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** Indicates new selections

 

Fiction

 

Interview 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

    ** Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House

    ** 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  

    Jack London, To Build a Fire  

    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

    Stephen Crane, The Open Boat  

    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  

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. Reading Long Stories and Novels  

Origins of the Novel

Romance

Novels and Journalism

Short Novels and Novellas

The Future of the Novel

    Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych  

    Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis  

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing  

    Franz Kafka, Discussing The Metamorphosis  

Thinking About Long Stories and Novels

Checklist: Writing About Ideas for a Research Paper

Writing Assignment for a Research Paper

Student Paper, Kafka’s Greatness

More Topics for Writing

Terms for Review

 

9. Latin American Fiction 

    Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark  

    Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave  

    ** Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings  

    ** Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite   

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing  

    Gabriel García Márquez, My Beginnings As A Writer

Topics for Writing on “The Gospel According to Mark”  

Topics for Writing on “My Life with Wave”  

Topics for Writing on “a very old man with enormous wings”  

Topics for Writing on “The Shunammite”  

 

10. Critical Casebook: Flannery O’Connor  

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

    Flannery O’Connor, Revelation  

    Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back  

    Flannery O’Connor on Writing

    From “On Her Own Work”  

    On Her Catholic Faith

    From “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction”  

Yearbook Cartoons

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. Cowann The Character of Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation”  

    Kathleen Feeley, The Mystery of Divine Direction: “Parker’s Back”  

Writing Effectively

Topics for Writing  

 

11. Critical Casebook: Three 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

 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman  

    The Yellow Wallpaper 

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Writing

    Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

    Whatever Is  

    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”  

 

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”  

    Elaine Showalter, Quilt as Metaphor 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”  

 

12. Stories for Further Reading  

Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path  

** Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona

Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings  

Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  

Willa Cather, Paul’s Case  

Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog  

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour  

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street  

Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal  

Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat  

James Joyce, Araby  

** Franz Kafka, Before the Law  

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl  

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies  

D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner  

Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh  

** 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  

Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing  

Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother  

 

Poetry

 

Interview with Kay Ryan

 

13. 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

 

14. 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  

    Suji Kwock Kim, Monologue for an Onion  

    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

    ** Rod Taylor, Dakota: October, 1822: Hunkpapa Warrior

    Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links  

    Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig  

    ** Dorothy Parker, Comment

    ** Bob Hicok, Making It In Poetry

    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

  

15. 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

    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  

    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

  

16. Saying and Suggesting  

Denotation and Connotation

    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 god america i  

    Robert Frost, Fire and Ice  

    ** Diane Thiel, The Minefield  

    ** Ron Rash, The Day the Gates Closed  

    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

   

17. 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  

Haiku from Japanese Internment Camps  

    ** Suiko Matsushita, Cosmos in Bloom  

    ** Neiji Ozawa, The War—This Year

    Hakuro Wada, Even the Croaking of Frogs 

Contemporary Haiku  

    Etheridge Knightn Making jazz swing in

    Lee Gurga, Visitor’s Room

    Penny Harter, broken bowl

    Jennifer Brutschy, Born Again

    John Ridland, The Lazy Man’s Haiku

    Garry Gay, Hole in the Ozone

For Review and Further Study  

    John Keats, Bright star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art  

    Walt Whitman, The Runner  

    T. E. Hulme, Image  

    William Carlos Williams, El Hombre  

    Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter  

    ** Paul Goodman, Birthday Cake

    Louise Glück, Mock Orange  

    Billy Collins, Embrace  

   ** Kevin Prufer, Pause, Pause

    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

 

18. 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  

    Charles Simic, My Shoes

    ** Carl Sandburg, Fog  

For Review and Further Study  

    Robert Frost, The Silken Tent  

    Jane Kenyon, The Suitor  

    Robert Frost, The Secret Sits  

    A. R. Ammons, Coward  

    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

  

19. Song  

Singing and Saying  

    Ben Jonson, To Celia  

    ** James Weldon Johnson, Since You Went Away

    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  

    ** Kevin Young, Late Blues

Rap  

    Run D.M.C., from Peter Piper  

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

  

20. 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  

    Emanuel di Pasquale, Rain  

    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  

    William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan  

    Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur  

    ** William Jay Smith, A Note on the Vanity Dresser 

    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

  

21. 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  

    Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme  

    Jacqueline Osherow, Song for the Music in the Warsaw Ghetto  

    A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty  

    William Carlos Williams, Smell!  

    Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums!  

    David Mason, Song of the Powers  

    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

  

22. 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  

    ** William Meredith, The Illiterate

    Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You  

    ** Mark Jarman, Unholy  Sonnet: After the Praying

    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

    Robert Herrick, Moderation

    William Blake, Her Whole Life Is An Epigram

    E. E. Cummings, a politician

    Langston Hughes, Prayer

    J. V. Cunningham, This Humanist

    John Frederick Nims, Contemplation

    Brad Leithauser, A Venus Flytrap

    Dick Davis, Fatherhood

    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

  

23. Open Form  

    Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway  

    E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s  

    W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death  

    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  

    Charles Simic, The Magic Study of Happiness  

Visual Poetry  

    George Herbert, Easter Wings  

    John Hollander, Swan and Shadow  

    ** Richard Kostelanetz, Simultaneous Translations

    Dorthi Charles, Concrete Cat  

Seeing the Logic of Open Form Verse  

    E. E. Cummings, in Just-  

    ** A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz

    ** David Lehman, Radio

    Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red  

    ** Alice Fulton, What I Like  

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

  

24. Symbol  

    T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript  

    Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork  

    Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones  

    Matthew 13:24-30, The Parable of the Good Seed  

    George Herbert, The World  

    Edwin Markham, Outwitted   

    Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken  

    Christina Rossetti, Uphill  

For Review and Further Study

    William Carlos Williams, The Term  

    Ted Kooser, Carrie  

    ** 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

  

25. Myth and Narrative  

    Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can.

    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  

    Gregory Orr, Two Lines from the Brothers Grimm  

Myth and Popular Culture  

    Charles Martin, Taken Up  

    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  

    Student Paper, The Bonds Between Love and Hatred in H. D.’s “Helen”  

More Topics for Writing

Terms for Review

  

26. Poetry and Personal Identity  

    Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus  

    Rhina Espaillat, Bilingual/Bilingüe  

    Culture, Race, and Ethnicity  

    Claude McKay, America  

    Samuel Menashe, The Shrine Whose Shape I Am  

    Francisco X. Alarcón, The X in My Name  

    Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quiñceañera  

    ** Sherman Alexie, The Powwow at the End of the World

    Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It  

Gender  

    Anne Stevenson, Sous-Entendu  

    ** 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

  

27. Translation  

Is Poetic Translation Possible?  

World Poetry  

    Li Po, Moon-Beneath Alone Drink (literal translation)  

    Translated by Arthur Waley, Drinking Alone by Moonlight  

Comparing Translations  

    Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (Latin text)  

    Horace, Seize the Day (literal translation)  

    Translated by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Horace to Leuconoe  

    Translated by James Michie, Don’t Ask  

    Translated by A. E. Stallings, A New Year’s Toast  

    Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyati

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, XII: A Book of Verses Underneath the Bough  

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, VII: Come, Fill the Cup

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, XIII: Some for the Glories of this World

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, XXIV: Ah, Make the Most of What We Yet May Spend

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, LXXI: The Moving Finger writes

    ** Translated by Edward FitzGerald, XCIX: Ah Love! Could You and I with Him Conspire

Parody  

    Anonymous, We four lads from Liverpool are  

    Hugh Kingsmill, What, still alive at twenty-two?  

    ** Stanley J. Sharpless, How Do I Hate You?  Let Me Count the Ways

    Gene Fehler, If Richard Lovelace Became a Free Agent  

    Aaron Abeyta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla  

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing  

Arthur Waley, The Method of Translation  

Thinking About a Parody  

Checklist: Writing About a Parody 

Writing Assignment on Parody  

More Topics for Writing  

 

28. 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  

Contemporary Mexican Poetry  

    José Emilio Pacheco, Alta Traición  

    Translated by Alastair Reid, High Treason  

    Tedi López Mills, Convalecencia  

    Translated by Cheryl Clark, Convalescence  

    ** Francisco Segovia, Cada árbol en Su Sombra

    Translated by Don Share with César Perez, Every Tree in Its Shadow

Writers on Translating  

    Alastair Reid, Translating Neruda  

Writing Assignment on Spanish Poetry  

More Topics for Writing  

 

29. Recognizing Excellence  

    Anonymous, O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face  

    Emily Dickinson, A Dying Tiger – moaned for Drink  

    Rod McKuen, Thoughts on Capital Punishment  

    William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark  

    ** Dylan Thomas, In My Craft or Sullen Art  

Recognizing Excellence  

    William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium  

    Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness  

    Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias  

    Robert Hayden, The Whipping  

    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  

 

30. 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, **José Garcia Villa, **Christopher Fry, Elizabeth Bishop, **Joy Harjo, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, William Stafford, **Charles Simi , Some Definitions of Poetry  –

    Ha Jin, Missed Time  

 

31. 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  

    Some keep the Sabbath going to Church  

    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  

    The Bustle in a House  

    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”)  

    Judith Farr, A Reading of “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun”  

 

Langston Hughes  

    The Negro Speaks of Rivers  

    ** My People

        Mother to Son  

    Dream Variations  

    I, Too  

    The Weary Blues  

    Song for a Dark Girl  

    Prayer  

    Ballad of the Landlord  

    End  

    Theme for English B  

    Subway Rush Hour  

    Harlem [Dream Deferred]  

    ** Homecoming

    As Befits a Man  

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  

    Peter Townsend, Langston Hughes and Jazz  

    Onwuchekwa Jemie, A Reading of “Dream Deferred”  

Topics for Writing About Emily Dickinson  

Topics for Writing About Langston Hughes  

 

32. 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”

The Reviewers on Prufrock  

    Unsigned, Review from Times Literary Supplement  

    Unsigned, Review from Literary World  

    Unsigned, Review from New Statesman  

    Conrad Aiken, From “Divers Realists,” The Dial  

    Babette Deutsch, from “Another Impressionist,” The New Republic  

    Marianne Moore, From “A Note on T. S. Eliot’s Book,”  Poetry  

    May Sinclair, From “Prufrock and Other Observations: A Criticism,” The Little Review  

T. S. Eliot on Writing

    Poetry and Emotion  

    The Objective Correlative  

    The Difficulty of Poetry  

Critics on “Prufrock”

    Denis Donoghue, One of the Irrefutable Poets  

    Christopher Ricks, What’s in a Name?  

    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  

    John Berryman, Prufrock’s Dilemma  

    M. L. Rosenthal, Adolescents Singing  

Topics for Writing  

 

33. Poems for Further Reading  

    Anonymous, Lord Randall  

    Anonymous, The Three Ravens  

    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  

    Geoffrey Chaucer, Merciless Beauty  

    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

    John Dryden, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham  

    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  

    Thomas Hardy, Hap  

    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, No worst, there is none  

    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  

    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  

    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

    Christopher Smart, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry  

    Cathy Song, Stamp Collecting  

    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  

    Edmund Waller, Go, Lovely Rose  

    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  

    James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio  

    Mary Sidney Wroth, In this strange labyrinth  

    Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me that sometime did me sekë  

    William Butler Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop  

    William Butler Yeats, The Magi  

    William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old  

 

Drama

 

Interview with David Ives

 

34. Reading a Play  

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

    Student Paper, Outside Trifles

More Topics for Writing

Terms for Review

 

35. 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

 

36. Critical Casebook: Sophocles  

The Theater of Sophocles  

Staging  

Dramatic Structure  

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)  

The Background of Antigonê  

    Sophocles, Antigonê  (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  

    Patricia M. Lines, what is AntigonÊ’s Flaw?  

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


37. Critical Casebook: Shakespeare  

The Theater of Shakespeare  

William Shakespeare  

Plays  

A Note on Othello  

    William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice  

The Background of Hamlet  

    William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  

The Background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

    William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Critics on Shakespeare

    Anthony Burgess, An Asian Culture Looks at Shakespeare  

    A. C. Bradley, Hamlet’s Melancholy  

    Rebecca West, Hamlet and Ophelia  

    Jan Kott, Producing Hamlet  

    Joel Wingard, Reader-Response Issues in Hamlet  

    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  

    Germaine Greer, Shakespeare’s “Honest Mirth”  

    Linda Bamber, Female Power in A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing  

    Ben Jonson, On His Friend and Rival William Shakespeare  

Thinking About Shakespeare  

Checklist: Writing About Shakespeare  

Writing Assignment on Tragedy  

    Student Paper, Othello: Tragedy or Soap Opera?  

More Topics for Writing  

     

38. The Modern Theater 

Realism and Naturalism  

    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 Smith, 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

 

39. Evaluating a Play  

Judging a Play  

Checklist: Evaluating a Play  

Writing Assignment on Evaluating a Play  

More Topics for Writing   

 

40. 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  

    ** Jane Martin, Tattoo  

    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

 

41. 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

    Writing a Rough Draft

        Sample Student Paper (Rough Draft)

    Revise Your Draft

    Some Final Advice on Rewriting

    Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism

    The Form of Your Finished Paper

    Spell-Check and Grammar Check Programs

 

42. Writing About a Story

    Read Actively

    Think About the Story

    Discover Ideas

        Sample Student Prewriting Exercises

    Write a Rough Draft

    What’s Your Purpose? Common Approaches to Writing about Fiction

    Topics for Writing

 

43. Writing about a Poem

    Read Actively

    Think About the Poem

    Discover Your Ideas

    Write a Rough Draft

    Common Approaches to Writing about Poetry

    How to Quote a Poem

    Topics for Writing

        Robert Frost, IN WHITE

 

44. Writing about a Play

    Read Critically

    Common Approaches to Writing about Drama

    How to Quote a Play

    Topics for Writing

 

45. 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

 

46. Writing as Discovery: Keeping a Journal

    The Rewards of Keeping a Journal

    Sample Student Journal

 

47. Writing an Essay Exam

    Preparing for the Exam    

    Taking the Exam

 

48.  Critical Approaches to Literature

    Formalist Criticism

    Biographical Criticism

    Historical Criticism

    Psychological Criticism

    Mythological Criticism

    Sociological Criticism

    Gender Criticism

    Reader-Response Criticism

    Deconstructionist Criticism

    Cultural Studies

 

Terms for Review

 

About the Author

X. J. Kennedy, after graduation from Seton Hall and Columbia, became a journalist second class in the Navy (“Actually, I was pretty eighth class”). His poems, some published in the New Yorker, were first collected in Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Since then he has written six more collections, several widely adopted literature and writing textbooks, and seventeen books for children, including two novels. He has taught at Michigan, North Carolina (Greensboro), California (Irvine), Wellesley, Tufts, and Leeds. Cited in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and reprinted in some 200 anthologies, his verse has brought him a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lamont Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an Aiken-Taylor prize, the Robert Frost Medal of the Poetry Society of America, and the Award for Poetry for Children from the National Council of Teachers of English. He now lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he and his wife Dorothy have collaborated on four books and five children.

 

Dana Gioia is a poet, critic, and teacher. Born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican ancestry, he attended Stanford and Harvard before taking a detour into business. ("Not many poets have a Stanford M.B.A., thank goodness!") After years of writing and reading late in the evenings after work, he quit a vice presidency to write and teach. He has published three collections of poetry, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), and Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award; and three critical volumes, including Can Poetry Matter? (1992), an influential study of poetry's place in contemporary America. Gioia has taught at Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan (Connecticut), Mercer, and Colorado College.

 

He is also the co-founder of the summer poetry conference at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. From 2003-2009 he served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. At the NEA he created the largest literary programs in federal history, including Shakespeare in American Communities and Poetry Out Loud, the national high school poetry recitation contest. He also led the campaign to restore active and engaged literary reading by creating The Big Read, which has helped reverse a quarter century of decline in U.S. reading. He currently divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Santa Rosa, California, living with his wife Mary, their two sons, and two uncontrollable cats.

 

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