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Short Guide to Writing About Literature, A

ISBN: 9780321330734 | 0321330730
Edition: 10th
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Longman
Pub. Date: 1/1/2006

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SummaryTable of Contents
The tenth edition of A Short Guide to Writing about Literature continues to offer students sound advice on how to become critical thinkers and enrich their reading response through accessible, step-by-step instruction. This highly respected text is ideal as a supplement to any course where writing about literature or literary studies is emphasized. New to the Tenth Edition: A prefatory "Letter to Students" introduces students to the importance of writing about literature. New Chapter 1: What Is Literature, and Why Write About It? Chapter 2 feat... MORE
PREFACExv
LETTER TO STUDENTSxix
PART 1 Jumping In
1 WHAT IS LITERATURE, AND WHY WRITE ABOUT IT?
3(9)
Aesop... MORE
4(1)
Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"
5(1)
Why We Write about Literature
6(2)
The Writing Process
8(4)
A Checklist of Basic Matters
11(1)
2 THE WRITER AS READER: READING AND RESPONDING
12(11)
Kate Chopin, "Ripe Figs"
12(1)
The Act of Reading
13(2)
Reading with a Pen in Hand
15(1)
Recording Your First Responses
16(1)
Audience and Purpose
17(1)
A Writing Assignment on "Ripe Figs"
18(3)
The Assignment
18(1)
A Sample Essay: 'Images of Ripening in Kate Chopin's 'Ripe Figs"'
18(2)
The Student's Analysis Analyzed
20(1)
Critical Thinking and the Study of Literature
21(2)
3 THE READER AS WRITER: DRAFTING AND WRITING
23(25)
Pre-writing: Getting Ideas
23(9)
Annotating a Text
23(1)
More about Getting Ideas: A Second Story by Kate Chopin, 'The Story of an Hour"
24(1)
Kate Chopin: 'The Story of an Hour"
24(2)
Brainstorming for Ideas for Writing
26(1)
Focused Free Writing
27(1)
Listing
28(2)
Asking Questions
30(1)
Keeping a Journal
31(1)
Critical Thinking: Arguing with Yourself
32(4)
Arriving at a Thesis and Arguing It
34(2)
Writing a Draft
36(8)
A Sample Draft: "Ironies in an Hour"
36(2)
Revising a Draft
38(2)
A Checklist for Revising for Clarity
39(1)
Two Ways of Outlining a Draft
40(2)
A Checklist for Reviewing a Revised Draft
41(1)
Peer Review
42(2)
The Final Version
44(3)
Sample Essay: "Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour"'
44(2)
A Brief Overview of the Final Version
46(1)
Quick Review
47(1)
From First Responses to Final Version: Writing an Essay about a Literary Work
47(1)
4 TWO FORMS OF CRITICISM: EXPLICATION AND ANALYSIS
48(24)
Explication
48(8)
A Sample Explication: Langston Hughes's "Harlem"
48(2)
Working toward an Explication of "Harlem"
50(1)
Some Journal Entries
51(2)
The Final Draft: "Langston Hughes's 'Harlem' "
53(1)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
54(1)
Topics for Discussion
55(1)
A Checklist: Drafting an Explication
56(1)
Analysis: The Judgment of Solomon
56(8)
Thinking about Form 58 Thinking about Character
59(1)
Thoughts about Other Possibilities
59(1)
Comparison: An Analytic Tool
60(7)
A Checklist: Revising a Comparison
63(1)
Finding a Topic
64(1)
Considering the Evidence 65 Organizing the Material
65(1)
Communicating Judgments
66(1)
Review: How to Write an Effective Essay
67(5)
1. Pre-writing
67(1)
2. Drafting
67(1)
3. Revising
68(2)
4. Editing
70(7)
Editing Checklist: Questions to Ask Yourself When Editing
70(2)
5 OTHER KINDS OF WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
72(15)
A Summary
72(2)
A Paraphrase
74(2)
A Parody
76(1)
A Review
77(10)
A Review of a Dramatic Production
77(1)
A Sample Review: "An Effective Macbeth"
78(9)
PART 2 Standing Back: Thinking Critically about Literature
6 LITERATURE, FORM, AND MEANING
87(10)
Literature and Form
87(4)
Literature and Meaning
89(1)
Arguing about Meaning
90(1)
Form and Meaning
91(2)
Robert Frost, 'The Span of Life"
91(2)
The Literary Canon
93(1)
Literature, Texts, Discourses, and Cultural Studies
94(1)
Suggestions for Further Reading
95(2)
7 WHAT IS INTERPRETATION?
97(12)
Interpretation and Meaning
97(1)
Is the Author's Intention a Guide to Meaning?
98(1)
Characteristics of a Good Interpretation
99(1)
An Example: Interpreting Pat Mora's "Immigrants"
100(2)
Thinking Critically about Literature
102(1)
A Student Interpretation of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
103(5)
Sample Essay: "Stopping by Woods and Going On"
104(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading
108(1)
8 WHAT IS EVALUATION?
109(7)
Criticism and Evaluation
110(1)
Evaluative Language and the Canon
110(1)
Are There Critical Standards?
111(4)
Morality and Truth as Standards
111(2)
Other Ways to Think about Truth and Realism
113(2)
Suggestions for Further Reading
115(1)
9 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE: AN OVERVIEW
116
The Nature of Critical Writing
117(1)
Some Critical Approaches
117(14)
Formalist Criticism (New Criticism)
118(2)
Deconstruction
120(1)
Reader-Response Criticism
121(2)
Archetypal (or myth) Criticism
123(1)
Historical Criticism
124(1)
Marxist Criticism
125(1)
The New Historicism
125(1)
Biographical Criticism
126(1)
Psychological (or Psychoanalytic) Criticism
127(1)
Gender (Feminist, and Lesbian and Gay) Criticism
128(3)
Suggestions for Further Reading
131(8)
PART 3 Up Close: Thinking Critically about Literary Forms
10 WRITING ABOUT FICTION: THE WORLD OF THE STORY
139(136)
Plot and Character
139(7)
Writing about a Character
141(3)
A Sample Essay on a Character: "Holden's Kid Sister"
144(2)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
146(1)
Foreshadowing
146(3)
Organizing an Essay on Foreshadowing
148(1)
Setting and Atmosphere
149(1)
Symbolism
150(7)
A Sample Essay on Setting as Symbol: "Spring Comes to Mrs. Mallard"
152(1)
"Spring Comes to Mrs. Mallard"
153(4)
Point of View
157(4)
Third-Person Narrators
157(2)
First-Person Narrators
159(2)
Notes and a Sample Essay on Narrative Point of View in James Joyce's "Araby"
161(5)
"The Three First-Person Narrators of Joyce's 'Araby'"
162(3)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
165(1)
Theme: Vision or Argument?
166(1)
Determining and Discussing the Theme
166(1)
Preliminary Notes and a Sample Essay on the Theme of Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"
167(11)
Preliminary Notes
167(3)
"Rising into Love"
170(4)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
174(1)
Basing the Paper on Your Own Responses
175(1)
A Note on Secondary Sources
175(3)
Suggestions for Further Reading
178(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Fiction
179(3)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about a Film Based on a Work of Literature
182(3)
11 WRITING ABOUT DRAMA
185(1)
A Sample Essay
186(6)
Preliminary Notes
186(1)
"The Solid Structure of The Glass Menagerie"
187(5)
Types of Plays
192(18)
Tragedy
193(3)
A Checklist: Writing about Tragedy
196(1)
Comedy
196(2)
A Checklist: Writing about Comedy
198(1)
Aspects of Drama
198(2)
Theme
198(2)
Plot
200(5)
A Checklist: Writing about Plot
203(2)
Characterization and Motivation
205(1)
Conventions
206(1)
Costumes, Gestures, and Settings
207(3)
Suggestions for Further Reading
210(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Drama
211(2)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about a Film Based on a Play
213(1)
12 WRITING ABOUT POETRY
214(1)
The Speaker and the Poet
214(10)
Emily Dickinson, "Wild Nights-Wild Nights"
215(1)
The Language of Poetry: Diction and Tone
216(1)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "I, being born a woman and distressed"
217(2)
Writing about the Speaker: Robert Frost's "The Telephone"
219(1)
Robert Frost, "The Telephone"
219(2)
Journal Entries
221(3)
Figurative Language
224(6)
John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
225(3)
Preparing to Write about Figurative Language
228(1)
William Blake, "The Sick Rose"
229(1)
Structure
230(8)
Robert Herrick, "Upon Julia's Clothes"
230(1)
Annotating and Thinking about a Poem
231(1)
The Student's Finished Essay: "Herrick's Julia, Julia's Herrick"
232(2)
Some Kinds of Structure
234(1)
William Wordsworth, "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"
235(1)
John Donne, "The Flea"
236(1)
Verbal Irony
237(1)
Paradox
237(1)
Explication
238(4)
A Sample Explication of Yeats's "The Balloon of the Mind"
239(1)
William Butler Yeats, "The Balloon of the Mind"
239(3)
Rhythm and Versification: A Glossary for Reference
242(9)
Rhythm
242(2)
Meter
244(3)
Patterns of Sound
247(1)
Stanzaic Patterns
248(1)
Blank Verse and Free Verse
249(1)
Walt Whitman, 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"
250(1)
Preparing to Write about Prosody
251(1)
Sample Essay on Metrics: "Sound and Sense in A.E. Housman's 'Eight O'Clock'"
252(5)
"Sound and Sense in A.E. Housman's 'Eight O'Clock' "
253(4)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
257(1)
Suggestions for Further Reading
257(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Poetry
258(3)
13 WRITING ABOUT AN AUTHOR IN DEPTH
261(1)
A Case Study: Writing about Langston Hughes
262(13)
Langston Hughes, "The South"
263(2)
Langston Hughes, "Ruby Brown"
265(1)
Langston Hughes, "Ballad of the Landlord"
266(1)
"A National Problem: Race and Racism in the Poetry of Langston Hughes"
267(4)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
271(4)
PART 4 Inside: Style, Format, and Special Assignments
14 STYLE AND FORMAT
275(63)
Principles of Style
275(16)
Get the Right Word
276(4)
Write Effective Sentences
280(4)
A Checklist for Revising for Conciseness
281(3)
Write Unified and Coherent Paragraphs
284(6)
A Checklist: Revising Paragraphs
289(1)
Write Emphatically
290(1)
Notes on the Dash and the Hyphen
291(1)
Remarks about Manuscript Form
291(7)
Basic Manuscript Form
291(2)
Quotations and Quotation Marks
293(5)
15 WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
298(1)
What Research Is Not, and What Research Is
298(1)
Primary and Secondary Materials
299(3)
Locating Material: First Steps
299(3)
Other Bibliographic Aids
302(1)
Taking Notes
302(3)
Two Mechanical Aids: The Photocopier and the Word Processor
303(1)
A Guide to Note Taking
303(2)
Drafting Your Paper
305(1)
Focus on Primary Sources
306(1)
Documentation
307(15)
What to Document: Avoiding Plagiarism
307(3)
A Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism
309(1)
How to Document: Footnotes, Internal Parenthetical Citations, and a List of Works Cited (MLA Format)
310(12)
Sample Essay with Documentation: "The Women in Death of a Salesman"
322(10)
A Checklist: Reading the Draft of a Research Paper
331(1)
Electronic Sources
332(1)
Encyclopedias: Print and Electronic Versions
332(1)
The Internet/World Wide Web
332(1)
Evaluating Sources on the World Wide Web
333(1)
A Checklist: A Review for Using the World Wide Web
333(1)
Documentation: Citing a Web Source
334(4)
A Checklist: Citing World Wide Web Sources
334(4)
APPENDIX A: TWO STORIES338(1)
James Joyce, "Araby"
338(1)
Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path"
342(7)
APPENDIX B: LITERARY RESEARCH: PRINT AND ELECTRONIC RESOURCES349(7)
APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS356(15)
CREDITS371(2)
INDEX OF AUTHORS, TITLES, AND FIRST LINES OF POEMS373(2)
INDEX OF TERMS375

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