Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, Compact Edition, Interactive Edition Book

FICTION

1. READING A STORY

Fable, Parable, and Tales

W. Somerset Maugham, The Appointment in Samarra

* Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun

Bidpai, The Camel and His Friends

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?

Writing About Plot

Paying Attention to Plot

Checklist: Analyzing Plot

Writing Assignment on Plot

More Topics For Writing

2. POINT OF VIEW

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily

* Anne Tyler, Teenage Wasteland

James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

Alice Walker, Everyday Use

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

James Baldwin, Race and the African American Writer

Writing About Point of View

How Point of View Shapes a Story

Checklist: Understanding Point of View

Writing Assignment on Point of View

More Topics For Writing

3. CHARACTER

Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill

* Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother

Raymond Carver, Cathedral

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Raymond Carver, Commonplace but Precise Language

Writing About Character

How Character Creates Action

Checklist: Writing About Character

Writing Assignment on Character

More Topics For Writing

4. SETTING

Kate Chopin, The Storm

T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake

Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Amy Tan, Setting the Voice

Writing About Setting

The Importance of Setting

Checklist: Analyzing Setting

Writing Assignment on Setting

More Topics For Writing

5. TONE AND STYLE

Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

William Faulkner, Barn Burning

Irony

* O. Henry, Gift of the Magi

Ha Jin, Saboteur

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Ernest Hemingway, The Direct Style

Writing About Tone and Style

Be Style Conscious

Checklist: Thinking about Style and Tone

Writing Assignment on Tone and Style

More Topics For Writing

6. THEME

Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path

* Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband

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

Writing About Theme

Stating the Theme

Checklist: Determining a Story’s Theme

Writing Assignment on Theme

More Topics For Writing

7. SYMBOL

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery

Elizabeth Tallent, No One’s a Mystery

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

* Shirley Jackson, Reactions to "The Lottery"

Writing About Symbols

Recognizing Symbols

Checklist: Thinking about Symbols

Writing Assignment on Symbols

Student Essay, An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums"

More Topics For Writing

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

Flannery O'Connor, An Excerpt from “On Her Own Work”: The Element of Suspense in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

Flannery O'Connor, On Her Catholic Faith

Flannery O'Connor, An Excerpt from “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction”: The Serious Writer and the Tired Reader

Critics on Flannery O'Connor

Robert Brinkmeyer Jr., Flannery O’Connor and Her Readers

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"

Kathleen Feeley, The Prophet in O’Connor’s “Revelation”

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writing About an Author

How One Story Illuminates Another

Checklist: Reading an Author in Depth

Writing Assignment on an Author

More Topics For Writing

9. CRITICAL CASEBOOK: 2 Stories in Depth

Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe on Writing

Edgar Allan Poe, The Tale and Its Effect

Edgar Allan Poe, On Imagination

Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Composition

Critics on “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Daniel Hoffman, The Father-Figure in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

* Scott Peeples, “The Tell-Tale Heart” as a Love Story

* John Chua, The Figure of the Double in Poe

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Writing

* Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”

* Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Whatever Is

* Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 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

* Elizabeth Ammons, Biographical Echoes in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

10. STORIES FOR FURTHER READING

Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings

Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark

* John Cheever, The Five-Forty-Eight

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

Sandra Cisneros, House on Mango Street.

Gabriel García Márquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

* Dagoberto Gilb, Look on the Bright Side

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat

James Joyce, Araby

Franz Kafka, Before the Law

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl

D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

* Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave

Leslie Marmon Silko, The Man to Send Rain Clouds

* Helena María Viramontes, The Moths

* Eudora Welty, The Worn Path

POETRY

11. READING A POEM

William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Lyric Poetry

D. H. Lawrence, Piano

Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Narrative Poetry

Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spence

Robert Frost, “Out, Out—”

Dramatic Poetry

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Adrienne Rich, Recalling "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"

Writing a Paraphrase

Can a Poem be Paraphrased?

William Stafford, Ask Me

William Stafford, A Paraphrase of "Ask Me"

Checklist: Paraphrasing a Poem

Writing Assignment on Paraphrase

More Topics For Writing

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

Benjamin Alire Sáenz, To the Desert

Weldon Kees, For My Daughter

The Person in the Poem

Natasha Trethewey, White Lies

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Luke Havergal

Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting

* Suji Kwock Kim, Monologue for an Onion

William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal Entry

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

Thomas Hardy, The Workbox

For Review and Further Study

William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper

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

Writing About Voice

Listening to Tone

Checklist: Analyzing Tone

Writing Assignment on Tone

Student Essay, Word Choice, Tone, and Point of View in Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz"

More Topics For Writing

13. WORDS

Literal Meaning: What a Poem Says First

William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say

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

J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead

Kelly Cherry, Advice to a Friend Who Paints

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

Anonymous, Carnation Milk

* Kenneth Rexroth, Vitamins and Roughage

* Gina Valdés, English con Salsa

Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Lewis Carroll, Humpty Dumpty Explicates "Jabberwocky"

Writing About Diction

Every Word Counts

Checklist: Thinking About Word Choice

Writing Assignment on Word Choice

More Topics For Writing

14. SAYING AND SUGGESTING

John Masefield, Cargoes

William Blake, London

Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

* Gwendolyn Brooks, Southeast Corner

Timothy Steele, Epitaph

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

Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

Clare Rossini, Final Love Note

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"

Writing About Denotation and Connotation

The Ways a Poem Suggests

Checklist: Analyzing What a Poem Says and Suggests

Writing Assignment on Denotation and Connotation

More Topics For Writing

15. IMAGERY

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro

Taniguchi Buson, The piercing chill I feel

T. S. Eliot, The winter evening settles down

Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar

Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish

Anne Stevenson, The Victory

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, I go

Kobayashi Issa, only one guy

Kobayashi Issa, Cricket

Haiku from Japanese Internment Camps

Suiko Matsushita, Rain shower from mountain

Neiji Ozawa, War forced us from California

Hakuro Wada, Even the croaking of frogs

Contemporary American Haiku

Etheridge Knight, Making jazz swing in

Lee Gurga, Visitor’s Room

Penny Harter, broken bowl

John Ridland, The Lazy Man’s Haiku

* Garry Gay, Hole in the ozone

* Adelle Foley, Learning to Shave

Jennifer Brutschy,Born Again

Connie Bensley, Last Haiku

For Review and Further Study

John Keats, Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art

Walt Whitman, The Runner

T. C. Hulme, The Image

* William Carlos Williams, El Hombre

Chana Bloch, Tired Sex

Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter

* Rita Dove, Silos

* Louise Glück, Mock Orange

* Billy Collins, Embrace

Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Ezra Pound, The Image

Writing About Imagery

Analyzing Images

Checklist: Thinking About Imagery

Writing Assignment On Imagery

Student Essay, Elizabeth Bishop's Use of Imagery in "The Fish"

More Topics For Writing

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

Other Figures of Speech

James Stephens, The Wind

Margaret Atwood, You fit into me

John Ashbery, The Cathedral Is

* Dana Gioia, Money

* Charles Simic, My Shoes

For Review and Further Study

Robert Frost, The Silken Tent

* April Lindner, Low Tide

Jane Kenyon, The Suitor

Robert Frost, The Secret Sits

A. R. Ammons, Coward

* Heather McHugh, Language Lesson, 1976

Robert Burns, Oh, my love is like a red, red rose

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Robert Frost, The Importance of Poetic Metaphor

Writing About Metaphors

How Metaphors Enlarge a Poem's Meaning

Checklist: Analyzing Metaphor

Writing Assignment on Figures of Speech

More Topics For Writing

17. SONG

Singing and Saying

Ben Jonson, To Celia

Anonymous, The Cruel Mother

* William Shakespeare, O Mistress Mine

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

Run D.M.C., from Peter Piper

For Review and Further Study

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Eleanor Rigby

* Aimee Mann, Deathly

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Paul McCartney, Creating "Eleanor Rigby"

Writing About Song Lyrics

Poetry’s Close Kinship with Song

Checklist: Looking at Lyrics as Poetry

Writing Assignment on Song Lyrics

More Topics For Writing

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

Hilaire Belloc, The Hippopotamus

* Ogden Nash, The Panther

Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

Fred Chappell, Narcissus and Echo

Reading and Hearing Poems Aloud

Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane

William Shakespeare, Full fathom five thy father lies

Chryss Yost, Lai with Sounds of Skin

T. S. Eliot, Virginia

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

T. S. Eliot, The Music of Poetry

Writing About Sound

Listen to the Music

Checklist: Writing About a Poem’s Sounds

Writing Assignment on Sound

More Topics For Writing

19. RHYTHM

Stresses and Pauses

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break

Ben Jonson, Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears

Dorothy Parker, Résumé

Meter

Max Beerbohm, On the imprint of the first English edition of The Works of Max Beerbohm

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!

David Mason, Song of the Powers

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Writers on Writing

Gwendolyn Brooks, Hearing "We Real Cool"

Writing About Rhythm

Freeze-Framing the Sound

Checklist: Scanning a Poem

Writing Assignment on Rhythm

More Topics For Writing

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”)

Phillis Levin, Brief Bio

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

Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You

A. E. Stallings, Sine Qua Non

* R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet

The Epigram

Alexander Pope, Sir John Harrington, Langston Hughes, J. V. Cunningham, Stevie Smith, Anonymous, A selection of epigrams

Other Forms

Robert Pinsky, ABC

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

Writing About