Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing Book

1. Introduction: Reading, Responding to, and Writing about Literature.

What Is Literature, and Why do We Study It? Types of Literatures: The Genres. Reading Literature and Responding to It Actively.

Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace.

Reading and Responding in a Notebook or Computer File. Guidelines for Reading. Writing Essays on Literary Topics. The Goal of Writing: To Show a Process of Thought. Three Major Stages in Thinking and Writing: Discovering Ideas, Making Initial Drafts, and Completing the Essay. Discovering Ideas (“Brainstorming”). The Need to Present an Argument when Writing Essays about Literature. Assembling Materials and Beginning to Write. Drafting the Essay. Writing by Hand, Typewriter, or Word-Processor. Writing a First Draft. Using Verb Tenses in the Discussion of Literary Works. Developing an Outline. Using References and Quotations. Demonstrative Student Essay (First Draft): How Setting in “The Necklace” Is Related to the Character of Mathilde. Developing and Strengthening Essays through Revision. Checking Development and Organization. Using Exact, Comprehensive, and Forceful Language. Using the Names of Authors. Demonstrative Student Essay (Improved Draft): How Maupassant Uses Setting in “The Necklace” to Show the Character of Mathilde. Easy Commentaries. Specials Topics for Writing and Argument about the Writing Process.

READING AND WRITING ABOUT FICTION.

2. FICTION AN OVERVIEW.

Modern Fiction. The Short Story. Elements of Fiction I: Verisimilitude and Donnée. Elements of Fiction II: Character, Plot, Structure, and Idea or Theme. Elements of Fiction III: TheWriter's Tools.

Stories for Study:

Raymond Carver, Neighbors.

Edwidge Danticat, Night Talkers.

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily.

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

Alice Walker, Everyday Use.

Plot: The Motivation and Causation of Fiction. Writing about the Plot of a Story. Illustrative Student Essay: Plot in Faulkner’s“A Rose for Emily”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Plot in Fiction.

3. Structure: The Organization of Stories.

The Structure of Fiction. Formal Categories of Structure. Formal and Actual Structure.

Stories for Study:

Laurie Colwin, An Old-Fashioned Story.

Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal.

Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill.

Eudora Welty, A Worn Path.

Tom Whitecloud, Blue Winds Dancing.

Writing about Structure in a Story. Illustrative Student Essay: The Structure of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path.” Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Plot and Structure.

4. Characters: The People in Fiction.

Character Traits. How Authors Disclose Character in Literature. Types of Characters: Round and Flat. Reality and Probability: Verisimilitude.

Stories for Study:

Willa Cather, Paul's Case.

William Faulkner, Barn Burning.

Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers.

Joyce Carol Oates, Shopping.

Amy Tan, Two Kinds.

Writing about Character. Illustrative Student Essay: The Character of the Mother in Amy Tan's “Two Kinds”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Character.

5. Point of View: The Position or Stance of the Narrator or Speaker.

An Exercise in Point of View: Reporting an Accident. Conditions That Affect Point of View and Opinions. Determining a Work's Point of View. Mingling Points of View. Point of View and Verb Tense. Summary: Guidelines for Point of View.

Stories for Study:

Alice Adams The Last Lovely City.

Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at OwlCreekBridge.

Ellen Gilchrist, The Song of Songs.

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery.

Jamaica Kincaid, What I Have Been Doing Lately.

Lorrie Moore, How to Become a Writer.

Writing about Point of View. Illustrative Student Essay: Bierce’s Control Point of View in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Point of View.

6. Setting: The Background of Place, Objects, and Culture in Stories.

What Is Setting? The Literary Uses of Setting.

Stories for Study:

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Portable Phonograph.

James Joyce, Araby.

Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl.

Irwin Shaw, Act of Faith

Stories for Study:

Writing About Setting. Illustrative Student Essay: The Interaction of Story and Setting in James Joyce's “Araby”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Setting.

7. Style: The Words That Tell the Story.

Diction: The Writer's Choice and Control of Words. Rhetoric: The Writer's Choices of Effective Arrangements and Forms. Style in General.

Stories for Study:

Ernest Hemingway, Soldier's Home.

Alice Munro, The Found Boat.

Frank O'Connor, First Confession.

Mark Twain, Luck.

John Updike, A & P.

Writing about Style. Illustrative Student Essay: Mark Twain’s Blending of Style and Purpose in Paragraphs 14 and 15 of “Luck.” Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Style.

8. Tone: The Expression of Attitude in Fiction.

Tone and Attitudes. Tone and Humor. Tone and Irony.

Stories for Study:

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour.

Leslie Marmon Silko, Lullaby.

Americo Paredes, The Hammon and the Beans.

Mary Yukari Waters, Aftermath.

Edith Wharton, The Other Two.

Writing about Tone. Illustrative Student Essay: Kate Chopin's Use of Irony in “The Story of an Hour”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Tone.

9. Symbolism and Allegory: Keys to Extended Meaning.

Symbolism. Allegory. Fable, Parable, and Myth. Allusion in Symbolism and Allegory.

Stories for Study:

Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes.

Anonymous, The Myth Of Atalanta.

Anita Scott Coleman, Unfinished Masterpieces.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown.

St. Luke, The Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums.

Writing About Symbolism or Allegory. Illustrative Student Essay (Symbolism): Symbols of Light and Darkness in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”. Illustrative Student Essay (Allegory): The Allegory of Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown ”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Symbolism and Allegory.

10. Idea or Theme: The Meaning and the Message in Fiction.

Ideas and Assertions. Ideas and Issues. Ideas and Values. The Place of Ideas in Literature. How to Find Ideas.

Stories for Study:

Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson.

Anton Chekhov, Lady with Lapdog.

Ernest J. Gaines, The Sky Is Gray.

D.H. Lawrence, The Horse Dealer's Daughter.

Irene Zabytko, Home Soil.

Writing About a Major Idea in Fiction. Illustrative Student Essay: Toni Cade Bambara's Idea of Justice and Economic Equality in “The Lesson ”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Ideas.

11. A Career in Fiction: Four Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, with Critical Readings for Research.

Poe’s Life and Career. Poe’s Work as a Journalist and Writer of Fiction. Poe’s Reputation. Bibliographic Sources. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Poe.

Four of Poe’s Stories in Chronological Order:

The Fall of the House of Usher (1839).

The Masque of the Red Death (1842).

The Black Cat (1843).

The Cask of Amontillado (1846).

Selected Criticism of Poe’s Stories for Research:

 1. Poe’s Irony.

 2. The Narrators of ”The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

 3. “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

 4. “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

 5. “The Masque of the Red Death.”

 6. Symbolism in “The Masque of the Red Death.”

 7. “The Masque of the Red Death” as Representative of a “Diseased Age.”

 8. Sources and Analoques of “The Cask of Amontillado.”

 9. Poe’s Idea of Unity and the “Fall of the House Usher.”

10. The Narrators of “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Black Cat.”

11. Poe, Women, and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

12. The Deceptive Narrator of “The Black Cat.”

12. Ten Stories for Additional Enjoyment and Study.

Robert Olen Butler, Snow.

John Chioles, Before the Firing Squad.

Stephen Crane, The Blue Hotel.

Stephen Dixon, All Gone.

Andre Dubus, The Curse.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper.

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Had to Find.

Tillie Olson, I Stand Here Ironing.

Gaius Petronius Arbiter (Petronius), The Widow of Ephesus.

Joy Williams, Taking Care.

12A. Writing about Literature with the Aid of Research, 1.
Writing and Documenting the Research Essay on Fiction: Using Extra Resources for Understanding.

Selecting a Topic. Setting up a Bibliography. Online Library Services. Important Considerations about Computer-aided Research. Taking Notes and Paraphrasing Material. Documenting Your Work. Strategies for Organizing Ideas in Your Research Essay. Illustrative Research Essay: The Structure of Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”. Commentary on the Essay. Special Topics for Studying and Discussing How to Undertake Research Essays.

READING AND WRITING ABOUT POETRY.

13. Meeting Poetry: An Overview.

The Nature of Poetry.

Billy Collins, Schoolsville.

Lisel Mueller, Hope.

Robert Herrick, Here a Pretty Baby Lies.

Poetry of the English Language. How to Read a Poem. Studying Poetry.

Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spens.

Poems for Study:

Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop for Death.

Robert Francis, Catch.

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed.

Joy Harjo, Eagle Poem.

Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.

Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus.

Louis MacNeice, Snow.

Jim Northrup, Ogichidag.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Where Children Live.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monument.

Elaine Terranova, Rush Hour.

Writing a Paraphrase of a Poem. Illustrative Student Paraphrase: A Paraphrase of Thomas Hardy's “The Man He Killed”. Writing an Explication of a Poem. Illustrative Student Essay: An Explication of Thomas Hardy's “The Man He Killed”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Meeting Poetry.

14. Words: The Building Blocks of Poetry.

Choice of Diction: Specific and Concrete, General and Abstract. Levels of Diction. Special Types of Diction. Decorum, the Matching of Subject and Word. Syntax. Denotation and Connotation.

Robert Graves, The Naked and the Nude.

Poems for Study:

William Blake, The Lamb.

Robert Burns, Green Grow the Rashes.

Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky.

Hayden Carruth, An Apology for Using the Word “Heart” in Too Many Poems.

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

John Donne, Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God.

Richard Eberhart, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment.

Bart Edelman, Chemistry Experiment.

Thomas Gray, Sonnet on the Death of Richard West.

Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart.

A.E. Housman, Loveliest of Trees.

Carolyn Kizer, Night Sounds.

Maxine Kumin, Hello, Hello Henry.

Denise Levertov, Of Being.

Sylvia Plath, Tulips.

Henry Reed, Naming of Parts.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory.

Theodore Roethke, Dolor.

Stephen Spender, I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great.
Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock.

Mark Strand, Eating Poetry.

Writing about Diction and Syntax in Poetry. Illustrative Student Essay: Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Words of Poetry.

15. Character and Setting: Who, What, Where, and When in Poetry.

Characters in Poetry.

Anonymous, Western Wind.

Anonymous, Bonny George Campbell.

Ben Jonson, Drink to Me, Only, with Thine Eyes.

Ben Jonson, To the Reader.

Setting and Character in Poetry.

Poems for Study:

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach.

William Blake, London.

Elizabeth Brewster, Where I Come From.

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess.

William Cowper, The Poplar Field.

Louise Glück, Snowdrops.

Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid.

Dorianne Laux, The Life of Trees.

C. Day Lewis, Song.

Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.

Lisel Mueller, Visiting My Native Country with My American-Born Husband.

Joyce Carol Oates, Loving.

Marge Piercy, Wellfleet Sabbath.

Al Purdy, Poem.

Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.

Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol.

Jane Shore, A Letter Sent to Summer.

Maura Stanton, Childhood.

James Wright, A Blessing.

Writing about Character and Setting in Poetry. Illustrative Student Essay: The Character of the Duke in Browning's “My Last Duchess”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Character and Setting in Poetry.

16. Imagery: The Poem's Link to the Senses.

Responses and the Writer's Use of Detail. The Relationship of Imagery to Ideas and Attitudes. Types of Imagery.

John Masefield, Cargoes.

Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish.

Poems for Study:

William Blake, The Tyger.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portugese, No. 14: If Thou Must Love Me.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan.

Ray Durem, I Know I'm Not Sufficiently Obscure.

T.S. Eliot, Preludes.

Susan Griffin, Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields.

Thomas Hardy, Channel Firing.

George Herbert, The Pulley.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring.

A.E.Houseman, On Wenlock Edge.

Denise Levertov, A Time Past.

Thomas Lux, The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently.

Michael O'Siadhail, Abundance. 

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro.

Friedrich Rückert, If You Love for the Sake of Beauty.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 13: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun.

James Tate, Dream On.

Writing about Imagery. Illustrative Student Essay: Imagery in T.S. Eliot's “Preludes”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Imagery in Poetry.

17. Figures of Speech, or Metaphorical Language: A Source of Depth and Range in Poetry.

Metaphor and Simile: The Major Figures of Speech. Characteristics of Metaphorical Language.

John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Vehicle and Tenor. Other Figures of Speech.

John Keats, Bright Star.

John Gay, Let Us Take the Road.

Poems for Study:

Jack Agüeros, Sonnet for You, Familiar Famine.

Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose.

John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.

Abbie Huston Evans, The Iceberg Seven-Eighths Under.

Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain.

Joy Harjo, Remember.

Langston Hughes, Harlem.

John Keats, To Autumn.

Maurice Kenny, Legacy.

Jane Kenyon, Let Evening Come.

Henry King, Sic Vita.

Judith Minty, Conjoined.

Marge Piercy, A Work of Artifice.

Sylvia Plath, Metaphors.

Muriel Rukeyser, Looking at Each Other.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 3: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought.

Elizabeth Tudor, Queen Elizabeth I, On Monsieur's Departure.

Mona Van Duyn, Earth Tremors Felt in Missouri.

Walt Whitman, Facing West from California's Shores.

William Wordsworth, London, 1802.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, I Find No Peace.

Writing about Figures of Speech. Illustrative Student Paragraph: Wordsworth's Use of Overstatement in “London, 1802”. Illustrative Student Essay: Personification in Hardy's “The Convergence of the Twain”. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Figures of Speech in Poetry.

18. Tone: The Creation of Attitude in Poetry.

Tone, Choice, and Response.

Cornelius Whur, The First-Rate Wife.

Tone and the Need for Control.

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est.

Tone and the Common Grounds of Assent.

Tone in Conversation and Poetry.

Tone and Irony.

Thomas Hardy, The Workbox.

Tone and Satire.

Alexander Pope, Epigram from the French.

Alexander Pope, Epigram, Engraved on the Collar of a Dog which I Gave to His Royal Highness.

Poems for Study:

William Blake, On Another’s Sorrow.

Jimmy Carter, I Wanted to Share My Father's World.

Lucille Clifton, Homage to my Hips.

Billy Collins, The Names.

E.E. Cummings, She being Brand-new.

Mari Evans, I Am a Black Woman.

Seamus Heany, Mid-term Break.

William Ernest Henley, When You Were Old.

Langston Hughes, Themes for English B.

X.J. Kennedy, John While Swimming in the Ocean.

Abraham Lincoln, My Childhood's Home.

Sharon Olds, The Planned Child.

Robert Pinsky, Dying.

Alexander Pope, From Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I.

Salvatore Quasímodo, Auschwitz.

Anne Ridler, Nothing Is Lost.

Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz.

Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning.

David Wagoner, My Physics Teacher.

C.K. Williams, Dimensions.

William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old.

Writing about Tone in Poetry. Illustrative Student Essay: The Tone of Confidence in “Themes for English B” by Langston Hughes. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Tone in Poetry.

19. Prosody: Sound, Rhythm, and Rhyme in Poetry.

Important Definitions for Studying Prosody. Segments: Individually Meaningful Sounds. Poetic Rhythm. The Major Metrical Feet. Special Meters. Substitution. Accentual, Strong-Stress, and “Sprung” Rhythms. The Caesura: The Pause Creating Variety and Natural Rhythms in Poetry. Segmental Poetic Devices. Rhyme: The Duplication and Similarity of Sounds. Rhyme and Meter. Rhyme Schemes.

Poems for Study:

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool.

Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover.

Emily Dickinson, To Hear an Oriole Sing.

John Donne, The Sun Rising.

T.S. Eliot, Macavity: The Mystery Cat.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn.