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. After years of writing and reading late in the evenings after work, he quit a corporate vice presidency to write. He has published four collections of poetry, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and Pity the Beautiful (2012); 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. From 2003-2009 he served as the Chairman of the National Endowments 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 literary reading by creating The Big Read, which helped reverse a quarter century of decline in U.S. reading. He is currently the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California.

Contents

Preface  

To the Instructor  

About the Authors  

Fiction

A Conversation with Amy Tan

1   Reading a Story  

The Art of Fiction

Types of Short Fiction

W. Somerset Maugham n The Appointment in Samarra  

A servant tries to gallop away from Death in this brief sardonic fable retold in memorable form by a popular storyteller.

**Aesop n The Fox and the Grapes

Ever wonder where the phrase “sour grapes” comes from? Find out in this classic fable.

**Bidpai n The Camel and His Friends

With friends like these, you can guess what the camel doesn’t need.

Chuang Tzu n Independence  

The Prince of Ch’u asks the philosopher Chuang Tzu to become his advisor and gets a surprising reply in this classic Chinese fable.

Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm n Godfather Death  

Neither God nor the Devil came to the christening. In this stark folktale,
a young man receives magical powers with a string attached.

Plot  

The Short Story  

John Updike n A & P  

In walk three girls in nothing but bathing suits, and Sammy finds himself no longer an aproned checkout clerk but an armored knight.

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing 

John Updike on Writing n 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 n A Rose for Emily  

Proud, imperious Emily Grierson defied the town from the fortress of her mansion. Who could have guessed the secret that lay within?

**ZZ Packer  n Brownies

A brownie troop of African American girls at camp declare war on a rival troop only to discover their humiliating mistake

**Eudora Welty n A Worn Path

When the man said to old Phoenix, “you must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing,” he might have been exaggerating, but not by much.

James Baldwin n Sonny’s Blues  

Two brothers in Harlem see life differently. The older brother is the sensible family man, but Sonny wants to be a jazz musician.

Writing Effectively

James Baldwin on Writing n 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 n The Jilting of Granny Weatherall  

For sixty years Ellen Weatherall has fought back the memory of that terrible day, but now once more the priest waits in the house.

Nathaniel Hawthorne n Young Goodman Brown

Urged on through deepening woods, a young Puritan sees—or dreams he sees—good villagers hasten toward a diabolic rite

Katherine Mansfield n Miss Brill  

Sundays had long brought joy to solitary Miss Brill, until one fateful day when she happened to share a bench with two lovers in the park.

Raymond Carver n Cathedral  

He had never expected to find himself trying to describe a cathedral to a blind man. He hadn’t even wanted to meet this odd, old friend of his wife.

Writing Effectively

Raymond Carver on Writing n 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 n The Storm  

Even with her husband away, Calixta feels happily, securely married. Why then should she not shelter an old admirer from the rain?

Jack London n To Build a Fire  

     Seventy-five degrees below zero. Alone except for one mistrustful wolf dog,
a man finds himself battling a relentless force.

**Ray Bradbury  n The Sound of Thunder

In 2055, you can go on a Time Safari to hunt dinosaurs 60 million years ago. But put one foot wrong, and suddenly the future’s not what it used to be.

Amy Tan n A Pair of Tickets  

A young woman flies with her father to China to meet two half sisters she never knew existed.

Writing Effectively

Amy Tan on Writing n 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 n A Clean, Well-Lighted Place  

All by himself each night, the old man lingers in the bright café. What does he need more than brandy?

William Faulkner n Barn Burning  

This time when Ab Snopes wields his blazing torch, his son Sarty faces a dilemma: whether to obey or defy the vengeful old man.

Irony  

O. Henry n The Gift of the Magi  

     A young husband and wife find ingenious ways to buy each other Christmas presents, in the classic story that defines the word “irony.”

** Anne Tyler n Teenage Wasteland

With her troubled son, his teachers, and a peculiar tutor all giving her their own versions of what’s going on with him, what’s a mother to do?

Writing Effectively

Ernest Hemingway on Writing n 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 n The Open Boat  

In a lifeboat circled by sharks, tantalized by glimpses of land, a reporter scrutinizes Fate and learns about comradeship.

Alice Munro n How I Met My Husband  

When Edie meets the carnival pilot, her life gets more complicated than she expects.

Luke 15:11–32 n The Parable of the Prodigal Son  

A father has two sons. One demands his inheritance now and leaves to spend it with ruinous results.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. n Harrison Bergeron  

Are you handsome? Off with your eyebrows! Are you brainy? Let a transmitter sound thought-shattering beeps inside your ear.

Writing Effectively

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Writing n 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 n The Chrysanthemums  

Fenced-in Elisa feels emotionally starved—then her life promises to blossom with the arrival of the scissors-grinding man.

John Cheever  n The Swimmer

A man decides to swim home through his neighbors’ pools, but the water turns out to be much deeper than he realized.

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

Omelas is the perfect city. All of its inhabitants are happy. But everyone’s prosperity depends on a hidden evil.

Shirley Jackson n The Lottery  

Splintered and faded, the sinister black box had worked its annual terror for longer than anyone in town could remember.

writing effectively

Shirley Jackson on Writing n Biography of a Story  

THINKING about symbols

CHECKLIST: Writing about symbols

Writing Assignment on Symbols  

Sample Student Paper n 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

Novelistic Methods

Reading Novels

Leo Tolstoy n The Death of Ivan Ilych  

The supreme Russian novelist tells how a petty, ambitious judge, near the end of his wasted life, discovers a harrowing truth.

Franz Kafka n The Metamorphosis  

“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he
found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” Kafka’s famous opening sentence introduces one of the most chilling stories in
world literature.

Writing Effectively

Franz Kafka on Writing n Discussing The Metamorphosis   

THINKING about long stories and novels

CHECKLIST: Writing about long stories and novels

Writing Assignment for a research paper

Sample Student Paper n Kafka’s greatness

More Topics for Writing

TERMS for Review

9 Latin American Fiction 

“El Boom”  

Magic Realism  

After the Boom

Jorge Luis Borges n The Gospel According to Mark  

A young man from Buenos Aires is trapped by a flood on an isolated ranch. To pass the time he reads the Gospel to a family with unforeseen results.

Gabriel García Márquez n A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings  

What do you do when a worn-out angel crashes in your yard? Sell tickets or call the priest?

**Isabel Allende  n The Judge’s Wife

Revenge can take many different forms, but few are as strange as the revenge taken in this passionate tale.

Inés Arredondo n The Shunammite   

When Luisa went to visit her dying uncle, she had no idea that her life was about to change forever.

Writing Effectively

Gabriel García Márquez on Writing  n My beginnings as a writer  

Topics for Writing About “The gospel according to mark”  

Topics for Writing About “The Judge’s Wife”  

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

Topics for Writing About “The shunammite”  

TERMS for Review

10 Two Critical Casebooks: Edgar Allan Poe and Flannery O’Connor

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The Tell-Tale Heart

The smoldering eye at last extinguished, a murderer finds that, despite all his attempts at a cover-up, his victim will be heard.

** The Cask of Amontillado

His family motto is No one attacks me with impunity, and he takes it very seriously. A tale of twisted vengeance from the master of the macabre.

** The Fall of the House of Usher

A letter from a boyhood friend turns out to be an invitation to a world of horror and doom.

Edgar Allan Poe on Writing

**The Tale and Its Effect

**On Imagination

**The Philosophy of Composition

Critics on Edgar Allan Poe

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

**Robert Louis Stevenson n Costume in “The Cask of Amontillado”

**Elena V. Baraban  n The Motive for Murder in “The Cask of Amontillado”

**Charles Baudelaire n Poe’s Characters

**James Tuttleton n  Poe’s Protagonists and the Ideal World

**Carl Moweryn   Madness in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”    

FLANNERY O’CONNOR

A Good Man Is Hard to Find  

Wanted: The Misfit, a cold-blooded killer. An ordinary family vacation leads to horror—and one moment of redeeming grace.

Revelation  

Mrs. Turpin thinks herself Jesus’ favorite child, until she meets a troubled college girl. Soon violence flares in a doctor’s waiting room.

Parker’s Back  

A tormented man tries to find his way to God and to his wife—by having himself tattooed.

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 n A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit  

Mary Jane Schenck n Deconstructing “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”  

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

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

**Dean Flower n Listening to Flannery O’connor

Writing Effectively

Topics for Writing on EDGAR ALLAN POE

Topics for Writing on FLANNERY O’CONNOR  

11 Critical Casebook: Two Stories in Depth  

Charlotte Perkins Gilman  

The Yellow Wallpaper  

A doctor prescribes a “rest cure” for his wife after the birth of their child. The new mother tries to settle in to life in the isolated and mysterious country house they have rented for the summer. The cure proves worse than the disease in this Gothic classic.

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 n Gender and Pathology in “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar n Imprisonment and Escape: The Psychology of Confinement  

Elizabeth Ammons n Biographical Echoes in “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

Alice Walker  

Everyday Use  

When successful Dee visits from the city, she has changed her name to reflect her African roots. Her mother and sister notice other things have changed, too.

Alice Walker on Writing

The Black Woman Writer in America  

Reflections on Writing and Women’s Lives  

Critics on “Everyday Use”

Barbara T. Christian n “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement  

**Mary Helen Washington  n  “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist

Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker n Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”  

Elaine Showalter n Quilt as Metaphor in “Everyday Use”  

Writing Effectively

Topics for Writing About “Young goodman brown”  

Topics for Writing About “The Yellow Wallpaper”  

Topics for Writing About “Everyday Use”  

12 Stories for Further Reading  

Chinua Achebe n Dead Men’s Path  

The new headmaster of the village school was determined to fight superstition, but the villagers did not agree.

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

The only one who can help Victor when his father dies is a childhood friend he’s been avoiding for years.

Margaret Atwood n Happy Endings  

John and Mary meet. What happens next? This witty experimental story offers five different outcomes.

          Toni Cade Bambara n The Lesson (See Chapter 47)

                Miss Moore takes her boisterous class to an exclusive toy store for a lesson

             in real world economics.

Ambrose Bierce n An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  

At last, Peyton Farquhar’s neck is in the noose. Reality mingles with dream in this classic story of the American Civil War.

T. Coraghessan Boyle n Greasy Lake   4

Murky and strewn with beer cans, the lake appears a wasteland. On its shore three “dangerous characters” learn a lesson one grim night.

Willa Cather n Paul’s Case  

Paul’s teachers can’t understand the boy. Then one day, with stolen cash, he boards a train for New York and the life of his dreams.

Kate Chopin n The Story of an Hour  

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name.”

Sandra Cisneros n The House on Mango Street  

Does where we live tell what we are? A little girl dreams of a new house, but things don’t always turn out the way we want them to.

Ralph Ellison n Battle Royal  

A young black man is invited to deliver his high school graduation speech
to a gathering of a Southern town’s leading white citizens. What promises
to be an honor turns into a nightmare of violence, humiliation, and painful self-discovery.

Zora Neale Hurston n Sweat  

Delia’s hard work paid for her small house. Now her drunken husband Sykes has promised it to another woman.

James Joyce n Araby  

If only he can find her a token, she might love him in return. As night falls,
a Dublin boy hurries to make his dream come true.

Jamaica Kincaid n Girl  

“Try to walk like a lady, and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” An old-fashioned mother tells her daughter how to live.

Jhumpa Lahiri n Interpreter of Maladies  

Mr. Kapasi’s life had settled into a quiet pattern—and then Mrs. Das and her family came into it.

D. H. Lawrence n The Rocking-Horse Winner  

Wild-eyed “as if something were going to explode in him,” the boy predicts each winning horse, and gamblers rush to bet a thousand pounds.

**David Leavitt n A Place I’ve Never Been

Nathan could never love Celia the way she wanted him to. Now, after his HIV diagnosis, he must spend the rest of his life in a place she’s never been.

Naguib Mahfouz n The Lawsuit          

He thought he'd seen the last of his late father's second wife, but now she's back to trouble his peaceful existence.

Bobbie Ann Mason n Shiloh  

After the accident Leroy could no longer work as a truck driver. He hoped to make a new life with his wife, but she seemed strangely different.

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

Alone in the house, Connie finds herself helpless before the advances of a spellbinding imitation teenager, Arnold Friend.

Tim O’Brien n The Things They Carried  

What each soldier carried into the combat zone was largely determined by necessity, but each man’s necessities differed.  

** Daniel Orozco  n Orientation

Imagine an episode of The Office cowritten by Franz Kafka and Stephen King. No one needs a job this badly.

Tobias Wolff n The Rich Brother  

Blood may be thicker than water, but sometimes the tension between brothers is thicker than blood.

Virginia Woolf  n A Haunted House     

Whatever hour you woke a door was shutting. From room to room the ghostly couple walked, hand in hand.

Poetry

A Conversation with Kay Ray

13 Reading a Poem  

Poetry or Verse

Reading a Poem

Paraphrase

William Butler Yeats n The Lake Isle of Innisfree  

Lyric Poetry  

Robert Hayden n Those Winter Sundays  

Adrienne Rich n Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers  

Narrative Poetry  

Anonymous n Sir Patrick Spence  

Robert Frost n “Out, Out—”  

Dramatic Poetry  

Robert Browning n My Last Duchess  

Didactic Poetry

Writing Effectively

Adrienne Rich on Writing  n Recalling “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”  

thinking about Paraphrase  

William Stafford n Ask Me  

William Stafford n 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 n My Papa’s Waltz  

Countee Cullen n For a Lady I Know  

Anne Bradstreet n The Author to Her Book  

Walt Whitman n To a Locomotive in Winter  

Emily Dickinson n I like to see it lap the Miles  

**Benjamin Alire Saenz, To the Desert

**Gwendolyn Brooks  n Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward 

Weldon Kees n For My Daughter  

The Person in the Poem  

Natasha Trethewey n White Lies  

Edwin Arlington Robinson n Luke Havergal  

Ted Hughes n Hawk Roosting  

**Anonymous n Dog Haiku

William Wordsworth n I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud  

Dorothy Wordsworth n Journal Entry  

James Stephens n A Glass of Beer  

Anne Sexton n Her Kind  

William Carlos Williams n The Red Wheelbarrow  

Irony  

Robert Creeley n Oh No  

W. H. Auden n The Unknown Citizen  

Sharon Olds n Rites of Passage  

**Julie Sheehan, Hate Poem

Sarah N. Cleghorn n The Golf Links  

Edna St. Vincent Millay n Second Fig  

Thomas Hardy n The Workbox  

For Review and Further Study  

William Blake n The Chimney Sweeper  

**William Jay Smith, American Primitive

**David Lehman  n Rejection Slip 

William Stafford n At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border  

Richard Lovelace n To Lucasta  

Wilfred Owen n Dulce et Decorum Est  

Writing Effectively

Wilfred Owen on Writing  n War Poetry  

thinking About TONE  

Checklist: writing about Tone  

Writing Assignment on Tone  

Sample Student Paper n 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 n This Is Just to Say  

Diction  

Marianne Moore n Silence  

Robert Graves n Down, Wanton, Down!  

John Donne n Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You  

The Value of a Dictionary  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow n Aftermath  

** Kay Ryan n Mockingbird

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

** Samuel Menashe n Bread

Carl Sandburg n Grass

Word Choice and Word Order

Robert Herrick n Upon Julia’s Clothes  

Kay Ryan n Blandeur  

Thomas Hardy n The Ruined Maid  

Richard Eberhart n The Fury of Aerial Bombardment  

Wendy Cope n Lonely Hearts  

For Review and Further Study  

E. E. Cummings n anyone lived in a pretty how town  

Billy Collins n The Names  

** Christian Wiman  n When the Time’s Toxin  

Anonymous n Carnation Milk  

Gina Valdés n English con Salsa  

Lewis Carroll n Jabberwocky  

Writing Effectively

Lewis Carroll n 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 n Cargoes  

William Blake n London  

Wallace Stevens n Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock  

** Gwendolyn Brooks n The Bean Eaters

Timothy Steele n Epitaph  

E. E. Cummings n next to of course god america i  

Robert Frost n Fire and Ice  

Diane Thiel  n The Minefield  

** H.D. n Storm

Alfred, Lord Tennyson n Tears, Idle Tears  

Richard Wilbur n Love Calls Us to the Things of This World  

Writing Effectively

Richard Wilbur on Writing  n 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 n In a Station of the Metro  

Taniguchi Buson n The piercing chill I feel  

Imagery

T. S. Eliot n The winter evening settles down  

Theodore Roethke n Root Cellar  

Elizabeth Bishop n The Fish  

Charles Simic n Fork  

Emily Dickinson n A Route of Evanescence  

Jean Toomer n Reapers  

Gerard Manley Hopkins n Pied Beauty  

About Haiku  

Arakida Moritake n The falling flower  

Matsuo Basho n Heat-lightning streak  

Matsuo Basho n In the old stone pool  

Taniguchi Buson n On the one-ton temple bell  

Taniguchi Buson n Moonrise on mudflats

Kobayashi Issa n only one guy  

Kobayashi Issa n Cricket  

Haiku from Japanese Internment Camps  

**Suiko Matsushita n Rain shower from mountain

Suiko Matsushita n Cosmos in bloom  

Hakuro Wada n Even the croaking of frogs  

**Neiji Ozawa n The war—this year

Contemporary Haiku  

Etheridge Knightn Making jazz swing in

**Gary Snyder n After weeks of watching the roof leak

Penny Harter n broken bowl

Jennifer Brutschy n Born Again

**Adelle Foley n Learning to Shave

Garry Gay n Hole in the ozone

For Review and Further Study  

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

Walt Whitman n The Runner  

**H.D.  n Oread

William Carlos Williams n El Hombre  

Robert Bly n Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter  

Billy Collins n Embrace  

**Chana Bloch  n Tired Sex

**Gary Snyder  n Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain

Kevin Prufer n Pause, Pause

Stevie Smith n Not Waving but Drowning  

Writing Effectively

Ezra Pound on Writing n The Image  

thinking About Imagery  

Checklist: Writing about imagery  

Writing Assignment on Imagery  

Sample Student Paper n 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 n The Eagle  

William Shakespeare n Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  

Howard Moss n Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  

Metaphor and Simile  

Emily Dickinson n My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson n Flower in the Crannied Wall  

William Blake n To see a world in a grain of sand  

Sylvia Plath n Metaphors  

N. Scott Momaday n Simile  

Emily Dickinson n It dropped so low – in my Regard  

Jill Alexander Essbaum n The Heart  

Craig Raine n A Martian Sends a Postcard Home  

Other Figures of Speech  

James Stephens n The Wind  

Robinson Jeffers n Hands

Margaret Atwood n You fit into me  

George Herbert n The Pulley  

Dana Gioia n Money  

Carl Sandburg n Fog  

Charles Simic n My Shoes

For Review and Further Study  

Robert Frost n The Silken Tent  

Jane Kenyon n The Suitor  

Robert Frost n The Secret Sits  

A. R. Ammons n Coward  

Kay Ryan n Turtle  

**Emily Brontë n Love and Friendship  

**April Lindner n Low Tide

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

Writing Effectively

Robert Frost on Writing n 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 n To Celia  

James Weldon Johnson n Sence You Went Away

** William Shakespeare n Fear no more the heat o’ the sun

Edwin Arlington Robinson n Richard Cory  

Paul Simon n Richard Cory  

Ballads  

Anonymous n Bonny Barbara Allan  

Dudley Randall n Ballad of Birmingham  

Blues  

Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams n Jailhouse Blues  

W. H. Auden n Funeral Blues  

Kevin Young  n Late Blues

Rap  

For Review and Further Study  

Bob Dylan n The Times They Are a-Changin’  

Aimee Mann n Deathly  

Writing Effectively

**Bob Dylan on Writing n Excerpt from Dylan’s  Chronicles

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 n True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance  

William Butler Yeats n Who Goes with Fergus?  

John Updike n Recital  

William Wordsworth n A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal  

Aphra Behn n When maidens are young  

Alliteration and Assonance  

A. E. Housman n Eight O’Clock  

James Joyce n All day I hear  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson n The splendor falls on castle walls  

Rime  

William Cole n On my boat on Lake Cayuga  

Hilaire Belloc n The Hippopotamus  

**Bob Kaufman  n No More Jazz at Alcatraz 

William Butler Yeats n Leda and the Swan  

Gerard Manley Hopkins n God’s Grandeur  

Robert Frost n Desert Places  

Reading and Hearing Poems Aloud  

Michael Stillman n In Memoriam John Coltrane  

**William Shakespeare  n Hark, hark, the lark 

Kevin Young  n Doo Wop

T. S. Eliot n Virginia  

Writing Effectively

T. S. Eliot on Writing n 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 n We Real Cool  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson n Break, Break, Break  

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

Dorothy Parker n Résumé  

Meter  

Edna St. Vincent Millay n Counting-out Rhyme  

**Edith Sitwell  n Mariner Man 

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

William Carlos Williams n Smell!  

Walt Whitman n Beat! Beat! Drums!  

David Mason n Song of the Powers  

Langston Hughes n Dream Boogie  

Writing Effectively

Gwendolyn Brooks on Writing n 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 n This living hand, now warm and capable  

Robert Graves n Counting the Beats  

John Donne n Song (“Go and catch a falling star”)  

Phillis Levin n Brief Bio  

The Sonnet  

William Shakespeare n Let me not to the marriage of true minds  

Michael Drayton n Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part  

Edna St. Vincent Millay n What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why  

Robert Frost n Acquainted with the Night  

Kim Addonizio n First Poem for You  

Mark Jarman n Unholy  Sonnet: After the Praying

A. E. Stallings n Sine Qua Non  

**Amit Majmudar n Rites to Allay the Dead

R. S. Gwynn n Shakespearean Sonnet  

The Epigram  

Alexander Pope n Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog

Sir John Harrington n Of Treason

**William Blake  n To H—

Langston Hughes n Two Somewhat Different Epigrams

**Dorothy Parker  n The Actress

J. V. Cunningham n This Humanist

John Frederick Nims n Contemplation

Anonymous n Epitaph of a dentist

Hilaire Belloc n Fatigue

Wendy Cope n Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”

**Poetweets

**Lawrence Bridges n Two Poetweets

**Robert Pinsky  n Low Pay Piecework

Other Forms  

Dylan Thomas n Do not go gentle into that good night  

Robert Bridges n Triolet  

Elizabeth Bishop n Sestina  

Writing Effectively

A. E. Stallings on Writing n 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 n Ancient Stairway  

Free Verse

E. E. Cummings n Buffalo Bill ’s  

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

William Carlos Williams n The Dance  

**Stephen Crane n The Wayfarer  

Walt Whitman n Cavalry Crossing a Ford  

**Ezra Pound n The Garden   

Wallace Stevens n Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird  

Prose Poetry  

Charles Simic n The Magic Study of Happiness

** Joy Harjo,  Mourning Song

Visual Poetry  

George Herbert n Easter Wings  

John Hollander n Swan and Shadow  

Concrete Poetry  

Richard Kostelanetz, Ramón Gómez de la Serna n Simultaneous Translations

Dorthi Charles n Concrete Cat  

For Review and Further Study  

E. E. Cummings n in Just-  

**Francisco X. Alarcón n Frontera / Border

Carole Satyamurti n I Shall Paint My Nails Red  

**David St. John n Hush

Alice Fulton n What I Like  

Writing Effectively

Walt Whitman on Writing n The Poetry of the Future  

thinking About Free Verse  

Checklist: Writing about Line Breaks

Writing Assignment on Open Form  

More Topics for Writing

TERMS FOR REVIEW

24 Symbol  

The Meanings of a Symbol

T. S. Eliot n The Boston Evening Transcript   

Emily Dickinson n The Lightning is a yellow Fork  

The Symbolist Movement

Identifying Symbols

Thomas Hardy n Neutral Tones  

Allegory

Matthew :– n The Parable of the Good Seed  

**George Herbert n Redemption

**Suji Kwock Kim n Occupation

Robert Frost n The Road Not Taken  

**Antonio Machado  n The Traveler

Christina Rossetti n Uphill  

For Review and Further Study

**William Carlos Williams n The Young Housewife

Ted Kooser n Carrie  

Mary Oliver n Wild Geese

**Tami Haaland  n Lipstick

Lorine Niedecker n Popcorn-can cover  

Wallace Stevens  n The Snow Man

Wallace Stevens n Anecdote of the Jar  

Writing Effectively

William Butler Yeats on Writing n Poetic Symbols  

thinking About Symbols  

Checklist: writing about symbols  

Writing Assignment on Symbolism  

More Topics for Writing

TERMS FOR REVIEW

25 Myth and Narrative  

Origins of Myth

Robert Frost n Nothing Gold Can Stay  

William Wordsworth n The world is too much with us  

H. D. n Helen  

** Edgar Allan Poe n To Helen  

Archetype  

Louise Bogan n Medusa  

John Keats n La Belle Dame sans Merci  

Personal Myth  

William Butler Yeats n The Second Coming  

Gregory Orr n Two Lines from the Brothers Grimm  

Myth and Popular Culture  

Charles Martin n Taken Up  

A. E. Stallings n First Love: A Quiz

Anne Sexton n Cinderella  

Writing Effectively  

Anne Sexton on Writing n Transforming Fairy Tales  

THINKING  ABOUT MYTH

Checklist: WRITINg About Myth  

Writing Assignment on Myth  

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

More Topics for Writing

TERMS FOR REVIEW

26 Poetry and Personal Identity  

Confessional Poetry

Sylvia Plath n Lady Lazarus  

Identity Poetics

Rhina Espaillat n Bilingual/Bilingüe  

Culture, Race, and Ethnicity  

Claude McKay n America  

**Shirley Geok-lin Lim n  Riding Into California

Francisco X. Alarcón n The X in My Name  

Judith Ortiz Cofer n Quiñceañera  

Sherman Alexie n The Powwow at the End of the World

Yusef Komunyakaa n Facing It  

Gender  

Anne Stevenson n Sous-Entendu  

**Carolyn Kizer  n  Bitch

**Rafael Campo n  For J. W.

Donald Justice n Men at Forty  

Adrienne Rich n Women  

For Review and Further Study  

**Katha Pollitt n  Mind-Body Problem

**Andrew Hudgins n  Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead

**Brian Turner  n  The Hurt Locker

Philip Larkin n Aubade  

Writing Effectively

Rhina Espaillat on Writing n Being a Bilingual Writer  

THINKING About Poetic Voice and 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 n Yue Xia Du Zhuo (Chinese text)  

Li Po n Moon-Beneath Alone Drink (l iteral translation)  

Translated by Arthur Waley n Drinking Alone by Moonlight  

Comparing Translations  

Horace n “Carpe Diem” Ode (Latin text)  

Horace n “Carpe Diem” Ode (literal translation)  

Translated by Edwin Arlington Robinson n Horace to Leuconoe  

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

Translating Form

Omar Khayyam n Rubai  XII (Persian text)   

Omar Khayyam n Rubai XII (literal translation)

Translated by Edward FitzGerald n  A Book of Verses underneath the Bough  

Translated by Dick Davis n I Need a Bare Sufficiency  

Omar Khayyam n Rubaiyat  

Translated by Edward FitzGerald n  Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

Translated by Edward FitzGerald n  Some for the Glories of this World

Translated by Edward FitzGerald n The Moving Finger writes

Translated by Edward FitzGerald n  Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire

Parody  

Anonymous n We four lads from Liverpool are  

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

** Andrea Paterson n Because I Could Not Dump

** Harryette Mullen n Dim Lady

Gene Fehler n If Richard Lovelace Became a Free Agent  

Aaron Abeyta n thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla  

Writing Effectively

Arthur Waley on Writing n The Method of Translation  

THINKING ABOUT Parody  

Checklist: WRITING A PARODY  

Writing Assignment on Parody  

More Topics for Writing  

28 Poetry in Spanish: Literature of Latin America  

Sor Juana n Presente en que el Cariño Hace Regalo la Llaneza  

Translated by Diane Thiel n A Simple Gift Made Rich by Affection  

Pablo Neruda n Muchos Somos  

Translated by Alastair Reid n We Are Many  

**Jorge Luis Borges n On his blindness

Translated by Robert Mezey n On His Blindness

Octavio Paz n Con los ojos cerrados  

Translated by Eliot Weinberger n With eyes closed  

Surrealism in Latin American Poetry  

Frida Kahlo n The Two Fridas  

César Vallejo n La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños  

Translated by Thomas Merton n Anger  

Contemporary Mexican Poetry  

José Emilio Pacheco n Alta Traición  

Translated by Alastair Reid n High Treason  

Tedi López Mills n Convalecencia  

     Translated by Cheryl Clark n Convalescence  

**Pedro Serrano n Golondrinas  

Translated by Anna Crowe n Swallows  

Alastair Reid on Writing n Translating Neruda  

Writing Assignment on Spanish Poetry  

More Topics for Writing  

29 Recognizing Excellence  

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

Emily Dickinson n A Dying Tiger – moaned for Drink  

Sentimentality

Rod McKuen n Thoughts on Capital Punishment  

William Stafford n Traveling Through the Dark  

Recognizing Excellence  

William Butler Yeats n Sailing to Byzantium  

Arthur Guiterman n On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness  

Percy Bysshe Shelley n Ozymandias  

**Robert Hayden n Frederick Douglass

Elizabeth Bishop n One Art  

**John Keats n Ode to a Nightingale

Walt Whitman n O Captain! My Captain!  

Dylan Thomas  n In My Craft or Sullen Art  

Paul Laurence Dunbar n We Wear the Mask  

Emma Lazarus n The New Colossus  

Edgar Allan Poe n Annabel Lee  

Writing Effectively

Edgar Allan Poe on Writing n A Long Poem Does Not Exist  

THINKING ABOUT Evaluating a Poem  

Checklist: WRITING AN EVALUATION 

Writing Assignment on Evaluating a Poem  

More Topics for Writing

TERMS FOR REVIEW

30 What Is Poetry?  

Archibald MacLeish n Ars Poetica  

Dante, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Mina Loy, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, José Garcia Villa, Christopher Fry, Elizabeth Bishop, Joy Harjo, Octavio Paz, Denise Levertov, Lucille Clifton, Charles Simic  n Some Definitions of Poetry  –

31 Two Critical Casebooks:
Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes  

Emily Dickinson  

Success is counted sweetest  

**I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!  

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  

Because I could not stop for Death  

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant  

**There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson on Emily Dickinson

Recognizing Poetry  

Self-Description  

Critics on Emily Dickinson  

Thomas Wentworth Higginson n Meeting Emily Dickinson  

Thomas H. Johnson n The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts  

Richard Wilbur n The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson  

Cynthia Griffin Wolff n Dickinson and Death (A Reading of “Because I could not stop for Death”)  

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

                   Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar  n The Freedom of Emily Dickinson

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  

Theme for English B  

**Nightmare Boogie

Harlem [Dream Deferred]  

Homecoming

Langston Hughes on Langston Hughes

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain  

The Harlem Renaissance  

Critics on Langston Hughes

Arnold Rampersad n Hughes as an Experimentalist  

Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson n Langston Hughes and Harlem  

Darryl Pinckney n Black Identity in Langston Hughes  

Peter Townsend n Langston Hughes and Jazz  

Onwuchekwa Jemie n 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 n Review from Times Literary Supplement   

Unsigned n Review from Literary World   

Conrad Aiken n From “Divers Realists,” The Dial   

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

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

May Sinclair n 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 n One of the Irrefutable Poets  

Christopher Ricks n What’s in a Name?  

Philip R. Headings n The Pronouns in the Poem: “One,” “You,” and “I”  

Maud Ellmann n Will There Be Time?  

Burton Raffel n “Indeterminacy” in Eliot’s Poetry  

John Berryman n Prufrock’s Dilemma  

M. L. Rosenthal n Adolescents Singing  

Topics for Writing  

33 Poems for Further Reading  

Anonymous n Lord Randall  

Anonymous n The Three Ravens  

Anonymous  n Last Words of the Prophet  

Matthew Arnold n Dover Beach  

John Ashbery n At North Farm  

Margaret Atwood n Siren Song  

W. H. Auden n As I Walked Out One Evening  

W. H. Auden n Musée des Beaux Arts 

Jimmy Baca n Spliced Wire

Elizabeth Bishop n Filling Station  

William Blake n The Tyger  

William Blake n The Sick Rose  

Gwendolyn Brooks n The Mother  

Gwendolyn Brooks n The Rites for Cousin Vit

Elizabeth Barrett Browning n How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways  

Robert Browning n Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister  

Charles Bukowski n Dostoevsky

**Lorna Dee Cervantes  n Cannery Town in August

Geoffrey Chaucer n Merciless Beauty  

John  Ciardi n Most Like an Arch This Marriage

Samuel Taylor Coleridge n Kubla Khan  

Billy Collins n Care and Feeding  

Hart Crane n My Grandmother’s Love Letters  

E. E. Cummings n somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond  

Marisa de los Santos n Perfect Dress  

John Donne n Death be not proud  

John Donne n The Flea  

John Donne n A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning  

Rita Dove n Daystar

T. S. Eliot n Journey of the Magi  

Robert Frost n Birches  

Robert Frost n Mending Wall  

Robert Frost n Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening  

Allen Ginsberg n A Supermarket in California  

Thomas Hardy n The Convergence of the Twain  

Thomas Hardy n The Darkling Thrush  

Thomas Hardy n Hap  

Seamus Heaney n Digging  

Anthony Hecht n The Vow

George Herbert n Love  

Robert Herrick n To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time  

Tony Hoagland n Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins n Spring and Fall  

Gerard Manley Hopkins n The Windhover  

A. E. Housman n Loveliest of trees, the cherry now  

A. E. Housman n To an Athlete Dying Young  

Randall Jarrell n The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner  

**Robinson Jeffers n Rock and Hawk

Ha Jin n Missed Time

Ben Jonson n On My First Son  

Donald Justice n On the Death of Friends in Childhood  

John Keats n Ode on a Grecian Urn  

John Keats n When I have fears that I may cease to be  

John Keats n To Autumn  

Ted Kooser n Abandoned Farmhouse  

Philip Larkin n Home is so Sad  

Philip Larkin n Poetry of Departures  

D. H. Lawrence n Piano  

**Denise Levertov n O Taste and See

Shirley Geok-lin Lim n Learning to Love America

Robert Lowell n Skunk Hour  

Andrew Marvell n To His Coy Mistress  

Edna St. Vincent Millay n Recuerdo  

John Milton n When I consider how my light is spent  

Marianne Moore n Poetry  

Marilyn Nelson n A Strange Beautiful Woman  

Howard Nemerov n The War in the Air  

Lorine Niedecker n Sorrow Moves in Wide Waves

Sharon Olds n The One Girl at the Boys’ Party  

Wilfred Owen n Anthem for Doomed Youth  

Sylvia Plath n Daddy  

Edgar Allan Poe n A Dream within a Dream  

Alexander Pope n A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing  

Ezra Pound n The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter  

Dudley Randall n A Different Image  

John Crowe Ransom n Piazza Piece  

Henry Reed n Naming of Parts  

Adrienne Rich n Living in Sin  

Edwin Arlington Robinson n Miniver Cheevy  

Theodore Roethke n Elegy for Jane  

William Shakespeare n When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes  

William Shakespeare n That time of year thou mayst in me behold  

**William Shakespeare n When to the sessions of sweet silent thought  

William Shakespeare n My mistress’ eyes are nothing likethe sun  

Charles Simic  n The Butcher Shop

Christopher Smart n For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry  

Cathy Song n Stamp Collecting  

William Stafford n The Farm on the Great Plains  

Wallace Stevens n The Emperor of Ice-Cream  

Jonathan Swift n A Description of the Morning  

Alfred, Lord Tennyson n Ulysses  

Dylan Thomas n Fern Hill  

John Updike n Ex-Basketball Player  

**Derek Walcott n Sea Grapes

**Margaret Walker n For Malcolm X

Edmund Waller n Go, Lovely Rose  

Walt Whitman n from Song of the Open Road  

Walt Whitman n I Hear America Singing  

Richard Wilbur n The Writer  

William Carlos Williams n Spring and All  

**William Carlos Williams n Queen-Anne’s-Lace

William Wordsworth n Composed upon Westminster Bridge  

James Wright n Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio  

Mary Sidney Wroth n In this strange labyrinth  

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

William Butler Yeats n Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop  

William Butler Yeats n The Magi  

William Butler Yeats n When You Are Old  

Drama

A Conversation with David Ives

34 Reading a Play  

Theatrical Conventions

Elements of a Play       

Susan Glaspell n Trifles  

Was Minnie Wright to blame for the death of her husband? While the menfolk try to unravel a mystery, two women in the kitchen turn up revealing clues.

Analyzing Trifles    

Writing Effectively

Susan Glaspell on Writing n Creating Trifles  

THINKING About a play  

CHECKLIST: Writing about a play  

Writing Assignment on Conflict

Sample Student Paper n Outside Trifles

More Topics for Writing

TERMS for review

35 Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy  

Tragedy 

Christopher Marlowe n Scene From Doctor Faustus (Act 2, Scene 1)  

In this scene from the classic drama, a brilliant scholar sells his soul to the devil. How smart is that?

Comedy 

**David Ives n Sure Thing

     Bill wants to pick up Betty in a cafe, but he makes every mistake in the book. Luckily, he not only gets a second chance, but a third and a fourth as well. 

Writing Effectively

David Ives  on Writing n On the one-act play  

thinking about comedy

checklist: Writing about comedy

Writing Assignment on comedy

Topics for Writing About tragedy

Topics for Writing About Comedy  

Terms for Review

36 Critical Casebook: Sophocles  

The Theater of Sophocles  

The Civic Role of Greek Drama  

Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy  

Sophocles  

The Origins of Oedipus the King   

Sophocles n Oedipus the King (Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)  

“Who is the man proclaimed / by Delphi’s prophetic rock / as the bloody handed murderer / the doer of deeds that none dare name? / . . . Terrribly close on his heels are the Fates that never miss.”

The Background of Antigonê  

Sophocles n Antigoné (Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald)  

In one of the great plays of classical Greek drama, a daughter of Oedipus strives to give the body of her slain brother a proper burial. Soon she finds herself in conflict with a king.

Critics on Sophocles

Aristotle n Defining Tragedy  

Sigmund Freud n The Destiny of Oedipus  

E. R. Dodds n On Misunderstanding Oedipus 

A. E. Haigh n The Irony of Sophocles  

David Wiles n The Chorus as Democrat  

Patricia M. Lines n what is Antigon é’s Flaw?  

Writing Effectively

Writers on Writing  

Robert Fitzgerald n Translating Sophocles into English  

THINKING About Greek Tragedy  

CHECKLIST: writing about greek drama  

Writing Assignment on Sophocles  

More Topics for Writing  

Terms for Review

37Critical Casebook: Shakespeare  

The Theater of Shakespeare  

William Shakespeare  

A Note on Othello  

William Shakespeare n Othello, the Moor of Venice  

Here is a story of jealousy, that “green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on”—of a passionate, suspicious man and his blameless wife, of a serpent masked as a friend.

The Background of Hamlet  

William Shakespeare n Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  

In perhaps the most celebrated play in English, a ghost demands that young Prince Hamlet avenge his father’s “most foul and unnatural murder.” But how can Hamlet be sure that the apparition is indeed his father’s spirit?

The Background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

William Shakespeare n A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

“The course of true love never did run smooth” is the right motto for this romantic comedy in which love, magic, and mistaken identity combine for madcap results.

Critics on Shakespeare

Anthony Burgess n An Asian Culture Looks at Shakespeare  1658

W. H. Auden n Iago as a Triumphant Villain  1664

Maud Bodkin n Lucifer in Shakespeare’s Othello  1665

Virginia Mason Vaughan n Black and White in Othello  1665

A. C. Bradley n Hamlet’s Melancholy  1659

Rebecca West n Hamlet and Ophelia  1660

Jan Kott n Producing Hamlet  1662

**Johann  von Goethe n Hamlet as a Hero Unfit for his Destiny

**Edgar Allan Poe n Hamlet as a Fictional Character

Clare Asquith n Shakespeare’s Language as a Hidden Political Code  1666

Germaine Greer n Shakespeare’s “Honest Mirth”  1667

Linda Bamber n Female Power in A Midsummer Night’s Dream  1668

Writing Effectively

Ben Jonson on Writing n On His Friend and Rival William Shakespeare  1669

*Understanding Shakespeare  

*Checklist:writing about shakespeare  

Writing Assignment on Tragedy  1671

Student Paper n Othello: Tragedy or Soap Opera?  1671

More Topics for Writing  1676

   
38  The Modern Theater  1677

Realism

Naturalism

Symbolism and Expressionism

American Modernism

Henrik Ibsen n A Doll’s House (Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, Revised by Viktoria Michelsen)

The founder of modern drama portrays a troubled marriage. Helmer, the bank manager, regards his wife Nora as a “little featherbrain”—not knowing the truth may shatter his smug world. 

Henrik Ibsen on Writing n Correspondence on the Final Scene of A Doll’s House   1735

Tennessee Williams n The Glass Menagerie  1836

Painfully shy and retiring, shunning love, Laura dwells in a world as fragile as her collection of tiny figurines—until one memorable night a gentleman comes to call.

Tennessee Williams on Writing n How to Stage The Glass Menagerie

Tragicomedy and the Absurd

Return to Realism

Experimental Drama

**Milcha Sanchez-Scott n The Cuban Swimmer

     Nineteen-year-old Margarita Suárez wants to win a Southern California distance swimming race. Is her family behind her? Quite literally!

Milcha Sanchez-Scott on Writing n Writing The Cuban Swimmer

Documentary Drama

Anna Deavere Smithn Scenes from Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

The violence that tore apart a city, in the words of those who were there.

Anna Deavere Smith on Writing n A Call to the Community  1833

Writing Effectively

THINKING About Dramatic Realism  

CHECKLIST: writing about realism  

Writing Assignment on Realism  

Student Essay n Helmer vs. Helmer  

More Topics for Writing  

Terms for Review

39 Evaluating a Play  1759

Judging a Play   1677

CHECKLIST: Evaluating a play  

Writing Assignment on Evaluation  1761

More Topics for Writing   1761

40 Plays for Further Reading  1763

David Henry Hwang n The Sound of a Voice  1976

A strange man arrives at a solitary woman’s home in the remote countryside. As they fall in love, they discover disturbing secrets about one another’s past.

David Henry Hwang on Writing n Multicultural Theater  

**Edward Bok Lee n El Santo Americano

     A wrestler and his unhappy wife drive through the desert to a surprising conclusion.

Edward Bok Lee on Writing 

**Jane Martin n Beauty  

     We’ve all wanted to be someone else at one time or another But what would happen if we got our wish?

Arthur Miller n Death of a Salesman  1763

Willy Loman has bright dreams for himself and his two sons, but he is an aging salesman whose only assets are a shoeshine and a smile. A modern classic about the downfall of an ordinary American.

Arthur Miller on Writing n Tragedy and the Common Man  

August Wilson n Fences  1996

A proud man’s love for his family is choked by his rigidity and self-righteousness, in this powerful drama by a great American playwright of our time.

August Wilson on Writing n A Look into Black America 

Writing

41 Writing About Literature  

Read Actively  

Robert Frost n Nothing Gold Can Stay  

Plan Your Essay  

Pre-Writing: Discover Your Ideas  

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises  

Develop a Literary Argument  

Checklist  

Developing an Argument  

Write a Rough Draft  

Sample Student Paper n Rough Draft

Revise Your Draft  

Checklist  

Revising Your Draft

Some Final Advice on Rewriting  

Sample Student Paper n revised Draft 

Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism

The Form of Your Finished Paper  

Spell-Check and Grammar-Check Programs  

Anonymous (after a poem by Jerrold H. Zar) n A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell Checkers  

42 Writing About a Story  

Read Actively  

Think About the Story  

Pre-Writing: Discover Your Ideas  

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises

Write a Rough Draft  

Checklist 

Writing a Rough Draft  

Revise Your Draft   

Checklist  

Revising Your Draft    

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

explication  

Sample Student Paper, Explication

analysis  

Sample Student Paper, Analysis

the card report  

Sample Student Card Report  

comparison and contrast  

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast

Response paper

Sample Student Response Paper

Topics for Writing  

43 Writing About a Poem  

Read Actively  

Robert Frost n Design  

Think About the Poem  

Pre-Writing: Discover Your Ideas 

Sample Student Prewriting Exercises  

Write a Rough Draft  

Checklist  

Writing a Rough Draft  

Revise Your Draft  

Checklist

Revising Your Draft

Common Approaches to Writing About Poetry  

explication  

Sample Student Paper, Explication

a critic’s explication of frost’s “design”  

analysis  

Sample Student Paper, Analysis

comparison and contrast  

Abbie Huston Evans n Wing-Spread  

Sample Student Paper, Comparison and Contrast

How to Quote a Poem  

Topics for Writing  

Robert Frost n In White  

44 Writing About a Play  

Read Critically

Common Approaches to Writing About Drama  

explication  

analysis  

comparison and contrast  

card report  

Sample Student Card Report  

drama review  

Sample Student Drama Review  

How to Quote a Play  

Topics for Writing  

45 Writing a Research Paper  

Browse the Research

Choose a Topic  

Begin Your Research

Print Resources  

Online Databases  

Reliable Web Sources  

Checklist  

Finding Reliable Sources  

Visual Images  

Checklist  

Using Visual Images  

Evaluate Your Sources  

Print Resources  

Web Resources  

Checklist  

Evaluating Your Sources  

Organize Your Research  

Refine Your Thesis  

Organize Your Paper  

Write and Revise

Maintain Academic Integrity  

Acknowledge All Sources  

quotations 

Citing Ideas  

Document Sources Using MLA Style  

Parenthetical References  

Works Cited List  

Citing Print Sources in MLA Style  

Citing WeB Sources in MLA Style  

Sample List of Works Cited  

Endnotes and Footnotes  

Reference Guide for Citations  

46 Writing as Discovery: Keeping a Journal  

The Rewards of Keeping a Journal

Sample Journal Entry  

Sample Student Journal  

47 Writing an Essay Exam  

Checklist  

Taking an Essay Exam  

               P R A C T I C E  E S S A Y  E X A M

               Toni Cade Bambara n The Lesson

48 Critical Approaches to Literature  

Formalist Criticism  

Cleanth Brooks n The Formalist Critic  

Michael Clark n Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues”  

Robert Langbaum n On Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”  

Biographical Criticism  

**Leslie Fiedler n The Relationship of Poet and Poem

Brett C. Millier n On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”  

Emily Toth n The Source for AlcÉé LaballiÈre in “The Storm”  

Historical Criticism  

Hugh Kenner n Imagism  

**Seamus Deane n Joyce’s Dublin

Kathryn Lee Seidel n The Economics of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” 

Psychological Criticism  

Sigmund Freud n The Nature of Dreams  

Gretchen Schulz and R. J. R. Rockwood n Fairy Tale Motifs in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Harold Bloom n Poetic Influence  2

Mythological Criticism  

Carl Jung n The Collective Unconscious and Archetypes  

Northrop Frye n Mythic Archetypes  

Edmond Volpe n Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”  

Sociological Criticism  

Georg Lukacs n Content Determines Form  

Daniel P. Watkins n Money and Labor in “The Rocking-Horse Winner”  

Alfred Kazin n Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln  

Gender Criticism  

**Elaine Showalter n Toward a Feminist Poetics

Nina Pelikan Straus n Transformations in The Metamorphosis   

Richard R. Bozorth n “Tell Me the Truth About Love” 

Reader-Response Criticism  

Stanley Fish n An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily”  

Robert Scholes n “How Do We Make a Poem?”  

Michael J. Colacurcio n The End of Young Goodman Brown  

Deconstructionist Criticism  

Roland Barthes n The Death of the Author  

Barbara Johnson n Rigorous Unreliability        

Geoffrey Hartman n On Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”  

Cultural Studies  

Vincent B. Leitch n Poststructuralist Cultural Critique  

Mark Bauerlein n What Is Cultural Studies?  

Camille Paglia n A Reading of William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”  

TERMS FOR REVIEW

Acknowledgments  

Photo Acknowledgments  

Index of Major Themes 

Index of First Lines of Poetry 

Index of Authors and Titles  

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