Living Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama Book

PART I: FICTION

1. Stories: Plot, Character, Setting

The Hare and the Tortoise

Story with a Lesson

Inspiration: Animation and The Tortoise and the Hare

Video locale: Bugs Bunny Cartoons of The Tortoise and the Hare

Plot Ordering the Plot Kate Chopin, The Story of An Hour

For Further Reading: Plot

Richard Ford, Under the Radar

Character

Tim O’Brien, Stockings

Types of Characters

For Further Reading: Character

Alice Munro, Prue

Setting

James Joyce, Araby

Literary Locale: James Joyce and Davy Byrnes Pub

Symbolic Setting

For Further Reading: Setting

Literary Locale: Colter’s Chicago—The South Side and the El

Cyrus Colter, Mary’s Convert

2. Stories: Point of View, Theme, Symbol, Performance Point of View

First-Person Narration

Third-Person Narration

Subjective vs. Objective Narration

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl

Point of View in “Girl”

The Narrator’s Role

For Further Reading: Point of View

Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings

Theme

John Updike, A & P

Theme in “A & P”

Theme, Meaning, and Intention

For Further Reading: Theme

Anita Desai, Games at Twilight

Symbol

Stuart Dybek, The Palatski Man

For Further Reading: Symbol

Gabriel García Márquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

Tone

Inspiration: Carver to Altman: From Fiction to Film

Raymond Carver, Cathedral

For Further Reading: Tone

Ana Castillo, Loverboys

Story and Performance

Wallace Stegner, A Note on Technique

Story and Performance in “A Note on Technique”

Audio and Video Locale: Updike’s “A&P” in Performance

3. Writing about Stories

The Cultural Conversation

Reviews

Short Review

Short Review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Full Review

Full Review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Beyond Reviews: Criticism

Popular Criticism

Newsweek, Here’s Harry: Behind the Fastest-Selling Book in History

Scholarly Articles

Roni Natov, Harry Potter and the Extraordinariness of the Ordinary

How to Enter the Conversation?

Virtual Locale: Blogging about Stories

Questions to Develop Ideas About a Story

Point of View

Language

Setting

Character

Plot

Links to Other Texts

Response

Formats for Writing about Stories

Annotating a Story

Annotations for a page of “The Story of An Hour”

Summarizing a Story

Summaries of “The Story of An Hour”

Keeping a Personal Journal

Double-Entry Reaction Journal on a page of “The Story of An Hour”

Writing a Response Paper

From a Response Paper to “The Story of An Hour”

Writing an Intervention

Writing an Explication

Explication of the opening of “The Story of An Hour”

Writing an Analytical Essay

Student Analytical Essay of “The Story of An Hour”

4. A Fiction Writer in Depth: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Literary Locale: Hawthorne’s Massachusetts—Concord and Salem

Virtual Locale:Hawthorne in Salem Website

Nathaniel Hawthorne Timeline

Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown

Lady Eleanore’s Mantle

The Maypole of Merry Mount

Commentary: Nathaniel Hawthorne on his Art and His Life

Inspiration:

Hawthorne and Melville: A Literary Friendship

5. A Fiction Writer in Depth: Willa Cather

Literary and Virtual Locale: Willa Cather’s Red Cloud, Nebraska

Willa Cather Timeline

Audio Locale: Cather’s 1933 Radio Speech

Stories by Willa Cather

Peter

Paul’s Case

A Wagner Matinée

Inspiration: “A Wagner Matinée” in Performance—Cather from Page to Radio Stage

Audio and Virtual Locale:Recording of Scribbling Women “A Wagner Matinée” Radio Play

An Old Beauty

Virtual Locale:The Willa Cather Archive

Commentary: Willa Cather on Writing

Commentary: Willa Cather the Critic

Willa Cather, From “Shakespeare and Hamlet”

6. A Fiction Writer in Depth: Charles Baxter

Charles Baxter Timeline

Literary Locale: Baxter’s Michigan and the Mystery of the Midwest

Stories by Charles Baxter

Shelter

Inspiration:“Gryphon” in Performance—Chicago Public Radio’s Stories on Stage

Gryphon

Audio and Virtual Locale:Recording of Stories on Stage “Gryphon” Dramatic Reading

Saul and Patsy Are Pregnant

Virtual Locale:Charles Baxter’s Website

Kiss Away

Commentary: Charles Baxter on Fiction and the Writer’s Role

Commentary: Charles Baxter, Critical Writing on Fiction

Commentary: Excerpts from Selected Reviews

Inspiration: Music in the Fiction of Charles Baxter

Audio Locale:Recordings of “Gimme Shelter” and “Unchain My Heart”

7. More Than Magnolias: Southern Women Storytellers

Literary and Virtual Locale: The Gravesite of Zora Neale Hurston, Fort Pierce, Florida

Southern Women Writers Timeline

Literary and Virtual Locale: Zora Festival, Eatonville, Florida

Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat

Inspiration:

“Sweat” in Performance—Hurston from Page to Radio Stage

Audio and Virtual Locale:Recording of Scribbling Women “Sweat” Radio Play

Literary and Virtual Locale:The Homes and the Archives of Eudora Welty—Jackson, Mississippi

Virtual Locale:The Eudora Welty House and The Eudora Welty Collection

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

A Worn Path

A Shower of Gold

Commentary: Eudora Welty on the Craft of Writing

Inspiration: Alice Walker and Lee Smith on Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty

Literary Locale: The Georgia Homes of Flannery O’Connor—Savannah and Milledgville

Virtual Locale:Flannery O'Connor Home Foundation and Andalusia Farm Websites

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

Parker’s Back

Inspiration: Flannery O’Connor and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska Commentary: Flannery O’Connor on her Craft

Lee Smith, Cakewalk

Mary Hood, How Far She Went

Dorothy Allison, I’m Working on My Charm

Inspiration: Writers Who Inspired Dorothy Allison

Virtual Locale:Alice Walker and other “Voices of Mississippi”

Alice Walker, Everyday Use

Commentary: Contemporary Southern Women Writers Speak On the South

8. Passage to America: New Immigrant Tell Their Stories

Passage to America Timeline

Pat Mora, Immigrants

Inspiration:

“I, Too, Sing América”—“All-American” Writers, from Whitman to Hughes to Alvarez

Langston Hughes, I, Too, Sing America

Virtual Locale:

The “Writers on America” Project: What Does It Means to be an American Writer?

Literary Locale:

Los Angeles’s Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Third and Final Continent

Commentary: Jhumpa Lahiri on the Short Story

Virtual Locale:

The South Asian Women’s Network’s Online Bookshelf

Gish Jen, In the American Society

Commentary: Gish Jen on the Short Story

Virtual and Video Locale:Interview With Gish Jen on "Becoming American: Personal Journeys"

Esmeralda Santiago, When I Was Puerto Rican

Commentary: Esmeralda Santiago on When I Was Puerto Rican

Video and Virtual Locale:

Santiago in Performance: PBS Film Adaptation of Almost a Woman

Junot Díaz, Fiesta, 1980

Commentary: Junot Díaz on Fiction

Literary and virtual Locale: New York’s El Museo del Barrio

Anjana Appachana, Her Mother

Commentary: Anjana Appachana on the Short Story

Literary Locale:Ellis Island—The Gateway for the Early U.S. Immigrant

virtual Locale: The Ellis Island Immigration Museum

9. Stories for Further Reading

A Brief Note on the Sequencing of the Stories

A Brief Note on the Inclusion of Non-Fiction

Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal

Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

Literary Locale: Edgar Allan Poe—The Philadelphia Years

Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Dog

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

Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants

Inspiration: Imitation Hemingway and Faux Faulkner Contests

Virtual Locale: Hemispheres Magazine Website

Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

William Faulkner, Barn Burning

A Rose for Emily

Literary Locale: Faulkner’s Oxford, Mississippi

James Thurber, The Night the Bed Fell In

George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant

E.B. White, Once More to the Lake

Richard Wright, The Man Who Lived Underground

Jorge Luis Borges, Theme of the Traitor and the Hero

James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues

Chinua Achebe, A Civil Peace

Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman

Kazuo Ishiguro, Family Dinner

David Leavitt, Territory

Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried

Lorrie Moore, How to Become a Writer

Sherman Alexie, Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Stuart Dybek, We Didn’t

Inspiration: From Verse to Prose: Yehuda Amichai’s “We Did It” and Dybek’s “We Didn’t”

Andrea Barrett, Rare Bird

Ha Jin, Saboteur

PART II: POETRY

10. Poems: Tone, Image, Language

Shaping Experience

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask

Literary and VIRTUAL Locale: Paul Laurence Dunbar House—Dayton, Ohio

Tone

Linda Pastan, Marks

D.H. Lawrence, Piano

For Further Reading: Tone

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

Inspiration: Two Additional Translations of Li Po’s Poem

Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse

Virtual Locale: The Lannan Foundation and Louise Glück

Louise Glück, The Red Poppy

Audio Locale: Louise Glück’s “The Red Poppy”

Margaret Atwood, Siren Song

Images and Imagery

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

For Further Reading: Images and Imagery

Robert Burns, My Luve’s like a Red, Red Rose

Sylvia Plath, Metaphors

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck

Inspiration: Adrienne Rich Rethinks Emily Dickinson

Poetic Language

Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the miles

William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Literary Locale: Yeats and the Landscape in Sligo, Ireland

Inspiration: U2’s Bono—The Yeats of Our Time?

Before the World Was Made

Commentary: Louise Glück on Poetic Language

For Further Reading: Poetic Language

Frank O’Hara, The Day Lady Died

Audio Locale: Lady Sings the Blues

Thomas Gray, Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

Phyllis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Snow-Flakes

Jimmy Santiago Baca, Green Chile

Struggles Over Poetic Language

11. Poems: Meter, Stanza, Form

Meter

William Langland, From Piers Plowman

John Newton, From Amazing Grace

Iamb

Trochee

Anapest

Dactyl

John Hollander, Historical Reflection

Spondee

Feet

Blank verse

William Shakespeare, From Macbeth

John Milton, From Paradise Lost

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, From Aurora Leigh

For Further Reading: Meter

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Literary Locale: The Robert Frost Place, Franconia, New Hampshire

Ben Jonson, Song: To Celia

A.E. Housman, When I Was One-and-Twenty

Stanza

Alexander Pope, From The Rape of the Lock

Percy Bysshe Shelley, From Ode to the West Wind

Anonymous, From Bonny Barbara Allan

Free verse

Walt Whitman, When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say

Inspiration: William Carlos Williams and Tino Villaneuva

For Further Reading: Stanza

William Carlos Williams, The Great Figure

Inspiration: Charles Demuth's painting The Figure 5 in Gold

George Herbert, Easter Wings

William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Video Locale: Adrienne Rich and The Lannan Foundation

Form

Sonnet

John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

John Keats, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

Edna St. Vincent Millay, I will put Chaos into fourteen lines

Billy Collins, Sonnet

Commentary: Billy Collins on American Poetry

John Milton, On His Blindness

Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific

Alice Oswald, Wedding

Weldon Kees, For My Daughter

Elegy

Ben Jonson, On My First Son

Thomas Gray, Sonnet on the Death of Richard West

Samuel Johnson, On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, a Practiser in Physic

Chidiock Tichborne, Elegy Written with His Own Hand in the Tower before His Execution

E.E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill’s

Inspiration: Cummings and Bjork: Poetry as Pop Song

I will wade out

It may not always be so

Aubade

William Shakespeare, Aubade from Cymbeline

Amy Lowell, Aubade

John Donne, The Sun Rising

Richard Wilbur, A Late Aubade

Terese Svoboda, Aubade

Barbara Lau, Aubade/Iowa

Philip Larkin, Aubade

William Shakespeare, Aubade from Romeo and Juliet

Villanelle

Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Video Locale: Documentary on Elizabeth Bishop

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

For Further Reading: Form

Theodore Roethke, The Waking

Robert Frost, Design

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink

Gertrude Schnackenberg, Signs

Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll

Michael Drayton, Since There’s No Help

Edmund Spenser, One day I wrote her name upon the strand

Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

During Wind and Rain

Gerard Manly Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

The Windhover

12. Writing about Poetry

The Cultural Conversation

Reviews

Short Review: The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, ed. by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter

Full Review: The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, ed. by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter

Beyond Reviews: Criticism

Popular Criticism

Scott Thrill, Eminem vs. Robert Frost

Scholarly Articles or Works

Edward Hirsch, From How to Read a Poem

How to Enter the Conversation

Questions to Develop Ideas about a Poem

Point of View

Language

Setting

Character

Plot

Links to Other Texts

Response

Virtual Locale: Poetry Websites and Blog

Formats for Writing about Poems

Annotating a Poem

Annotations forDickinson’s “After Great Pain”

Summarizing or Paraphrasing a Poem

Summary of “After Great Pain”

Paraphrase of “After Great Pain”

Keeping a Personal Journal

Double-Entry Reaction Journal on “After Great Pain”

Writing a Response Paper

From a Response Paper to “After Great Pain”

Writing an Intervention

Inspiration: Two Poets Respond to Emily Dickinson

Francis Heaney, Skinny Domicile [An anagram of Emily Dickinson]

Billy Collins,Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

Writing an Explication

Student Explication of “After Great Pain”

Professional Explication of “After Great Pain”

Writing an Analytical Essay

Student Analytical Essay of “After Great Pain”

13. A Poet in Depth: Walt Whitman

Inspiration: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Letter to Whitman

Virtual Locale: The Whitman Electronic Archive

Walt Whitman Timeline

Literary Locale: Walt Whitman House, Camden, New Jersey

Poems by Walt Whitman

From Song of Myself

Audio Locale: Whitman Reading “America”

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Literary Locale: Whitman in New York

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom