha Trethewey, White Lies
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Luke Havergal
Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting
William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal Entry
*James Stephens, A Glass of Beer
Anne Sexton, Her Kind
William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow
Irony
Robert Creeley, Oh No
W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen
Sharon Olds, Rites of Passage
Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig
*Dorothy Parker, Comment
Thomas Hardy, The Workbox
For Review and Further Study
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper
*Erich Fried, The Measures Taken
William Stafford, At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border
Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Wilfred Owen, War Poetry
Thinking About Tone
Checklist: Writing about Tone
Writing Assignment on Tone
Student Paper, Word Choice, Tone, and Point of View in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
13. Words
Literal Meaning: What a Poem Says First
William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say
Diction
Marianne Moore, Silence
Robert Graves, Down, Wanton, Down!
John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You
The Value of a Dictionary
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath
*Kay Ryan, Chemise
J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead
Carl Sandburg, Grass
*Dan Anderson, Dog Haiku
Word Choice and Word Order
Robert Herrick, Upon Julia’s Clothes
*Robert Burns , Auld Lang Syne
Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid
Wendy Cope, Lonely Hearts
For Review and Further Study
E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town
*Billy Collins, The Names
*Charles Bukowski , Dostoevsky
Anonymous, Carnation Milk
Gina Valdés, English con Salsa
Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Lewis Carroll, Humpty Dumpty Explicates “Jabberwocky”
Thinking About Diction
Checklist: Writing About diction
Writing Assignment on Word Choice
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
14. Saying and Suggesting
Denotation and Connotation
Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
William Blake, London
Gwendolyn Brooks, Southeast Corner
Timothy Steele, Epitaph
E. E. Cummings, next to of course god america i
Robert Frost, Fire and Ice
*Diane Thiel , The Minefield
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears
Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Richard Wilbur, Concerning “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
Thinking About Denotation and Connotation
Checklist: writing about What a Poem SAYS AND Suggests
Writing Assignment on Denotation and Connotation
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
15. 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
*Rainer Maria Rilke, The Panther
*Charles Simic, Fork
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
Ethridge Knight, Making Jazz Swing In
Lee Gurga, Visitor's Room
Penny Harter, Broken Bowl
Jennifer Brutshy, Born Again
For Review and Further Study
John Keats, Bright star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art
Walt Whitman, The Runner
William Carlos Williams, El Hombre
Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
*Paul Goodman , Birthday Cake
Billy Collins, Embrace
Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Ezra Pound, The Image
Thinking About Imagery
Checklist: Writing about Imagery
Writing Assignment on Imagery
Student Paper, FADED BEAUTY: Elizabeth Bishop’s Use of Imagery in “The Fish”
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
16. 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
Margaret Atwood, You fit into me
*George Herbert, The Pulley
Dana Gioia, Money
*Carl Sandburg, Fog
For Review and Further Study
Robert Frost, The Silken Tent
Jane Kenyon, The Suitor
Robert Frost, The Secret Sits
*Kay Ryan, Turtle
*Anne Stevenson, The Demolition
*Robinson Jeffers, Hands
Robert Burns, Oh, my love is like a red, red rose
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Robert Frost, The Importance of Poetic Metaphor
Thinking About Metaphors
Checklist: Writing About Metaphors
Writing Assignment on Figures of Speech
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
17. Song
Singing and Saying
Ben Jonson, To Celia
*James Weldon Johnson, Since You Went Away
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
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Eleanor Rigby
*Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’
Aimee Mann, Deathly
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Paul McCartney, Creating “Eleanor Rigby”
Thinking About Poetry and Song
Checklist: Writing About Song Lyrics
Writing Assignment on Song Lyrics
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
18. Sound
Sound as Meaning
Alexander Pope, True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance
William Butler Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus?
John Updike, Recital
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
Aphra Behn, When maidens are young
Alliteration and Assonance
A. E. Housman, Eight O’Clock
James Joyce, All day I hear
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls
Rime
William Cole, On my boat on Lake Cayuga
*William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
*Robert Frost, Desert Places
Reading and Hearing Poems Aloud
Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane
William Shakespeare, Full fathom five thy father lies
T. S. Eliot, Virginia
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
T. S. Eliot, The Music of Poetry
Thinking About a Poem's Sound
Checklist: Writing About a Poem’s Sound
Writing Assignment on Sound
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
19. Rhythm
Stresses and Pauses
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break
Dorothy Parker, Résumé
Meter
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme
A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty
William Carlos Williams, Smell!
Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums!
*Langston Hughes, Dream Boogie
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Gwendolyn Brooks, Hearing “We Real Cool”
Thinking About Rhythm
Checklist: Scanning a Poem
Writing Assignment on Rhythm
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
20. Closed Form
Formal Patterns
John Keats, This living hand, now warm and capable
Robert Graves, Counting the Beats
John Donne, Song (“Go and Catch a Falling Star”)
The Sonnet
William Shakespeare, Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night
*William Meredith , The Illiterate
Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You
A. E. Stallings, Sine Qua Non
R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet
The Epigram
Alexander Pope, Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog
Sir John Harrington, Of Treason
*John Frederick Nims, Contemplation
Anonymous, Epitaph of a Dentist
*Hilaire Belloc, Fatigue
*Wendy Cope, Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”
Other Forms
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Robert Bridges, Triolet
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
A. E. Stallings, On Form and Artifice
Thinking About a Sonnet
Checklist: Writing About a Sonnet
Writing Assignment on a Sonnet
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
21. Open Form
Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway
Free Verse
E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s
*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
*Carolyn Forché, The Colonel
Visual Poetry
George Herbert, Easter Wings
John Hollander, Swan and Shadow
For Review and Further Study
E. E. Cummings, in Just-
*A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz
Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Walt Whitman, The Poetry of the Future
Thinking About Free Verse
Checklist: Writing about free verse
Writing Assignment on Open Form
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
22. Symbol
The Meanings of a Symbol
T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript
Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork
Identifying Symbols
Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones
Allegory
Matthew :–, The Parable of the Good Seed
George Herbert, The World
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Christina Rossetti, Uphill
For Review and Further Study
William Carlos Williams, The Term
*Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Lorine Niedecker, Popcorn-can cover
*Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
William Butler Yeats, Poetic Symbols
Thinking About Symbols
Checklist: Writing About Symbols
Writing Assignment on Symbolism
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
23. Myth and Narrative
Origins of Myth
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay
William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us
H. D., Helen
*Constantine Cavafy, iThaca
Archetype
Louise Bogan, Medusa
John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci
Personal Myth
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
Myth and Popular Culture
Andrea Hollander Budy, Snow White
Anne Sexton, Cinderella
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Anne Sexton, Transforming Fairy Tales
Thinking About Myth
Checklist: Writing About Myth
Writing Assignment on Myth
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
24. Poetry and Personal Identity
Confessional Poetry
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
Identity Poetics
Rhina Espaillat, Bilingual/Bilingüe
Culture, Race, and Ethnicity
Claude McKay, America
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quiñceañera
*Sherman Alexie, The Powwow at the End of the World
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It
Gender
*Bettie Sellers, In the Counselor's Waiting Room
Donald Justice, Men at Forty
Adrienne Rich, Women
For Review and Further Study
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Learning to Love America
*Philip Larkin, Aubade
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Rhina Espaillat, Being a Bilingual Writer
Thinking About Poetry of Personal Identity
Checklist: Writing About Voice and Personal Identity
Writing Assignment on Personal Identity
More Topics for Writing
25. 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, Amorosa Anticipación
Translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Anticipation of Love
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
Writers on Translating
Alastair Reid, Translating Neruda
Writing Assignment on Spanish Poetry
More Topics for Writing
26. 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
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
*W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939
*Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain!
Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Edgar Allan Poe, A Long Poem Does Not Exist
Thinking About an Evaluation
Checklist: Writing an Evaluation
Writing Assignment on Evaluating a Poem
More Topics for Writing
27. What Is Poetry?
*Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica
Dante, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Mina Loy, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, J. V. Cunningham, Elizabeth Bishop, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, William Stafford, Robert Bly, José Garcia Villa, Charles Simic, Christopher Fry, Joy Harjo, Some Definitions of Poetry –
28. Two Critical Casebooks
Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes
Emily Dickinson
Success is counted sweetest
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
*There’s a certain Slant of light
I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
The Soul selects her own Society
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
*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 Emily Dickinson
Recognizing Poetry
Self-Description
Critics on Emily Dickinson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Meeting Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson, The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts
Richard Wilbur, The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Dickinson and Death (A Reading of “Because I could not stop for Death”)
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
*My People
Mother to Son
Dream Variations
I, Too
The Weary Blues
*Prayer
Ballad of the Landlord
Theme for English B
*Subway Rush Hour
Harlem [Dream Deferred]
*Homecoming
Langston Hughes on Langston Hughes
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, Langston Hughes and Harlem
Darryl Pinckney, Black Identity in Langston Hughes
Onwuchekwa Jemie, A Reading of “Dream Deferred”
Topics for Writing About Emily Dickinson
Topics for Writing About Langston Hughes
29. 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”
T. S. Eliot on Writing
Poetry and Emotion
The Difficulty of Poetry
Critics on “Prufrock”
Denis Donoghue, One of the Irrefutable Poets
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
Topics for Writing
30. Poems for Further Reading
*Aaron Abeyeta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla
Anonymous, Lord Randall
Anonymous , Last Words of the Prophet
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
John Ashbery, At North Farm
Margaret Atwood, Siren Song
W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts
*Jimmy Baca, Spliced Wire
Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station
William Blake, The Tyger
*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
*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
John Donne, Death be not proud
John Donne, The Flea
*John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
*Rita Dove, Daystar
*T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi
Robert Frost, Birches
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
*Donald Hall, Names of Horses
Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain
* Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush
Seamus Heaney, Digging
*Anthony Hecht, The Vow
George Herbert, Love
Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
*Tony Hoagland, Beauty
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, To the Stone-cutters
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
*John Keats, To Autumn
Ted Kooser, Abandoned Farmhouse
Philip Larkin, Home is so Sad
*Philip Larkin, Poetry of Departures
D. H. Lawrence, Piano
Denise Levertov, The Ache of Marriage
*Li-Po, Translated by Arthur Waley, Drinking Alone by Moonlight
*Shirley Geok-lin Lim, To Li Po
Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Recuerdo
John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent
Marianne Moore, Poetry
Marilyn Nelson, A Strange Beautiful Woman
Howard Nemerov, The War in the Air
*Lorine Niedecker, Sorrow Moves in Wide Waves
Sharon Olds, The One Girl at the Boys’ Party
Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth
Linda Pastan, Ethics
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
*Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream within a Dream
Alexander Pope, A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing
Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
Dudley Randall, A Different Image
John Crowe Ransom, Piazza Piece
Henry Reed, Naming of Parts
Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy
Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane
Bettie Sellers, In the Counselor’s Waiting Room
William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes
*William Shakespeare, Not marble nor the gilded monuments
William Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me behold
William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing likethe sun
*Charles Simic , The Butcher Shop
*William Stafford, The Farm on the Great Plains
Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream
*Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill
John Updike, Ex-Basketball Player
Derek Walcott, The Virgins
Walt Whitman, from Song of the Open Road
Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing
Richard Wilbur, The Writer
William Carlos Williams, Spring and All
*William Carlos Williams, To Waken an Old Lady
William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge
James Wright, A Blessing
Mary Sidney Wroth, In this strange labyrinth
William Butler Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
*William Butler Yeats, The Magi
William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old
Drama
Talking with David Ives
31. Reading a Play
Theatrical Conventions
Elements of a Play
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Analyzing Trifles
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Susan Glaspell, Creating Trifles
Thinking About a Play
Checklist: Writing about a Play
Writing Assignment on Conflict
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
32. Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy
Tragedy
Christopher Marlowe, scene From Doctor Faustus (act 2, scene 1)
Comedy
*David Ives, Soap Opera
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
David Ives, On the one-act play
Thinking About Comedy
Checklist: Writing about Comedy
Writing Assignment on Comedy
Topics for Writing on Tragedy
Topics for Writing on Comedy
Terms for Review
33. 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 Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)
Critics on Sophocles
Aristotle, Defining Tragedy
Sigmund Freud, The Destiny of Oedipus
E. R. Dodds, On Misunderstanding Oedipus
A. E. Haigh, The Irony of Sophocles
David Wiles, The Chorus as Democrat
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Robert Fitzgerald, Translating Sophocles into English
Thinking About Greek Tragedy
Checklist: Writing About Greek Drama
Writing Assignment on Sophocles
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
34. Critical Casebook: Shakespeare
The Theater of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Plays
A Note on Othello
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice
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
Clare Asquith, Shakespeare’s Language as a Hidden Political Code
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
Ben Jonson, On His Friend and Rival William Shakespeare
*Understanding Shakespeare
Thinking About Shakespeare
*Checklist: Writing About Shakespeare
Writing Assignment on Tragedy
Student Paper, Othello: Tragedy or Soap Opera?
More Topics for Writing
35. The Modern Theater
Realism
Naturalism
Symbolism and Expressionism
American Modernism
Tragicomedy and the Absurd
Return to Realism
Experimental Drama
*Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, Revised by Viktoria Michelsen)
Writers on Writing
Henrik Ibsen, Correspondence on the Final Scene of A Doll’s House
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Writers on Writing
Tennessee Williams, How to Stage The Glass Menagerie
Anna Deavere Smithn scenes from twilight: los angeles, 1992
Writers on Writing
Anna Deavere Smith, A Call to the Community
Writing Effectively
Thinking About Dramatic Realism
Checklist: Writing About Realism
Writing Assignment on Realism
Student Essay, Helmer vs. Helmer
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
36. Plays for Further Reading
Rita Dove, The Darker Face of the Earth
Writers on Writing
Rita Dove, The Inspiration for The Darker Face of the Earth
David Henry Hwang, The Sound of a Voice
Writers on Writing
David Henry Hwang, Multicultural Theater
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Writers on Writing
Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man
August Wilson, Fences
Writers on Writing
August Wilson, A Look into Black America
WRITING
37. Writing about Literature
Read Actively
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay
Plan Your Essay
Discover Your Ideas
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
Developing a Literary Argument
Checklist
Developing an Argument
Writing a Rough Draft
Sample Student Paper (Rough Draft)
Checklist
Revise Your Draft
Some Final Advice on Rewriting
Sample Student Paper (Revised Draft)
Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism
The Form of Your Finished Paper
38. Writing About a Story
Read Actively
Think About the Story
Discover Ideas
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
Write a Rough Draft
Checklist
Writing a Rough Draft
Revise Your Draft
Checklist
Revising Your Draft
What’s Your Purpose? Common Approaches to Writing about Fiction
Topics for Writing
39. Writing about a Poem
Read Actively
Robert Frost, Design
Think About the Poem
Discover Your Ideas
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
Write a Rough Draft
Checklist
Writing a Rough Draft
Revise Your Draft
Checklist
Revising Your Draft
Common Approaches to Writing about Poetry
How to Quote a Poem
Topics for Writing
Robert Frost, In White
40. Writing about a Play
Read Critically
Common Approaches to Writing about Drama
How to Quote a Play
Topics for Writing
41. Writing a Research Paper
Browse the Research
Choose a Topic
Begin Your Research
Evaluate Sources
Organize Your Research
Refine Your Thesis
Organize Your Paper
Write and Revise
Maintain Academic Integrity
Acknowledge All Sources
Documenting Sources Using MLA Style
Reference Guide for Citation
42. Writing an Essay Exam
Preparing for the Exam
Taking the Exam
43. Critical Approaches to Literature
Formalist Criticism
Cleanth Brooks, The Formalist Critic
*Robert Langbaum, On Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"
Biographical Criticism
Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"
Emily Toth, The Source for AlcÉé LaballiÈre in "The Storm"
Historical Criticism
Hugh Kenner, Imagism
*Joseph Moldenhauer, "To His Coy Mistress" and the Renaissance Tradition
Psychological Criticism
Sigmund Freud, The Nature of Dreams
Gretchen Schulz and R.J.R. Rockwood, Fairy Tale Motifs in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Mythological Criticism
Carl Jung, The Collective Unconscious and Archetypes
Edmond Volpe, Myth in Faulkner's "Barn Burning"
Sociological Criticism
Georg Lukacs, Content Determines Form
Alfred Kazin, Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln
Gender Criticism
Nina Pelikan Straus, Transformations in The Metamorhposis
*Richard R. Bozorth, "Tell Me the Truth About Love"
Reader-Response Criticism
Stanley Fish, An Eskimo "A Rose for Emily"
Robert R. Bozorth, "Tell Me the Truth About Love"
Deconstructionist Criticism
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author
Barbara Johnson, Rigorous Unreliability
Cultural Studies
Vincent B. Leitch, Postconstructionalist Cultural Critique
Camille Pagilla, A Reading of William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"
Terms for Review