1. Introduction: Reading, Responding to, and Writing about Literature. What Is Literature, and Why do We Study It? Types of Literatures: the Genres. Reading Literature and Responding to It Actively.
Guy de Maupassant,
The Necklace. Reading and Responding in a Notebook or Computer File. Writing Essays on Literary Topics. The Goal of Writing: To Show a Process of Thought. Three Major Stages in Thinking and Writing: Discovering Ideas, Making Initial Drafts, and Completing the Essay. The Discovery of Ideas ("Brainstorming"). The Need to Present an Argument when Writing Essays about Literature. Assembling Materials and Beginning to Write. Drafting the Essay. Writing by Hand, Typewriter, or Word-Processor. Writing a First Draft. Using Verb Tenses in the Discussion of Literary Works. Developing an Outline. Demonstrative Student Essay (First Draft): How Setting in "The Necklace" Is Related to the Character of Mathilde. Developing and Strengthening Essays through Revision. Checking Development and Organization. Using Exact, Comprehensive, and Forceful Language. Using the Names of Authors. Demonstrative Student Essay (Improved Draft): How Maupassant Uses Setting in "The Necklace" to Show the Character of Mathilde. Easy Commentaries. Specials Topics for Writing and Argument about the Writing Process.
I. READING AND WRITING ABOUT FICTION.
2. Fiction: An Overview. Modern Fiction. The Short Story. Elements of Fiction I: Verisimilitude and Donnee. Elements of Fiction II: Character, Plot, Structure, and Idea or Theme. Elements of Fiction III: The Writer's Tools.
Stories for Study.
Raymond Carver,
Neighbors. Laurie Colwin,
An Old-Fashioned Story. Tim O'Brien,
The Things They Carried. Gaius Petonius Arbiter (Petronius),
The Widow of Ephesus. Alice Walker,
Everyday Use. Joy Williams,
Taking Care. Responding to Literature: Likes and Dislikes. Stating Reasons for Favorable Responses. Stating Reasons for Unfavorable Responses. Writing about Responses: Likes and Dislikes. Demonstrative Student Essay: Some Reasons for Liking Maupassant's "The Necklace". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Fiction.
3. Plot and Structure: The Development and Organization of Stories. Plot, the Motivation and Causation of Fiction. The Structure of Fiction. Formal Categories of Structure. Formal and Actual Structure.
Stories for Study:
Stephen Crane,
The Blue Hotel. William Faulkner,
A Rose for Emily. Jamaica Kincaid,
What I Have Been Doing Lately. Eudora Welty,
A Worn Path. Tom Whitecloud,
Blue Winds Dancing. Writing about the Plot of a Story. Demonstrative Student Essay (Plot): Plot in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Writing about Structure in a Story. Demonstrative Student Essay: Scrambled Structure in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Plot and Structure.
4. Characters: The People in Fiction. Character Traits. How Authors Disclose Character in Literature. Types of Characters: Round and Flat. Reality and Probability: Verisimilitude.
Stories for Study:
Willa Cather,
Paul's Case. William Faulkner,
Barn Burning. Susan Glaspell,
A Jury of Her Peers. Joyce Carol Oates,
Shopping. Amy Tan,
Two Kinds. Writing about Character. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Character of the Mother in Amy Tan's "Two Kinds". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Character.
5. Point of View: The Position or Stance of the Narrator or Speaker. An Exercise in Point of View: Reporting an Accident. Conditions That Affect Point of View. Distinguishing Point of View from Opinion. Determining a Work's Point of View. Mingling Points of View. Point of View and Verb Tense. Guidelines for Point of View.
Stories for Study:
Ambrose Bierce,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Ellen Gilchrist,
The Song of Songs. Shirley Jackson,
The Lottery. Lorrie Moore,
How to Become a Writer. Alice Munro,
Meneseteung. Writing about Point of View. Demonstrative Student Essay: Shirley Jackson's Point of View in "The Lottery". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Point of View.
6. Setting: The Background of Place, Objects, and Culture in Stories. What Is Setting? The Literary Uses of Setting.
Stories for Study:
Sandra Cisneros,
The House on Mango Street. Walter Van Tilburg Clark,
The Portable Phonograph. Joanne Greenberg,
And Sarah Laughed. James Joyce,
Araby. Cynthia Ozick,
The Shawl. Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death.
Writing about Setting. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Interaction of Story and Setting in James Joyce's "Araby". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Setting.
7. Style: The Words That Tell the Story. Diction: The Writer's Choice and Control of Words. Rhetoric: The Writer's Choices of Effective Arrangements and Forms. Style in General.
Stories for Study:
Ernest Hemingway,
Soldier's Home. Alice Munro,
The Found Boat. Frank O'Connor,
First Confession. Mark Twain,
Luck. John Updike,
A & P. Writing about Style. Demonstrative Student Essay: A Study of the Style of Paragraph 31 of Updike's "A & P". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Style.
8. Tone: The Expression of Attitude in Fiction. Tone and Attitudes. Tone and Humor. Tone and Irony.
Stories for Study:
Margaret Atwood,
Rape Fantasies. Kate Chopin,
The Story of an Hour. Jack Hodgins,
The Concert Stages of Europe. Margaret Laurence,
The Loons. Americo Paredes,
The Hammon and the Beans. Writing about Tone. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Irony of Chopin's "The Story of an Hour". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Tone.
9. Symbolism and Allegory: Keys to Extended Meaning. Symbolism. Allegory. Fable, Parable, and Myth. Allusion in Symbolism and Allegory.
Stories for Study:
Aesop,
The Fox and the Grapes. Anonymous,
The Myth Of Atalanta. Anita Scott Coleman,
Unfinished Masterpieces. Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Young Goodman Brown. St. Luke,
The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Katherine Anne Porter,
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. John Steinbeck,
The Chrysanthemums. Michel Tremblay,
The Thimble. Writing about Symbolism or Allegory. Demonstrative Student Essay (Symbolism): Symbols of Light and Darkness in "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". Demonstrative Student Essay (Allegory): The Allegory of Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown ". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Symbolism and Allegory.
10. Idea or Theme: The Meaning and the Message in Fiction. Ideas and Assertions. Ideas and Issues. Ideas and Values. The Place of Ideas in Literature. How to find Ideas.
Stories for Study:
Toni Cade Bambara,
The Lesson. Anton Chekhov,
Lady with Lapdog. Ernest J. Gaines,
The Sky Is Gray. D.H. Lawrence,
The Horse Dealer's Daughter. Irene Zabytko,
Home Soil.
Writing about a Major Idea in Fiction. Demonstrative Student Essay: Toni Cade Bambara's Idea of Justice and Economic Equality in "The Lesson ". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Ideas.
11. A Career in Fiction: A Collection of Stories by Edith Wharton. Life and Career. Stories. Bibliographic Sources. Writing Topics.
Four Stories of Edith Wharton Arranged in Chronological Order.
The Muse's Tragedy (1899). The Other Two (1904). Pomegranate Seed (1931). Roman Fever (1934). 12. Eight Stories for Additional Study. Ray Bradbury,
Zero Hour. Robert Olen Butler,
Snow. John Chioles,
Before the Firing Squad. Stephen Dixon,
All Gone. Andre Dubus,
The Curse. Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
The Yellow Wallpaper. Flannery O'Connor,
A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Tillie Olsen,
I Stand Here Ironing. II. READING AND WRITING ABOUT POETRY.
13. Meeting Poetry: An Overview. The Nature of Poetry.
Billy Collins,
Schoolsville. Lisel Mueller,
Hope. Robert Herrick,
Here a Pretty Baby Lies. Poetry of the English Language. How to Read a Poem. Studying Poetry.
Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spens.
Poems for Study:
Emily Dickinson,
Because I Could Not Stop for Death. Robert Francis,
Catch. Robert Frost,
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Thomas Hardy,
The Man He Killed. Joy Harjo,
Eagle Poem. Randall Jarrell,
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. Louis MacNeice,
Snow. Jim Northrup,
Ogichidag. Naomi Shihab Nye,
Where Children Live. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monument. Elaine Terranova,
Rush Hour. Writing a Paraphrase of a Poem. Demonstrative Student Paraphrase: A Paraphrase of Thomas Hardy's "The Man He Killed". Writing an Explication of a Poem. Demonstrative Student Essay: An Explication of Thomas Hardy's "The Man He Killed". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Meeting Poetry.
14. Words: The Building Blocks of Poetry. Choice of Diction: Specific and Concrete, General and Abstract. Levels of Diction. Special Types of Diction. Decorum, the Matching of Subject and Word. Syntax. Denotation and Connotation.
Robert Graves,
The Naked and the Nude. Poems for Study:
William Blake,
The Lamb. Robert Burns,
Green Grow the Rashes, O. Lewis Carroll,
Jabberwocky. Hayden Carruth,
An Apology for Using the Word "Heart" in Too Many Poems. E.E. Cummings,
next to of course god america i. John Donne,
Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God. Richard Eberhart
The Fury of Aerial Bombardment. Bart Edelman,
Chemistry Experiment. Thomas Gray,
Sonnet on the Death of Richard West. A.E. Housman,
Loveliest of Trees. Carolyn Kizer,
Night Sounds Maxine Kumin,
Hello, Hello Henry. Denise Levertov,
Of Being. Henry Reed,
Naming of Parts. Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Richard Cory. Theodore Roethke,
Dolor. Stephen Spender,
I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great. Wallace Stevens,
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock. Mark Strand,
Eating Poetry. Writing about Diction and Syntax in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: Extraordinary Definitions in Stephen Spender's "I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Words of Poetry.
15. Character and Setting: Who, What, Where, and When in Poetry. Characters in Poetry.
Anonymous,
Western Wind. Anonymous,
Bonny George Campbell. Ben Jonson,
Drink to Me, Only, with Thine Eyes. Ben Jonson,
To the Reader. Poems for Study:
Matthew Arnold,
Dover Beach. William Blake,
London. Robert Browning,
My Last Duchess. William Cowper,
The Poplar Field. Louise Gluck,
Snowdrops. Thomas Gray,
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Hardy,
The Ruined Maid. C. Day Lewis,
Song. Christopher Marlowe,
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. Joyce Carol Oates,
Loving. Marge Piercy,
Wellfleet Sabbath. Al Purdy,
Poem. Sir Walter Raleigh,
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd. Christina Rossetti,
A Christmas Carol. Jane Shore,
A Letter Sent to Summer. Maura Stanton,
Childhood. James Wright,
A Blessing. Writing about Character and Setting in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Character of the Duke in Browning's "My Last Duchess". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Character and Setting in Poetry.
16. Imagery: The Poem's Link to the Senses. Responses and the Writer's Use of Detail. The Relationship of Imagery to Ideas and Attitudes. Types of Imagery.
John Masefield,
Cargoes. Wilfred Owen,
Anthem for Doomed Youth. Elizabeth Bishop,
The Fish. Poems for Study:
William Blake,
The Tyger. Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Sonnets from the Portugese, No. 14: If Thou Must Love Me. Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Kubla Khan. Ray Durem,
I Know I 'm Not Sufficiently Obscure. T.S. Eliot,
Preludes. Susan Griffin,
Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields. George Herbert,
The Pulley. Gerard Manley Hopkins,
Spring. Denise Levertov,
A Time Past. Thomas Lux,
The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently. Micheal O'Siadhail,
Abundance. P.K. Page,
Photos of a Salt Mine. Ezra Pound,
In a Station of the Metro. Friedrich Ruckert,
If You Love for the Sake of Beauty. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun. Writing about Imagery. Demonstrative Student Essay: Imagery in T.S. Eliot's "Preludes". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Imagery in Poetry.
17. Figures of Speech, or Metaphorical Language: A Source of Depth and Range in Poetry. Metaphor and Simile: The Major Figures of Speech. Characteristics of Metaphorical Language.
John Keats,
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Vehicle and Tenor. Other Figures of Speech.
John Keats,
Bright Star. John Gay,
Let Us Take the Road. Poems for Study:
Jack Agueros,
Sonnet for You, Familiar Famine. Robert Burns,
A Red, Red Rose. John Donne,
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Abbie Huston Evans,
The Iceberg Seven-eighths Under. Thomas Hardy,
The Convergence of the Twain. Joy Harjo,
Remember. Langston Hughes,
Harlem. John Keats,
To Autumn. Jane Kenyon,
Portrait of a Figure Near Water. Henry King,
Sic Vita. Judith Minty,
Conjoined. Marge Piercy,
A Work of Artifice. Sylvia Plath,
Metaphors. Muriel Rukeyser,
Looking at Each Other. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought. Elizabeth Tudor, Queen Elizabeth I,
On Monsieur's Departure. Mona Van Duyn,
Earth Tremors Felt in Missouri. Walt Whitman,
Facing West from California's Shores. William Wordsworth,
London, 1802. Sir Thomas Wyatt,
I Find No Peace. Writing about Figures of Speech. Demonstrative Student Paragraph: Wordsworth's Use of Overstatement in "London, 1802". Demonstrative Student Essay: Personification in Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Figures of Speech in Poetry.
18. Tone: The Creation of Attitude in Poetry. Tone, Choice, and Response.
Cornelius Whur,
The First-Rate Wife. Tone and the Need for Control.
Wilfred Owen,
Dulce et Decorum Est. Tone and the Common Grounds of Assent.
Tone in Conversation and Poetry.
Tone and Irony.
Thomas Hardy,
The Workbox. Tone and Satire.
Alexander Pope,
Epigram from the French. Alexander Pope,
Epigram, Engraved on the Collar of a Dog which I Gave to His Royal Highness. Poems for Study:
Jimmy Carter,
I Wanted to Share My Father's World. Lucille Clifton,
homage to my hips. Billy Collins,
The Names. E.E. Cummings,
she being Brand. Mari Evans,
I Am a Black Woman. Seamus Heany,
Mide-term Break. Langston Hughes,
Theme for English B. X.J. Kennedy,
John While Swimming in the Ocean. Abraham Lincoln,
My Childhood's Home. Sharon Olds,
The Planned Child. Michael Ondaatje,
Late Movies with Skyler. Robert Pinsky,
Dying. Alexander Pope,
From Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I. Salvatore Quasimodo,
Auschwitz. Anne Ridler,
Nothing Is Lost. Theodore Roethke,
My Papa's Waltz. Jonathan Swift,
A Description of the Morning. David Wagoner,
My Physics Teacher. C.K. Williams,
Dimensions. William Butler Yeats,
When You Are Old. Writing about Tone in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Tone of Confidence in "Themes for English B" by Langston Hughes. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Tone in Poetry.
19. Prosody: Sound, Rhythm, and Rhyme in Poetry. Important Definitions for Studying Prosody. Segments: Individually Meaningful Sounds. Poetic Rhythm. The Major Metrical Feet. Special Meters. Substitution. Accentual, Strong-Stress, and "Sprung" Rhythms. The Caesura: The Pause Creating Variety and Natural Rhythms in Poetry. Segmental Poetic Devices. Rhyme: The Duplication and Similarity of Sounds. Rhyme and Meter. Rhyme Schemes.
Poems for Study:
Gwendolyn Brooks,
We Real Cool. Robert Browning,
Porphyria's Lover. Emily Dickinson,
To Hear an Oriole Sing. John Donne,
The Sun Rising. T.S. Eliot,
Macavity: The Mystery Cat. Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Concord Hymn. Isabella Gardner,
At a Summer Hotel. Robert Herrick,
Upon Julia's Voice. Gerard Manley Hopkins,
God's Grandeur. Langston Hughes,
Let America Be America Again. John Hall Ingham,
George Washington. Philip Levine,
A Theory of Prosody. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
The Sound of the Sea. Herman Melville,
Shiloh: A Requiem. Ogden Nash,
Very Like a Whale. Edgar Allan Poe,
Annabel Lee . Edgar Allan Poe,
The Bells. Alexander Pope,
From An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 17-90. Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Miniver Cheevy. Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Ode to the West Wind. Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
From Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur, lines 344-393. David Wagoner,
March for a One-Man Band. Writing about Prosody. Referring to Sounds in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: Rhyme, Rhythm, and Sound in Browning's "Porphyria's Lover". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Rhythm and Rhyme in Poetry.
20. Form: The Shape of the Poem. Closed-Form Poetry.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
The Eagle. Anonymous,
Spun in High, Dark Clouds. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds. Open-Form Poetry.
Walt Whitman,
Reconciliation. Visual and Concrete Poetry.
George Herbert,
Easter Wings. Poems For Study.
Elizabeth Bishop,
One Art. Billy Collins,
Sonnet. E.E. Cummings,
Buffalo Bill's. John Dryden,
To the Memory of Mr. Oldham. Carolyn Forche,
The Colonel. Robert Frost,
Desert Places. Allen Ginsberg,
A Supermarket in California. Nikki Giovanni,
Nikki-Rosa. Robert Hass,
Museum. George Herbert,
Virtue. William Heyen,
Mantle. John Hollander,
Swan and Shadow. John Keats,
Ode to a Nightingale. Claude McKay,
In Bondage. John Milton,
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent. Dudley Randall,
Ballad of Birmingham. Theodore Roethke,
The Waking. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou May'st in Me Behold. Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Ozymandias. May Swenson,
Women. Dylan Thomas,
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. Jean Toomer,
Reapers. Charles H. Webb,
The Shape of History. Phyllis Webb,
Poetics Against the Angel of Death. William Carlos Williams,
The Dance. Writing about Form in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: Form and Meaning in George Herbert's "Virtue". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Poetic Form.
21. Symbolism and Allusion: Windows to Wide Expanses of Meaning. Symbolism and Meanings.
Virginia Scott,
Snow. The Function of Symbolism in Poetry. Allusions and Meaning. Studying for Symbols and Allusions.
Poems for Study:
Mathew Arnold,
Dover Beach. Amy Clampitt,
Beach Glass. William Cowper,
The Popular Field. Peter Davison,
Delphi. John Donne,
The Canonization. Stephen Dunn,
Hawk. Isabella Gardner,
Collage of Echoes. Jorie Graham,
The Geese. Thomas Hardy,
In Time of "The Breaking of Nations." George Herbert,
The Collar. Josephine Jacobsen,
Tears. Robinson Jeffers,
The Purse-Seine. John Keats,
La Belle Dame Sans Merci. X.J. Kennedy,
Old Men Pitching Horseshoes. Andrew Marvell,
To His Coy Mistress. Mary Oliver,
Wild Geese. Judith Viorst,
A Wedding Sonnet for the Next Generation. Walt Whitman,
A Noiseless Patient Spider. Richard Wilbur,
Year's End. William Butler Yeats,
The Second Coming. Writing about Symbolism and Allusion in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: Symbolism in Oliver's "Wild Geese". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Symbolism and Allusion in Poetry.
22. Myth: Systems of Symbolic Allusion in Poetry. Mythology as an Explanation of How Things Are. Mythology and Literature.
William Butler Yeats,
Leda and the Swan. Mona Van Duyn, Leda.
Poems for Study:
Seven Poems Related to the Myth of Odysseus:
Margaret Atwood,
Siren Song. Louise Gluck,
Penelope's Song. W.S. Merwin,
Odysseus. Dorothy Parker,
Penelope. Linda Pastan,
The Suitor. Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
Ulysses. Peter Ulisse,
Odyssey: 20 Years Later. Seven Poems Related to the Myth of Icarus.
Brian Aldiss,
Flight 063. W.H. Auden,
Musee des Beaux Arts. Edward Field,
Icarus. Muriel Rukeyser,
Waiting for Icarus. Anne Sexton,
To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph. Stephen Spender,
Icarus. William Carlos Williams,
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. Three Poems Related to the Myth of Phoenix.
Amy Clampitt,
Berceuse. Denise Levertov,
Hunting the Phoenix. May Sarton,
The Phoenix Again. Two Poems Related to the Myth of Oedipus.
Muriel Rukeyser,
Myth. John Updike,
On the Way to Delphi. Two Poems Related to the Myth of Pan.
E.E. Cummings,
in Just-. John Chipman Farrar,
Song for a Forgotten Shrine to Pan. Writing about Myths in Poetry. Demonstrative Student Essay: Myth and Meaning in Dorothy Parker's "Penelope". Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Myths in Poetry.
23. Meaning: Idea and Theme in Poetry. Meaning, Power, and Poetic Thought. Issues in Determining the Meaning of Poems. Meaning and Poetic Techniques.
Poems for Study:
Robert Creely,
"Do you think..." Carl Dennis,
The God Who Loves You. John Dryden,
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day. Donald Hall,
Whip-poor-will. Robert Herrick,
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. Langston Hughes,
The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Ben Jonson,
To Celia. Donald Justice,
On the Death of Friends in Childhood. John Keats,
Ode on a Grecian Urn. Philip Larkin,
Next, Please. Archibald MacLeish,
Ars Poetica. Eve Merriam,
Reply to the Question. Sharon Olds,
35/10. Linda Pastan,
Ethics. Molly Peacock,
Desire. Anne Stevenson,
The Spirit Is Too Blunt an Instrument. 24. Three Poetic Careers: William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost. William Wordsworth (1770-1850):
Wordsworth and Romanticism. Romanticism and Wordworth's Theory of Composition. Wordsworth's Poetic Diction. Bibliographic Sources. Special Topics for Writing and Arguments about William Wordsworth.
From
The Prelude, Book I, lines 301-474.
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey. Daffodils (I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud). Lines Written in Early Spring. Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Expostulation and Reply. The Tables Turned. Stepping Westward. The Solitary Reaper. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802. I Grieved for Buonaparte with a Vain. It Is a Beauteous Evening. London, 1802 (in Chapter 17). On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic. Scorn Not the Sonnet. To Toussaint L'Ouverture. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):
Life and Work. Poetic Characteristics. Poetic Subjects. Bibliographic Sources. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Poetry of Dickinson.
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes (Poem 341). Because I Could Not Stop for Death (Poem 712). The Bustle in a House (Poem 1078). The Heart Is the Capital of the Mind (Poem 1354). I Cannot Live with You (Poem 640). I Died for Beauty-but Was Scarce (Poem 449). I Felt a Funeral in My Brain (Poem 280). I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died (Poem 465). I Like to See It Lap the Miles (Poem 585). I'm Nobody! Who Are You? (Poem 288). I Never Lost as Much But Twice (Poem 49). I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed (Poem 214). Much Madness Is Divinest Sense (Poem 435). My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close (Poem 1732). My Triumph Lasted Till the Drums (Poem 1227). One Need Not Be a Chamber-To Be Haunted (Poem 670). Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers (Poem 216). Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church (Poem 324). The Soul Selects Her Own Society (Poem 303). Success Is Counted Sweetest (Poem 67). Tell All the Truth but Tell it Slant (Poem 1129). There's a Certain Slant of Light (Poem 258). This World Is Not Conclusion (Poem 501). To Hear an Oriole Sing (Poem 526). Wild Nights-Wild Nights! (Poem 249). Robert Frost (1874-1963):
Life and Work. Poetic Characteristics. Poetic Subjects. Bibliographic Sources. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Poetry of Robert Frost.
A Line-Storm Song (1913). The Tuft of Flowers (1913). Mending Wall (1914). Birches (1915). The Road Not Taken (1915). 'Out, Out-' (1916). The Oven Bird (1916). Fire and Ice (1920). Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923), in Chapter 12. Misgiving (1923). Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923). Acquainted with the Night (1928). Desert Places (1936), in Chapter 20. Design (1936). The Silken Tent (1936). The Strong Are Saying Nothing (1937). The Gift Outright (1941). A Considerable Speck (1942). Choose Something like a Star (1943). 25. One Hundred Twenty-Eight Poems for Additional Study and Enjoyment. A.R. Ammons,
80-Proof. Maya Angelou,
My Arkansas. Anonymous,
Barbara Allan. Anonymous (Navajo),
Healing Prayer from the Beautyway Chant. Anonymous,
Lord Randal. Anonymous,
The Three Ravens. Margaret Atwood,
Variation on the Word Sleep. W.H. Auden,
The Unknown Citizen. Wendell Berry,
Another Descent. Earle Birney,
Can. Lit. Louise Bogan,
Women. Arna Bontemps,
A Black Man Talks of Reaping. Anne Bradstreet,
To My Dear and Loving Husband. Gwendolyn Brooks,
Primer for Blacks. Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
How Do I Love Thee? Robert Browning,
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. William Cullen Bryant,
To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe. George Gordon, Lord Byron,
The Destruction of Sennacherib. Thomas Campion,
Cherry Ripe. Lucille Clifton,
this morning. Lucille Clifton,
the poet. Leonard Cohen,
'The killers that run...'. Billy Collins,
Days. Frances Cornford, From
A Letter to America on a Visit to Sussex: Spring, 1942. Stephen Crane,
Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War Is Kind. E.E. Cummings,
if there are any heavens. James Dickey,
Kudzu. James Dickey,
The Lifeguard. James Dickey,
The Performance. John Donne,
The Good Morrow. John Donne,
Holy Sonnet 10: Death Be Not Proud. John Donne,
A Hymn to God the Father. Michael Drayton,
Since There's No Help. Paul Laurence Dunbar,
Sympathy. T. S. Eliot,
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. James Emanuel,
The Negro. Lynn Emanuel,
Like God. Chief Dan George,
The Beauty of the Trees. Nikki Giovanni,
Woman. Marilyn Hacker,
Sonnet Ending with a Film Subtitle. John Haines,
Little Cosmic Dust Poem. Donald Hall,
Scenic View. Daniel Halpern,
Snapshot of Hue. Daniel Halpern,
Summer in the Middle Class. H.S. (Sam) Hamod,
Leaves. Frances E.W. Harper,
She's Free! Michael S. Harper,
Called. Robert Hass,
Spring Rain. Robert Hayden,
Those Winter Sundays. George Herbert,
Love (III). William Heyen,
The Hair: Jacob Korman's Story. A.D Hope,
Advice to Young Ladies. Gerard Manley Hopkins,
Pied Beauty. Gerard Manley Hopkins,
The Windhover. Carolina Hospital,
Dear Tia. Julia Ward Howe,
The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Langston Hughes,
Negro. Robinson Jeffers,
The Answer. Galway Kinnell,
After Making Love We Hear Footsteps. Maxine Kumin,
Woodchucks. Irving Layton,
Rhine Boat Trip. Li-Young Lee,
A Final Thing. Alan P. Lightman,
In Computers. Liz Lochhead,
The Choosing. Audre Lorde,
Every Traveler Has One Vermont Poem. Amy Lowell,
Patterns. Gwendolyn MacEwan,
Dark Pines under Water. Heather McHugh,
Lines. Claude McKay,
The White City. W.S. Merwin,
Listen. Edna St. Vincent Millay,
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed. N. Scott Momaday,
The Bear. Howard Nemerov,
Life Cycle of Common Man. Jim Northrup,
wahbegan. Mary Oliver,
Ghosts. Simon Ortiz,
A Story of How a Wall Stands. Linda Pastan,
Marks. Marge Piercy,
The Secretary Chant. Marge Piercy,
Will We Work Together? Sylvia Plath,
Last Words. Sylvia Plath,
Mirror. Katha Pollitt,
Archaeology. Ezra Pound,
The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter. John Crowe Ransom,
Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter. John Raven,
Assailant. Adrienne Rich,
Diving into the Wreck. Theodore Roethke,
The Light Comes Brighter. Luis Omar Salinas,
In a Farmhouse. Sonia Sanchez,
rite on: white america. Carl Sandburg,
Chicago. Siegfried Sassoon,
Dreamers. Gjertrud Schnackenberg,
The Paperweight. Alan Seeger,
I Have a Rendezvous with Death. Brenda Serotte,
My Mother's Face. William Shakespeare,
Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes. William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Center of My Sinful Earth. Karl Shapiro,
Auto Wreck. Leslie Marmon Silko,
Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer. Dave Smith,
Bluejays. Stevie Smith,
Not Waving But Drowning. W.D. Snodgrass,
These Trees Stand... Cathy Song,
Lost Sister. Gary Soto,
Oranges. Gary Soto,
Kearney Park. William Stafford,
Traveling Through the Dark. Gerald Stern,
Burying an Animal on the Way to New York. Wallace Stevens,
The Emperor of Ice-Cream. May Swenson,
Question. James Tate,
The Blue Booby. Dylan Thomas,
A Refusal to Mourn... Chase Twichell,
Blurry Cow. John Updike,
Perfection Wasted. Tino Villanueva,
Day-Long Day. Shelly Wagner,
The Boxes. Alice Walker,
Revolutionary Petunias. Edmund Waller,
Go, Lovely Rose. Robert Penn Warren,
Heart of Autumn. Bruce Weigl,
Song of Napalm. Phyllis Wheatley,
On Being Brought from Africa to America. Walt Whitman,
Beat! Beat! Drums! Walt Whitman,
Dirge for Two Veterans. Walt Whitman,
Full of Life Now. Walt Whitman,
I Hear America Singing. John Greenleaf Whittier,
The Bartholdi Statue, Richard Wilbur,
April 5, 1974. William Carlos Williams,
The Red Wheelbarrow. William Butler Yeats,
The Wild Swans at Coole. Paul Zimmer,
The Day Zimmer Lost Religion. III. READING AND WRITING ABOUT DRAMA.
26. The Dramatic Vision: An Overview. Drama as Literature. Performance: The Unique Aspect of Drama. Drama from Ancient Times to Our Own: Tragedy, Comedy, and Additional Forms.
Anonymous,
The Visit to the Sepulchre (Visitatio Sepulchri). Plays For Study:
Susan Glaspell,
Trifles. Stanley Kauffmann,
The More the Merrier. Betty Keller,
Tea Party. Eugene O'Neill,
Before Breakfast. The "Wakefield Master",
The Second Shepherd's Play. Writing about the Elements of Drama. Referring to Plays and Parts of Plays. Demonstrative Student Essay: Eugene O'Neill's Use of Negative Descriptions and Stage Directions in "Before Breakfast" as a Means of Revealing Character. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about the Elements of Drama.
27. The Tragic Vision: Affirmation Through Loss. The Origins of Tragedy. The Origin of Tragedy in Brief. The Ancient Competitions in Tragedy. Aristotle and the Nature of Tragedy. Aristotle's View of Tragedy in Brief. Irony in Tragedy. The Ancient Athenian Audience and Theater. Ancient Greek Tragic Actors and Their Costumes. Performance and the Formal Organization of Greek Tragedy.
Plays for Study.
Sophocles,
Oedipus the King. Renaissance Drama and Shakespeare's Theater.
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet. Tragedy from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller.
Arthur Miller,
Death of a Salesman. Writing about Tragedy. An Essay about a Problem. Demonstrative Student Essay: The Problem of Hamlet's Apparent Delay. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Tragedy.
28. The Comic Vision: Restoring the Balance. The Origins of Comedy. Comedy from Roman Times to the Renaissance. The Patterns, Characters, and Language of Comedy. Types of Comedy.
Plays for Study.
William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Theater of Moliere.
Moliere,
Love Is the Doctor (L'Amour Medecin).
Comedy from Moliere to the Present.
Anton Chekhov,
The Bear. Beth Henley,
Am I Blue. Writing about Comedy. Demonstrative Student Essay: Setting as Symbol and Comic Structure in
A Midsummer's Night Dream. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Comedy.
29. Visions of Dramatic Reality and Nonreality: Varying the Idea of Drama as Imitation. Realism and Nonrealism in Drama. Elements of Realistic and Nonrealistic Drama.
Plays for Study.
Langston Hughes,
Mulatto. Thornton Wilder,
Our Town. Tennessee Williams,
The Glass Menagerie. Writing about Realistic and Nonrealistic Drama. Demonstrative Student Essay: Realism and Nonrealism in Tom's Triple Role in
The Glass Menagerie. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Dramatic Reality and Nonreality.
30. Dramatic Vision and the Motion Picture Camera: Drama on the Silver Screen, Television Set, and Computer Monitor. A Thumbnail History of Film. DVD Technology and Film Study. Stage Plays and Film. The Aesthetics of Film. The Techniques of Film.
Film Scenes for Study.
Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, Shot 71 from the Shooting Script of
Citizen Kane. Arthur Laurents, A Scene from
The Turning Point. Writing about a Film. Demonstrative Student Essay: Welle's
Citizen Kane: Whittling a Giant Down to Size. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Film.
31. A Career in Drama: Two Major Plays of Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen's Life and Early Work. Ibsen's Major Prose Plays. Two Major Realistic Plays. Ibsen and the "Well-Made Play." Ibsen's Timeliness and Dramtic Power. Bibliographic Studies.
A Dollhouse (Et Dukkehjem). An Enemy of the People (En Folkenfiende). Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Ibsen.
Edited Selections from Criticism of Ibsen's Drama.
IV. SPECIAL WRITING TOPICS ABOUT LITERATURE.
32. Writing and Documenting the Research Essay. Selecting a Topic. Setting up a Bibliography. Online Library Services. Important Considerations about Computer-Aided Research. Taking Notes and Paraphrasing Material. Documenting Your Work. Strategies for Organizing Ideas in Your Research Essay. Demonstrative Student Research Essay: The Ghost in
Hamlet. 33. Critical Approaches Important in the Study of Literature. Moral/Intellectual. Topical/Historical. New Critical/Formalist. Structuralist. Feminist. Economic Determinist/Marxist. Psychological/Psychoanalytic. Archetypal/Symbolic/Mythic. Deconstructionist. Reader-Response.
34. Taking Examinations on Literature. Answer the Questions That Are Asked. Systematic Preparation. Two Basic Types of Questions about Literature.
35. Comparison-Contrast and Extended Comparison-Contrast: Learning by Seeing Literary Works Together. Guidelines for the Comparison-Contrast Method. The Extended Comparison-Contrast Essay. Citing References in a Longer Comparison-Contrast Essay. Writing a Comparison-Contrast Essay. Demonstrative Student Essay (Two Works): The Treatment of Responses to War in Amy Lowell's "Patterns" and Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth." Demonstrative Student Essay (Extended Comparison-Contrast): Literary Treatments of the Conflicts Between Private and Public Life. Special Topics for Writing and Argument about Comparison and Contrast.
Appendix I: MLA Recommendations for Documenting Electronic Sources. Appendix II: Brief Biographies of the Poets in Part III. Glossary of Literary Terms. Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines. 