The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Package 2: Volumes C, D, and E Book

The public university I just started working at worships at the foot of the great Norton. All literature lecturers are required to use these anthologies. While I understand the pressures that a public system faces in creating uniform curricula across departments, the idea of a "standard" selection of literary work flies in the face of everything we know about the dangers of canonization. Plus, it's incredibly lazy - in an ideal system, professors would put their years expertise and extensive training to good use by creating their own anthologies. Not to mention that it's not necessarily cheaper to buy these anthologies than a semester's worth of reading materials. And the constant updating of editions means that departments and students waste vast sums of money updating their editions so that everyone remains on the same page. All of that said, my real beef with Norton is that for reasons I can only presume to involve expenses, many famous authors are represented by their least-known work. Which defeats the entire purpose of having a "standard" for introductory survey courses. Also, there are typos and errors sprinkled throughout, which meant I was constantly needing to find the originals to ensure that the mistakes were Norton's and not the author's. The worst example of this was in Grace Paley's "A Conversation with My Father" where a misplaced quotation mark (Norton's mistake) changes the entire meaning of a crucial passage.



If those of us teaching literature have any self-respect, we should fight against corporate anthologizing and do the hard but rewarding work of creating our own trajectories of American letters. If we did so, we might be able to create a million little anthologies. They would all be different, yes, but the difference between one person's choice of a great text and another person's IS the entire point. It's what we DO when we talk about literature. ...

The sad thing about those literary survey classes is that you get to taste a little of everything within a respective time line. The first course of American Literature gives you a look at the writings of great people in history, such as Benjamin Franklin. The second course, starting in 1850, starts out well enough with Walt Whitman, but unfortunately ends with post-modernism. You get to read stupid crap about a big red balloon floating through Manhattan. You get to see literature get progressiv The sad thing about those literary survey classes is that you get to taste a little of everything within a respective time line. The first course of American Literature gives you a look at the writings of great people in history, such as Benjamin Franklin. The second course, starting in 1850, starts out well enough with Walt Whitman, but unfortunately ends with post-modernism. You get to read stupid crap about a big red balloon floating through Manhattan. You get to see literature get progressively worse and become total crap after WWII. Well, most of it. At least the stuff that gets critical acclaim.

Favorites(from the piece I read for the class):

The Yellow Wall-Paper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman pg 508

Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath pg 1478

Robert Frost's poems, which begin at pg 776, especially After Apple Picking, Desert Places, and pg 787.

Emily Dickinson's poems, beginning on 93. (There are more in Vol 1, including most of the ones I like best.)

Sometimes I feel guilty marking off an entire anthology as read, when clearly I didn't read everything within the anthology. However, I did read a good portion of it for class, and it was the text we used, so I feel that's important to note. Also, if I put every individual short story I read from this collection in separately, I would meet my Goodreads goal with relative ease. I don't think short stories should count as one piece of literature read toward my goal, but rather a collection of shor Sometimes I feel guilty marking off an entire anthology as read, when clearly I didn't read everything within the anthology. However, I did read a good portion of it for class, and it was the text we used, so I feel that's important to note. Also, if I put every individual short story I read from this collection in separately, I would meet my Goodreads goal with relative ease. I don't think short stories should count as one piece of literature read toward my goal, but rather a collection of short stories would count. Therefore lies my conundrum. Counting the anthology as read means I used the textbook from class, and it only counts as one entry like I want. The downside is that my "pages read" section will be super skewed an inaccurate. Oh well, win some lose some.



ANYWAY, to the actual review. I think this was a super great collection of stories and poems. There was a wonderful range of both incredibly well-known authors and people I've personally never heard of - I'm glad to say that I read a good mix of both. I had a few personal annoyances with the chosen works of some authors though, some objective and some subjective. Subjectively, I wish that Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was in the collection rather than "Good Country People". Or - and this is my more objective argument - add more than one of her stories. I recognize that "Good Country People" is one of her finest short stories, and do believe it is on par with "A Good Man is Hard to Find", I just prefer the latter. Therefore, I believe both should have been added. I was, however, genuinely surprised and delighted that both "Barn Burning" and "A Rose For Emily" were included for William Faulkner, one of my favorite authors. I was extremely happy that both stories were considered worthy of anthologizing rather than just "A Rose For Emily" - it is his most popular short story, but Faulkner has so much to offer.



Because this is such a large collection and we read so much from it for class, I will put my favorites in list order, with a very brief sentence on why I liked each one:

- A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner: Southern Gothic is my favorite genre and William Faulkner is one of my favorite authors.

- Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor: For the exact same reasons listed above.

- To Build a Fire by Jack London: I love stories of strong men who meet an immovable force that destroys them; it's such an interesting juxtaposition.

- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Picturing the last paragraph is nightmare fuel; also, I love reading about women's struggles in different time periods, as it makes me appreciate the place I am in today, because of the work they did.

- The Wife of His Youth by Charles Chesnutt: His writing style was beautiful and I adored the ending.

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot: I love the double meaning of the poem, and that the two derived meanings aren't mutually exclusive.

- The Snow of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway: The same reason I loved To Build a Fire.

Norton is required reading but I still enjoyed every moment of it, as well as Volumes A and B.

A hefty book to read. It is a good piece to include in your collection for time to time reading of different authors.

This 1990s edition includes such timeless editorial takes as: The n word isn't "really" racist; and, Joyce Carol Oates writes too many books to be taken seriously. Woman too many word. Bad woman. This 1990s edition includes such timeless editorial takes as: The n word isn't "really" racist; and, Joyce Carol Oates writes too many books to be taken seriously. Woman too many word. Bad woman.

Novel Writing & Novel Reading - William Dean Howells - 9/6/18

The Art of Fiction - Henry James - 9/6/18

Miggles - Bret Harte - 9/18/18

Joel Chandler Harris - The Wonderful Tar Baby Story & How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox -10/01/18

Paul Laurence Dunbar - When Malindy Sings, An Ante-Bellum Sermon, We Wear the Mask - 10/07/18

Alice Dunbar Nelson - Sister Josepha - 10/07/18

Edith Wharton - The Other Two - 11/06/18

Jack London - The Law of Life & To Build A Fire - 11/13/18

Mary Austin - The Land of Novel Writing & Novel Reading - William Dean Howells - 9/6/18

The Art of Fiction - Henry James - 9/6/18

Miggles - Bret Harte - 9/18/18

Joel Chandler Harris - The Wonderful Tar Baby Story & How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox -10/01/18

Paul Laurence Dunbar - When Malindy Sings, An Ante-Bellum Sermon, We Wear the Mask - 10/07/18

Alice Dunbar Nelson - Sister Josepha - 10/07/18

Edith Wharton - The Other Two - 11/06/18

Jack London - The Law of Life & To Build A Fire - 11/13/18

Mary Austin - The Land of the Little Rain & The Walking Woman - 12/2/18

Read this for my American lit class, there is a lot of great authors who paved the way for many of today's greats Read this for my American lit class, there is a lot of great authors who paved the way for many of today's greats

I'm not entirely sure how one rates an anthology since it's composed of multiple different writers from multiple different times, but as far as textbooks go, this is a pretty good one. The informational sections are detailed enough to give you an adequate amount of context during the actual passages, the color inserts were interesting, and the book itself had a wide array of authors, both good and shitty beyond all reason.



I'm sorry, I have to come out and say it. I really, really did not like re I'm not entirely sure how one rates an anthology since it's composed of multiple different writers from multiple different times, but as far as textbooks go, this is a pretty good one. The informational sections are detailed enough to give you an adequate amount of context during the actual passages, the color inserts were interesting, and the book itself had a wide array of authors, both good and shitty beyond all reason.



I'm sorry, I have to come out and say it. I really, really did not like reading "Song of Myself," by Walt Whitman. If I'm telling the truth, I don't understand why that was put in the anthology in the first place. It was ground-breaking and revolutionary for its time, but I didn't see anything ground-breaking or revolutionary. I saw ignorance, immorality, and a lecherous, self-absorbed old geezer rambling on about how he wished he could f*ck the ocean, or anything else that exists for that matter. Great, because that's what we need to teach the American youth. F*ck everything! That'll make this country great, fo' shizzle! *Sigh* The only thing I saw that was remotely ground-breaking was the free-form style of the poetry, which I will admit allowed for some pretty good lines. Other than that, it pretty much sucked. I'd rather read The Faerie Queene again. At least the wind didn't have genitals in that one.



Anyway, now that I got that off my chest, some of the other (and in my opinion, better) pieces that appear in this anthology are:



The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (the complete text)

The Yellow Wall-paper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce

Poems by Emily Dickenson

"The Wasteland" and "The Hollow Men," by T.S. Eliot

The Snows of Kilimanjaro, by Ernest Hemingway

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

Good Country People, by Flannnery O'Connor

"I Have a Dream," by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Poems by Sylvia Plath

Recitatif, by Toni Morrison

Everyday Use, by Alice Walker

Poems by Sherman Alexie



Overall, this is a pretty good book for a literature class, or at least it was for me. I'm docking a star for having to sit through "Song of Myself," though. That whole stupid thing was just unnecessary.



EDIT: This also has Howl by Allen Ginsburg. It is terrible. Truly terrible. It is thoroughly one of the worst "poems" I have ever had the displeasure of reading. Don't @ me.

I'm using the Norton mostly for poetry. Here's what I'm reading (I'll update periodically).


ROBERT FROST (love, love, love this man)


Mending Wall





The Death of the Hired Man





Home Burial





After Apple-Picking





Birches





The Wood-Pile





Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening





Provide, Provide!





The Gift Outright





The Road Not Taken





Wallace Stevens (also love, but Robert Frost sill has my heart)


The Snow Man


A High-Toned Old Christian Woman


Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock


Sunday Morning


Peter Quince at the Clavier


Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird


The Death of a Soldier


The Idea of Order at Key West


A Postcard from the Volcano


The Plain Sense of Things





Moving on to Pound...





Ezra Pound (crazy but fascinating)


To Whistler, American


Portrait d'une Femme


A Virginal


A Pact


The Rest


In a Station of the Metro


The River-Merchan't Wife: A Letter


Villanelle: The Psychological Hour


Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Life and Contacts)


The Cantos: XLV ("With Usura")





e.e. cummings (surprisingly nice)


Thy fingers make early flowers of (1923)


in Just-- (1920, 1923)


O sweet spontaneous (1920, 1923)


Buffalo Bill 's (1920, 1923)


The Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls (1923)


next to of course god america i (1926)


i sing of Olaf glad and big (1931)


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond (1931)


anyone lived in a pretty how town (1940)


pity this busy monster,manunkind (1944)





T.S. Eliot


The Waste Land (1922)


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915, 1917)


Burnt Norton, from Four Quartets (1936, 1943)


The Hollow Men (1925)


Journey of the Magi (1935)


Gerontion (1920)


Sweeney Among the Nightingales (1918-9)





Marianne Moore


Poetry (1921, 1935)


A Grave (1924)


To a Snail (1924)


What Are Years? (1941, 1967)


The Paper Nautilus (1941, 1967)


The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing (1944)


In Distrust of Merits (1944)





Hart Crane


Chaplinesque (1921, 1926)


At Melville's Tomb (1926)


III (From Voyages) (1926)


V (From Voyages) (1926)


To Brooklyn Bridge (From The Bridge) (1927, 1930)





Robinson Jeffers (very, supremely awesome)


To His Father


Suicide's Stone


Divinely Superfluous Beauty


The Excesses of God


Salmon Fishing


Wise Men in Their Bad Hours


To the Rock That Will Be a Cornerstone of the House


The Cycle


Shine, Perishing Republic


Continent's End

I definitely like American Literature more than British Literature and this volume featured a lot of authors I hadn't even HEARD of before. It offered a fairly broad overview of the literature at the time, although, as my professor pointed out, it still could have featured more women writers/native american authors/other minorities, but it highlighted some of the best known authors and their work. I really enjoyed the class because my teacher made the material interesting and as a class we looked at each text and discussed that time period and the different styles of writing.



*Taken from my book reviews blog: ...

I love the Norton books. Such good summaries of the various authors and time periods. My main problem with this particular book is which contemporary authors they have chosen to include and which to exclude, but I guess that's the fault of the canon and Norton is simply teaching to the trend. I love the Norton books. Such good summaries of the various authors and time periods. My main problem with this particular book is which contemporary authors they have chosen to include and which to exclude, but I guess that's the fault of the canon and Norton is simply teaching to the trend.

One of three books I had to read for my American literature class. Some of the stories were eh and other I enjoyed.

Read for class "modern American culture" 2007/2008

Am Lit II books. Amazing. Depressing. Avoid Henry James.

I didn't read every last page of this textbook but from the stuff I read I did like most of the pieces and the biographies of the authors as well. I didn't read every last page of this textbook but from the stuff I read I did like most of the pieces and the biographies of the authors as well.

Finished Plath, Miller and Dickinson, going through Whitman and Hawthorne now.

Taught from it circa 1989-93

Probably the best reader I've been assigned for a class. Or maybe I just like American Literature post-Civil War through present. Probably the best reader I've been assigned for a class. Or maybe I just like American Literature post-Civil War through present.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Package 2: Volumes C-E, Sixth Edition (2002)

Good selection of American literature post-Civil War, for an anthology, and for required reading for school. ;)

Read for American Lit.

John Berger's "Portrait of a Masked Man," Amy Leach's "You be the Moon," Jill McCorkle's "Cuss Time," Kathryn Miles's "Dog Is Our Copilot," and Gregory Orr's "Return to Hayneville," were in my opinion the best of the bunch. For a best of edition, there were a fair amount of nature/science essays, and I wasn't super floored by any of them. But nonetheless, still a worthwhile read.

Like any collection, these are uneven, but there is enough good writing to make it worth skimming the lighter pieces. Mary Oliver's touch is evident since several are environmental writings (some of the weaker ones). Like any collection, these are uneven, but there is enough good writing to make it worth skimming the lighter pieces. Mary Oliver's touch is evident since several are environmental writings (some of the weaker ones).

Quite consistently terrific. Wendell Berry's "Faustian Economics" and John Updike's "The Writer in Winter" were among the more memorable.



Plus, three writers from BYU made the Notable Essays section. Quite consistently terrific. Wendell Berry's "Faustian Economics" and John Updike's "The Writer in Winter" were among the more memorable.



Plus, three writers from BYU made the Notable Essays section.

I ended up not finishing this -- although I love Mary Oliver, her selections just weren't compelling. Not to mention that she must have picked fewer or shorter essays than usual -- the book was less than half the size it usually is. I gave it to Eric to sell used on Amazon.

A Bit dissapointed in the collection this year. Short, with fewer essays than normal and with few standout, really make me think essays. Probably the weakest entry in the 10 or so years i've been reading the collection.

I've read these collections for the past 4 or 5 years. This was by far my favorite, no doubt because Mary Olivier edited it. Through the reading, I found myself regularly sharing links of particular essays with friends. Excellent read.

Amy leach's 'to the moon' was one of the most remarkable pieces i've ever read.

patricia hampl's, richard rodriguez's, john updike's, and jerald walker's pieces were also either notable, moving, successful, or a combination of all three.



but i would do anything to write like amy leach.