Preface to the Student: Every Story Tells a Story that Has Already Been Told

PART I. READING LITERATURE: THE BIG PICTURE

CHAPTER 1. TELLING AND RETELLING STORIES

READING AND INTERPRETATION

The Influence of Culture: Three Tellings of "Cinderella"

Disney, "Cinderella"

Grimm, "Cinderella"

Chinese story of Cinderella, "Yeh-hsien"

The Influence of Time

The Importance of Perspective

Riddling: Multiple Perspectives

Atwood, "you fit into me"

Plath, "Metaphors" (exercise)

Parody: Arnold's "Dover Beach" and Hecht's "The Dover Bitch"

READING CRITICALLY AND THINKING CRITICALLY: WHAT VERSUS HOW AND WHY

Atwood, "Happy Endings"

CHAPTER 2. READING ACROSS GENRES: THE ELEMENTS OF LITERATURE

TELLING THE TALE: THE ROLE OF THE SPEAKER

Browning, "Porphyria’s Lover"

GETTING TO KNOW THE PEOPLE: CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION

Silko, "Yellow Woman"

TIME AND PLACE: LOOKING AT SETTING

The Physical Setting

Glaspell, Trifles

The Temporal Setting

Retelling Time and Place

Cultural Setting

APPEALS TO THE SENSES: SOUND AND VISUAL IMAGERY

Sound and Sense

Frost, "Stopping by Woods"

Sight and Sense

Shakespeare, Sonnet 73 and Snodgrass, two retellings of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 (exercise)

THE READER"S ROLE: THE IMPORTANCE OF AUDIENCE

Differing World Views

Finding the Evidence

Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz"

PART II. READING DIFFERENT GENRES

CHAPTER 3. READING SHORT FICTION

Chopin, "The Story of an Hour"

ELEMENTS OF FICTION

The Narrator/Point of View

Plot

Character

Setting/Atmosphere

Theme

Fictional Form

CHAPTER 4. READING POETRY

THE SPEAKER

THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY

Word Choice

cummings, "in Just-"

Figurative Language

RHYTHM AND RHYME

The Beat Goes On: Stress and Sense in Poetry

Donne, "Batter My Heart"

Dickinson, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"

Donne, "Death, Be Not Proud" (exercise)

Traditional Metrical Patterns

Rhyme

Alliteration and Assonance

POETIC STRUCTURE AND GENRE

Shakespeare, Sonnet 73 ("That time of year")

CHAPTER 5. READING DRAMA

Valdez, Los Vendidos

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA

The Absence of the Narrator

Plot and Structure

Character

Two movie stills for Hamlet

Setting and Staging

The Audience and Dramatic Irony

Theme

DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS: THE FOURTH WALL

TYPES OF DRAMA

Tragedy

Comedy

Tragicomedy

CHAPTER 6. READING NONFICTION AND OTHER NON-LITERARY TEXTS

READING ESSAYS

Types of Essays

The Narrative Essay

The Descriptive Essay

The Argumentative or Analytical Essay

Rapping, "In Praise of Roseanne"

Elements of Essays

Thesis

Tone and Style

Structure

CRITICAL READING AND NONFICTION: "RETELLING" STORIES OF "FACT"

READING OTHER TEXTS

Buying a Story: Advertising

The New Beetle (graphic)

Storytelling in Film and Television

Frame from The English Patient

Elements of Film and Television

Film, Television, and Drama

Film and Fiction

PART III. WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE

CHAPTER 7. WRITING FROM START TO FINISH

GETTING READY TO WRITE

Keeping a Journal and Freewriting

Annotating a Text

Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

Summarizing the Work

Playing with Word Associations

Asking Reporters' Questions

MOVING TOWARD A THESIS

Finding Some Answers

Formulating the Thesis Question

MOVING TOWARD THE FIRST DRAFT

Writing Notes and Questions

A Rough Outline

Outline/Draft

THE PARTS OF THE PAPER: WORKING ON THE INTRODUCTION, BODY, AND CONCLUSION

The Introduction

The Body Paragraphs: Supplying the Argument and Using Evidence

Using Quotations

Writing a Conclusion

REVISING AND EDITING

Revising

Editing

A Note on Writing with a Word Processor

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Johnson, "'In Thy Marble Vault’: Violence and Coercion in Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress’" (student essay)

PART IV. TELLINGS AND RETELLINGS

CHAPTER 8. MONSTERS AND HEROES

Frontispiece: John Tenniel's Illustration of "Jabberwocky"

Carroll, "Jabberwocky"

AN ALBUM OF RETELLINGS:

The Modern Monster

Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Visual from Smooth Talk

Moser, "The Pied Piper of Tucson"

Dylan, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"

Grien, Death and the Maiden

Monstrous Crime

Carter, "The Fall River Ax Murders"

McGovern and Powers, Three Lyrics from Lizzie Borden (a musical)

"The House on the Hill"

"Fly Away"

"I Cry Alone"

"In a New Light" (from The New York Recorder)

"Will Go to the Jury To-Day" (from The New York Times)

"'Guilty-No! No!"" (from Sunday Post)

King, "A WASP Looks at Lizzie Borden"

The Borden Home (website for Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast and Museum)

The Wandering Hero: The Odysseus Story

Selections from Homer

Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Cavafy, "Ithaka"

Howard, "Ithaca: The Palace at 4 a.m."

Parker, "Penelope"

Pastan, "Rereading The Odyssey in Middle Age"

Dickey (William), "Telemachus"

Glück, "Telemachus" Fantasy"

A Brief Introduction to Shakespeare's Theater

Blurring the Line: The Tempest

Shakespeare, The Tempest

Poster for Forbidden Planet

Condon, "The Usurped Turns Usurper" (student writing)

Goto, "Miranda Cries . . ."

Greger, "Miranda on the British Isles"

Hecht (Roger), "Ferdinand to Prospero at Milan"

Césaire, A Tempest

"Enchanted Island"

FURTHER REFLECTIONS: A Collection of Works on the Theme of Monsters and Heroes

Poetry

Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Cummings, "Buffalo Bill's"

Housman, "To An Athlete Dying Young"

Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

Plath, "Daddy"

Short Stories

Atwood, "Rape Fantasies"

Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"

Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Updike, "A&P"

Essays

Engle, "What Makes Superman So Darned American?"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Chapter Questions on the Theme of Monsters and Heroes

CHAPTER 9. LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

Frontispiece: Gerôme's Pygmalion and Galatea

Petrarch, Sonnet 130

Shakespeare, Sonnet 126 (My Mistress's Eyes)

Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"

AN ALBUM OF RETELLINGS

In Praise of the Beloved

Shakespeare, "Shall I Compare Thee"

Moss, "Shall I Compare Thee"

The Wooing Game

Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"

Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"

Donne, "The Bait"

C. Day Lewis, "Song"

Williams, "Raleigh Was Right"

Nash, "Love under the Republicans (or Democrats)"

Love and Marriage

Li Po, "Song from Chang-Kan"

Pound, "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"

Hirsch, "The River Merchant"

A Question of Fidelity

Chekhov, "The Lady with the Pet Dog"

Oates, "The Lady with the Pet Dog"

Charamuga, on "The Two Worlds of Gurov" (student writing)

Bringing Up the Past

Carver, "Cathedral"

Gallagher, "Rain Flooding Your Campfire"

Gallagher, "The Harvest" (excerpt)

The Family and Beyond: The Story of Ruth

Hebrew Ruth story

Piercy, "The Book of Ruth and Naomi"

Rothschild, "Growing Up and Older with Ruth"

Immortal Love

Plate of the Cluny La Vue (Sight) tapestry (from The Lady and the Unicorn series)

Sarton, "The Lady and the Unicorn: The Cluny Tapestries"

The Unicorn in Captivity

Lindbergh, "The Unicorn in Captivity"

Thurber, "The Unicorn in the Garden"

FURTHER REFLECTIONS: A Collection of Works on the Theme of Love and Friendship

Poetry

Blake, "The Sick Rose"

Ginsberg, "Supermarket in California"

Giovanni, "Woman"

Hughes, "Mother to Son"

Liu, "My Father's Martial Art"

Mirikitani, "Desert Flowers"

Mora, "Borders"

Piercy, "A Work of Artifice"

Song, "The Youngest Daughter"

Short Stories

Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"

Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Hurston, "Sweat"

Joyce, "Araby"

Munro, "The Found Boat"

Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing"

Walker, "Everyday Use"

Drama

A Brief Introduction to the Modern Theater

Still from a 1994 film version of Oleanna

Mamet, Oleanna

EssayDidion, "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Chapter Questions on the Theme of Love and Friendship

CHAPTER 10. LIFE PASSAGES

Frontispiece: Album Cover for Def Leppard’s Retro ActiveHall, "My Son My Executioner"

AN ALBUM OF RETELLINGS:

Childhood and Innocence: Little Red Riding Hood

Perrault, "Little Red Riding Hood"

Grimm, "Little Red Cap"

Lee, "Wolfland"

Carter, "The Company of Wolves"

Blackwell, "Li'l Red Riding Hood"

Dahl, "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf"

Broumas, "Little Red Riding Hood"

Doré, illustration of Little Red Riding Hood

Bettelheim, "Little Red Riding Hood" Two Reader Response Journals on Little Red Riding Hood (student writing)

Childhood Lost and Found: Peter Pan

Barrie, Peter Pan

Barrie, From The Little White Bird

Barrie, "When Wendy Grew Up" (from Peter and Wendy)

Frampton, Statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Leigh, "I Won't Grow Up"

McMahon, "Peter Pan"

Modeling and Play: The World of Barbie

U.S. Postal Service, 33¢ stamp of Barbie

Piercy, "Barbie Doll"

McMahon, "Barbie's Ferrari"

Joseph, "Barbie's Little Sister"

Lord, "Who Is Barbie, Anyway?"

Venturing Out into the World

Mansfield, "Her First Ball"

Ihimaera, "His First Ball"

Death and Beyond

Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle . . ."

Pastan, "Go Gentle"

Dickinson, "I heard a fly buzz"

Waniek, "Emily Dickinson's Defunct"

FURTHER REFLECTIONS: A Collection of Works on the Theme of Growing Up and Older

Poetry

Bishop, "Sestina"

Blake, "The Lamb" (with illustration)

Blake, "The Tyger" (with illustration)

Brooks, "We Real Cool"

Frost, "Birches"

Heaney, "Mid-term Break"

Lawrence, "Piano"

Lee, "I Ask My Mother To Sing"

Olds, "Rites of Passage"

Shelley, "Ozymandias"

Short Stories

Alexie, "A Good Story"

Bambara, "The Lesson"

Cather, "Paul's Case"

Ellison, "Battle Royal"

Erdrich, "The Red Convertible"

Kincaid, "Girl"

Essays

McCarthy, "The Tin Butterfly"

White, "Once More to the Lake"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Chapter Questions on the Theme of Growing Up and Older

CHAPTER 11. INNOCENCE LOST

Frontispiece: Matisse, Icaire

Reed, "Naming of Parts"

AN ALBUM OF RETELLINGS

Transgressions: Lot's Wife

Genesis 19

Akhmatova, "Lot's Wife"

Smith, "Lot's Wife

Batey, "Lot's Wife"

Holbo, "Gomorrah"

Rukeyser, "Ms. Lot"

Testing the Limits: The Story of Icarus

Ovid, Icarus story from The Metamorphoses

Breughel, Landscape with Fall of Icarus

Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts"

Williams, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"

Sexton, "To a Friend Whose Work . . . "

Rukeyser, "Waiting for Icarus"

Hayden, "O Daedalus"

Braniff, "The Insignificance of Icarus" (student writing)

A World of Horror

Münch, The Scream

Two parodies of Münch's The Scream (two Home Alone posters)

Hall, "The Scream"

Everyman and Every Day

Auden, "The Unknown Citizen"

Nemerov, "The Life Cycle of the Common Man"

Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us"

Levertov, "O Taste and See"

Modern Disillusionment

Stevens, "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock"

Cleminshaw, "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock"

Warring Within: Birmingham and the Struggle for Civil Rights

Randall, "Ballad of Birmingham"

Patterson, "Birmingham 1963"

Farina, "Birmingham Sunday"

Hughes, "Birmingham Sunday"

Harper, "American History"

Merton, "And the Children of Birmingham"

The Perspective of Time: Two Reports of the Birmingham Bombing

Newsweek report (Sept. 30, 1963)

Sikora, excerpt from Until Justice Rolls Down

Memorializing Vietnam

Southwell, "The Burning Babe"

Levertov, "Advent 1966"

Teter, Reflections

Dana, "At the Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, D.C."

Young Bear, "Wadasa Nakamoon, Vietnam Memorial"

Ehrhart, "Midnight at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial"

McDonald, "Black Granite Burns Like Ice"

Schultz, "Vietnam War Memorial Night"

Komunyakaa, "Facing It"

Reidhammer-Basurto, "The Crowd on the Wall" (student poem)

Allen, "Offerings at the Wall"

Scott, "Meditations in Black: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial"

Peace in the Night Sky

Van Gogh, Starry Night

Sexton, "The Starry Night"

McLean, "Vincent"

FURTHER REFLECTIONS: A Collection of Works on the Theme of Innocence Lost

Poetry

Bishop, "The Fish"

Blake, "London"

Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"

Hughes, "Harlem"

Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Roethke, "Dolor"

Thomas, "The Hand that Signed the Paper"

Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Short Stories

Crane, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown"

Hemingway, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

Jackson, "The Lottery"

Jen, "In the American Society"

Lawrence, "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"

Williams, "The Use of Force"

Drama

A Brief Introduction to Greek Drama

Sophocles, Antigone

Essays

Swift, "A Modest Proposal"

Orwell, "Marrakech"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Chapter Questions on the Theme of Innocence Lost

PART V. FOR FURTHER STUDY: THREE CASEBOOKS OF RETELLINGS

CHAPTER 12: A CASEBOOK ON OEDIPUS: LIVING WITH FATE

Sophocles, Oedipus

Still from 1968 movie of Oedipus

Cavafy, "Oedipus"

Muir, "Oedipus"

Jarrell, "The Sphinx's Riddle"

Dennis, "Oedipus the King"

Lehrer, "Oedipus Rex"

Rukeyser, "Myth"

Sheck, "Filming Jocasta"

Gallaher, "Jocasta"

Freud on the Oedipus complex

Two Critical Essays on Oedipus

P. H. Vellacott, "The Guilt of Oedipus"

E. R. Dodds, "On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex"

Dove, The Darker Face of the Earth

Dove, The Recognition Scene from the 1st edition of The Darker Face of the Earth

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Oedipus: Living with Fate

TOPICS FOR RESEARCH: Oedipus: Living with Fate

CHAPTER 13. A CASEBOOK ON HAMLET : MURDER AND MADNESS

Shakespeare, Hamlet

Branagh, movie still and two excerpts from Hamlet (screenplay)

Burnett, "The Very Cunning of the Scene": Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet"

Atwood, "Gertrude Talks Back"

MacNeice, "Rites of War"

Ciardi, "Hamlet in the Wings"

Simpson, "Laertes in Paris"

Association of the Bar of the City of New York, The Elsinore Appeal: People v. Hamlet (excerpt)

Bohannan, "Shakespeare in the Bush"

Miller and Goldblatt, "Defining the Hamlet Syndrome," from The Hamlet Syndrome: Overthinkers Who Underachieve (excerpt)

Pipher, from Reviving Ophelia (excerpt)

Jones, "Tragedy and the Mind of the Infant"

Heilbrun, "The Character of Hamlet's Mother"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Hamlet

TOPICS FOR RESEARCH: Hamlet

CHAPTER 14. A CASEBOOK ON DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE: WHAT LIES WITHIN

Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"The Strange Case of Dr. T. and Mr. H., Or Two Single Gentlemen rolled into one." (Punch parody)

Two Covers for Comic Book Retellings of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

McMullan, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (excerpts from a children's version)

Eprile, "A True History of the Notorious Mr. Edward Hyde"

James, from Partial Portraits

Showalter, "Dr. Jekyll's Closet"

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: What Lies Within

TOPICS FOR RESEARCH: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: What Lies Within

APPENDIX 1: WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

BREAKING THE BOUNDARIES: QUESTIONS THAT MOVE ACROSS THEMES

SOME COMMON ASSIGNMENTS

Explication

Lee, "Time and Structure in 'That Time of Year'" (student writing)

Analysis

Comparison and Contrast

MacLeish, "You, Andrew Marvell"

Ackerman, "A Fine, A Private Place"

Meinke, "To His Coy Mistress, 1966"

Rallis, "'To His Coy Mister" and "'To His Coy Mister": A Seize the Gay Poem" (student poem and essay)

Review

APPENDIX 2: USING AND DOCUMENTING SOURCES

DOING THE RESEARCH

Taking Notes

Quotation, Summary, and Paraphrase

Avoiding Plagiarism

CITATION AND DOCUMENTATION

Parenthetical Citations

Documentation

Di Filippo, "Paul's Case and the Greed for Pleasure" (student writing)

APPENDIX 3: SCHOOLS OF LITERARY CRITICISM

Gender Studies

Socio-Historical Criticism

New Historicism

Postcolonial Criticism

Marxist Criticism

Cultural Studies

Biographical Criticism

Psychological Criticism

Mythological or Archetypal Criticism

New Criticism, or Formalism

Reader-Response Criticism and Deconstructionism

APPENDIX 4: BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF SELECTED AUTHORS