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.

1: Reading a Story
The Art of Fiction
Types of Short Fiction
W. Somerset Maugham, The Appointment in Samarra 
Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes
Bidpai, The Camel and His Friends
Chuang Tzu, Independence 
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Godfather Death 
Plot 
The Short Story 
John Updike, A & P 
Writing Effectively: John Updike
THINKING About Plot

2: Point of View
Identifying Point of View
Types of Narrators
Stream of Consciousness
ZZ Packer , Brownies
Eudora Welty, A Worn Path
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues 
Writing Effectively: James Baldwin
THINKING about Point of View

3: Character
Types of Characters
Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill 
Raymond Carver, Cathedral 
Writing Effectively: Raymond Carver
THINKING about Character

4: Setting
Elements of Setting
Historical Fiction
Regionalism
Naturalism
Kate Chopin, The Storm 
Jack London, To Build a Fire 
Ray Bradbury , The Sound of Thunder
Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets 
Writing Effectively: Amy Tan
THINKING about Setting

5. Tone and Style
Tone
Style
Diction
Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place 
Irony 
O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi 
Anne Tyler, Teenage Wasteland
Writing Effectively: Ernest Hemingway
THINKING about Tone and Style

6. Theme
Plot vs. Theme
Theme as Unifying Device
Finding the Theme
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat 
Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband 
Luke 15:11–32, The Parable of the Prodigal Son 
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron 
Writing Effectively: Kurt Vonnegut
THINKING about Theme

7. Symbol
Allegory
Symbols
Recognizing Symbols
John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums 
John Cheever , The Swimmer
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery 
Writing effectively: Shirley Jackson
THINKING about Symbols

8. Reading Long Stories and Novels
Origins of the Novel
Novelistic Methods
Reading Novels
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych 
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 
Writing Effectively: Franz Kafka
THINKING about Long Stories and Novels

9. Latin American Fiction
“El Boom” 
Magic Realism 
After the Boom
Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark 
Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings 
Isabel Allende , The Judge’s Wife
Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite   
Writing Effectively: Marquez

10. Poe and O'Connor Casebooks
Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allen Poe, The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allen Poe,The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe on Writing
Critics on Edgar Allan Poe

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find 
Flannery O'Connor, Revelation 
Flannery O'Connor, Parker’s Back 
Flannery O’Connor on Writing

Critics on Flannery O'Connor

11. Critical Casebook: Two Stories in Depth
Charlotte Perkins Gilman  The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Writing
Critics on "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Alice Walker, Everyday Use 
Alice Walker, On Writing

Critics on "Everyday Use"

12. Stories for Further Reading
Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path 
Sherwood Anderson, Hands
Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings 
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 
T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake  
Willa Cather, Paul’s Case 
Anton Chekov, An Upheaval
Anton Chekov, Misery
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour 
Kate Chopin, Desiree's Baby
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street 
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal 
Gustav Flaubert, A Simple Heart
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Unnatural Mother
Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers
Nikolai Gogol, The Overcoat
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark
Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat 
James Joyce, Araby 
James Joyce, Eveline
James Joyce, The Dead
Franz Kafka, Before the Law
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl 
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies 
D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner 
D. H. Lawrence, Odour of Chrysanthemums
David Leavitt, A Place I’ve Never Been
Naguib Mahfouz, The Lawsuit          
Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party
Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh 
Guy de Maupassant, Mother Savage
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried 
Daniel Orozco , Orientation
Robert Louise Stevenson, The Bottle Imp
Edith Wharton, The Other Two
Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince
Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother 
Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House     

POETRY
A Conversation with Kay Ray

13. Reading a Poem
Poetry or Verse
Reading a Poem
Paraphrase
William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree 
Lyric Poetry 
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays 
Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers 
Narrative Poetry 
Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spence 
Robert Frost, “Out, Out—” 
Dramatic Poetry 
Robert Browning, My Last Duchess 
Didactic Poetry
Writing Effectively: Adrienne Rich
THINKING about Paraphrase 
William Stafford, Ask Me 

14. Listening to a Voice
Tone 
Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz 
Countee Cullen, For a Lady I Know 
Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book 
Walt Whitman, To a Locomotive in Winter 
Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles 
Benjamin Alire Saenz, To the Desert
Gwendolyn Brooks , Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward 
Weldon Kees, For My Daughter 
The Person in the Poem 
Natasha Trethewey, White Lies 
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Luke Havergal 
Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting 
Anonymous, Dog Haiku
William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 
Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal Entry 
James Stephens, A Glass of Beer 
Anne Sexton, Her Kind 
William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow 
Irony 
Robert Creeley, Oh No 
W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen 
Sharon Olds, Rites of Passage 
Julie Sheehan, Hate Poem
Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links 
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig 
Thomas Hardy, The Workbox 
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper 
William Jay Smith, American Primitive
David Lehman , Rejection Slip 
William Stafford, At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border 

Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta  

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est  

Writing Effectively: Wilfred Owen

THINKING About TONE  THINKING About TONE 

15. Words

 Literal Meaning: What a Poem Says First 
William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say 
Diction 
Marianne Moore, Silence 
Robert Graves, Down, Wanton, Down! 
John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You 
The Value of a Dictionary 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath 
Kay Ryan, Mockingbird
J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead 
Samuel Menashe, Bread
Carl Sandburg, Grass
Word Choice and Word Order
Robert Herrick, Upon Julia’s Clothes 
Kay Ryan, Blandeur 
Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid 
Richard Eberhart, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment 
Wendy Cope, Lonely Hearts 
E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town 
Billy Collins, The Names 
Christian Wiman , When the Time’s Toxin  
Anonymous, Carnation Milk 
Gina Valdés, English con Salsa 
Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky 
Writing Effectively: Lewis Carroll
THINKING About Diction 

16. Saying and Suggesting
Denotation and Connotation
John Masefield, Cargoes 
William Blake, London 
Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock 
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters
Timothy Steele, Epitaph 
E. E. Cummings, next to of course god america i 
Robert Frost, Fire and Ice 
Diane Thiel , The Minefield  
H.D., Storm
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears 
Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World 
Writing Effectively: Richard Wilbur
THINKING About Denotation and Connotation 

17. Imagery
Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro 
Taniguchi Buson, The piercing chill I feel 
Imagery
T. S. Eliot, The winter evening settles down 
Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar 
Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish 
Charles Simic, Fork 
Emily Dickinson, A Route of Evanescence 
Jean Toomer, Reapers 
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty 
About Haiku 
Arakida Moritake, The falling flower 
Matsuo Basho, Heat-lightning streak 
Matsuo Basho, In the old stone pool 
Taniguchi Buson, On the one-ton temple bell 
Taniguchi Buson, Moonrise on mudflats
Kobayashi Issa, only one guy 
Kobayashi Issa, Cricket 
Haiku from Japanese Internment Camps 
Suiko Matsushita, Rain shower from mountain
Suiko Matsushita, Cosmos in bloom 
Hakuro Wada, Even the croaking of frogs 
Neiji Ozawa, The war—this year
Contemporary Haiku 
Etheridge Knight, Making jazz swing in
Gary Snyder, After weeks of watching the roof leak
Penny Harter, broken bowl
Jennifer Brutschy, Born Again
Adelle Foley, Learning to Shave
Garry Gay, Hole in the ozone
John Keats, Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art 
Walt Whitman, The Runner 
H.D. , Oread
William Carlos Williams, El Hombre 
Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter 
Billy Collins, Embrace 
Chana Bloch , Tired Sex
Gary Snyder , Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain
Kevin Prufer, Pause, Pause
Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning 
Writing Effectively: Ezra Pound
THINKING About Imagery 

18. Figures of Speech
Why Speak Figuratively? 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle 
William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 
Howard Moss, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? 
Metaphor and Simile 
Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall 
William Blake, To see a world in a grain of sand 
Sylvia Plath, Metaphors 
N. Scott Momaday, Simile 
Emily Dickinson, It dropped so low – in my Regard 
Jill Alexander Essbaum, The Heart 
Craig Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home 
Other Figures of Speech 
James Stephens, The Wind 
Robinson Jeffers, Hands
Margaret Atwood, You fit into me 
George Herbert, The Pulley 
Dana Gioia, Money 
Carl Sandburg, Fog 
Charles Simic, My Shoes
Robert Frost, The Silken Tent 
Jane Kenyon, The Suitor 
Robert Frost, The Secret Sits 
A. R. Ammons, Coward 
Kay Ryan, Turtle 
Emily Brontë, Love and Friendship 
April Lindner, Low Tide
Robert Burns, Oh, my love is like a red, red rose 
Writing Effectively: Robert Frost
THINKING About Metaphors 

19. Song
Singing and Saying 
Ben Jonson, To Celia 
James Weldon Johnson, Sence You Went Away
William Shakespeare, Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory 
Paul Simon, Richard Cory 
Ballads 
Anonymous, Bonny Barbara Allan 
Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham 
Blues 
Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams, Jailhouse Blues 
W. H. Auden, Funeral Blues 
Kevin Young , Late Blues
Rap 
Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’ 
Aimee Mann, Deathly 
Writing Effectively: Bob Dylan
THINKING About Poetry and Song

20. Sound
Sound as Meaning 
Alexander Pope, True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance 
William Butler Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus? 
John Updike, Recital 
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 
Aphra Behn, When maidens are young 
Alliteration and Assonance 
A. E. Housman, Eight O’Clock 
James Joyce, All day I hear 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The splendor falls on castle walls 
Rime 
William Cole, On my boat on Lake Cayuga 
Hilaire Belloc, The Hippopotamus 
Bob Kaufman , No More Jazz at Alcatraz 
William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan 
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur 
Robert Frost, Desert Places 
Reading and Hearing Poems Aloud 
Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane 
William Shakespeare , Hark, hark, the lark 
Kevin Young , Doo Wop
T. S. Eliot, Virginia 
Writing Effectively: T. S. Eliot
THINKING About a Poem’s Sound 

21. Rhythm
Stresses and Pauses 
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break 
Ben Jonson, Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears 
Dorothy Parker, Résumé 
Meter 
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme 
Edith Sitwell , Mariner Man 
A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty 
William Carlos Williams, Smell! 
Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums! 
David Mason, Song of the Powers 
Langston Hughes, Dream Boogie 
Writing Effectively: Gwendolyn Brooks
THINKING About Rhythm 

22. Closed Form
Formal Patterns 
John Keats, This living hand, now warm and capable 
Robert Graves, Counting the Beats 
John Donne, Song (“Go and catch a falling star”) 
Phillis Levin, Brief Bio 
The Sonnet 
William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Michael Drayton, Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part 
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why 
Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night 
Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You 
Mark Jarman, Unholy  Sonnet: After the Praying
A. E. Stallings, Sine Qua Non 
Amit Majmudar, Rites to Allay the Dead
R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet 
The Epigram 
Alexander Pope, Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog
Sir John Harrington, Of Treason
William Blake , To H—
Langston Hughes, Two Somewhat Different Epigrams
Dorothy Parker , The Actress
J. V. Cunningham, This Humanist
John Frederick Nims, Contemplation
Anonymous, Epitaph of a dentist
Hilaire Belloc, Fatigue
Wendy Cope, Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”
Poetweets
Lawrence Bridges, Two Poetweets
Robert Pinsky , Low Pay Piecework
Other Forms 
Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night 
Robert Bridges, Triolet 
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina 
Writing Effectively: A. E. Stallings
THINKING About a Sonnet 

23. Open Form
Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway 
Free Verse
E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s 
W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death 
William Carlos Williams, The Dance 
Stephen Crane, The Wayfarer 
Walt Whitman, Cavalry Crossing a Ford 
Ezra Pound, The Garden  
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird 
Prose Poetry 
Charles Simic, The Magic Study of Happiness
Joy Harjo,  Mourning Song
Visual Poetry 
George Herbert, Easter Wings 
John Hollander, Swan and Shadow 
Concrete Poetry 
Richard Kostelanetz, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Simultaneous Translations
Dorthi Charles, Concrete Cat 
E. E. Cummings, in Just- 
Francisco X. Alarcón, Frontera / Border
Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red 
David St. John, Hush
Alice Fulton, What I Like 
Writing Effectively: Walt Whitman
THINKING About Free Verse 

24. Symbol
The Meanings of a Symbol
T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript 
Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork 
The Symbolist Movement
Identifying Symbols
Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones 
Allegory
Matthew :–, The Parable of the Good Seed 
George Herbert, Redemption
Edwin Markham, Outwitted
Suji Kwock Kim, Occupation
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken 
Antonio Machado , The Traveler
Christina Rossetti, Uphill 
William Carlos Williams, The Young Housewife
Ted Kooser, Carrie 
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Tami Haaland , Lipstick
Lorine Niedecker, Popcorn-can cover 
Wallace Stevens , The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar 
Writing Effectively: William Butler Yeats
THINKING About Symbols 

25. Myth and Narrative
Origins of Myth
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay 
William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us 
H. D., Helen  
Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen  
Archetype 
Louise Bogan, Medusa 
John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci 
Personal Myth 
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming 
Gregory Orr, Two Lines from the Brothers Grimm 
Myth and Popular Culture 
Charles Martin, Taken Up 
A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz
Anne Sexton, Cinderella 
Writing Effectively: Anne Sexton
THINKING about Myth

26. Poetry and Personal Identity
Confessional Poetry
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus 
Identity Poetics
Rhina Espaillat, Bilingual/Bilingüe 
Culture, Race, and Ethnicity 
Claude McKay, America 
Shirley Geok-lin Lim,  Riding Into California
Francisco X. Alarcón, The X in My Name 
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quiñceañera 
Sherman Alexie, The Powwow at the End of the World
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It 
Gender 
Anne Stevenson, Sous-Entendu 
Carolyn Kizer,  Bitch
Rafael Campo,  For J. W.
Donald Justice, Men at Forty 
Adrienne Rich, Women 
Katha Pollitt,  Mind-Body Problem
Andrew Hudgins,  Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead
Brian Turner ,  The Hurt Locker
Philip Larkin, Aubade 
Writing Effectively: Rhina Espaillat
THINKING About Poetic Voice and Identity 

27. Translation
Is Poetic Translation Possible? 
World Poetry 
Li Po, Moon-Beneath Alone Drink (literal translation) 
Translated by Arthur Waley, Drinking Alone by Moonlight 
Comparing Translations 
Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (Latin text) 
Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (literal translation) 
Translated by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Horace to Leuconoe 
Translated by A. E. Stallings, A New Year’s Toast 
Translating Form
Omar Khayyam, Rubai  XII (Persian text) 
Omar Khayyam, Rubai XII (literal translation)
Translated by Edward FitzGerald,  A Book of Verses underneath the Bough 
Translated by Dick Davis, I Need a Bare Sufficiency 
Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat 
Translated by Edward FitzGerald,  Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Translated by Edward FitzGerald,  Some for the Glories of this World
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, The Moving Finger writes
Translated by Edward FitzGerald,  Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
Parody 
Anonymous, We four lads from Liverpool are 
Hugh Kingsmill, What, still alive at twenty-two? 
Andrea Paterson, Because I Could Not Dump
Harryette Mullen, Dim Lady
Gene Fehler, If Richard Lovelace Became a Free Agent 
Aaron Abeyta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla 
Writing Effectively: Arthur Waley
THINKING about Parody 

28. Poetry in Spanish
Sor Juana, Presente en que el Cariño Hace Regalo la Llaneza 
Translated by Diane Thiel, A Simple Gift Made Rich by Affection 
Pablo Neruda, Muchos Somos 
Translated by Alastair Reid, We Are Many 
Jorge Luis Borges, On his blindness
Translated by Robert Mezey, On His Blindness
Octavio Paz, Con los ojos cerrados 
Translated by Eliot Weinberger, With eyes closed 
Surrealism in Latin American Poetry 
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas 
César Vallejo, La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños 
Translated by Thomas Merton, Anger 
Contemporary Mexican Poetry 
José Emilio Pacheco, Alta Traición 
Translated by Alastair Reid, High Treason 
Tedi López Mills, Convalecencia 
Pedro Serrano, Golondrinas 
Translated by Anna Crowe, Swallows 
Writing Effectively: Alastair Reid on Writing, Translating Neruda 

29. Recognizing Excellence
Anonymous, O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face 
Emily Dickinson, A Dying Tiger – moaned for Drink 
Sentimentality
Rod McKuen, Thoughts on Capital Punishment 
William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark 
Recognizing Excellence 
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium 
Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness 
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias 
Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art 
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain! 
Dylan Thomas , In My Craft or Sullen Art 
Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask 
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus 
Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee 
Writing Effectively: Edgar Allan Poe
THINKING about Evaluating a Poem 

30. What Is Poetry?
Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica 

31. Two Critical Casebooks: Dickinson and Hughes
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

Critics on Emily Dickinson
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

Critics on Langston Hughes

32. Critical Casebook: T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 
T. S. Eliot on Writing

Critics on "Prufrock"

33. Poems for Further Reading
Anonymous, Lord Randall 
Anonymous, The Three Ravens 
Anonymous , Last Words of the Prophet 
Anonymous, The Twa Corbies
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach 
John Ashbery, At North Farm 
Margaret Atwood, Siren Song 
W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening 
W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts 
Jimmy Baca, Spliced Wire
Aphra Behn, A Thousand Marytrs
Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station 
William Blake, A Poison Tree
William Blake, Garden of Love
William Blake, The Tyger 
William Blake, The Sick Rose 
Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Mother 
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Rites for Cousin Vit
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Grief
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways 
Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover
Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 
Charles Bukowski, Dostoevsky
George Gordon, Lord Byron, When We Two Parted
George Gordon, Lord Byron, The Ocean
George Gordon, Lord Byron, So We'll Go No More A-Roving
Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and the Carpenter
Lorna Dee Cervantes , Cannery Town in August
Geoffrey Chaucer, From The General Prologue
Geoffrey Chaucer, Merciless Beauty 
G. K. Chesterton, The Donkey
John  Ciardi, Most Like an Arch This Marriage
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 
Billy Collins, Care and Feeding 
Hart Crane, My Grandmother’s Love Letters 
Hart Crane, Chaplinesque
Stephen Crane, I saw a man pursuing the horizon
Stephen Crane, A man feared that he might find an assassin
E. E. Cummings, somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond 
E. E. Cummings, the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
Marisa de los Santos, Perfect Dress 
John Donne, The Good-Morrow
John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God
John Donne, Death be not proud 
John Donne, The Flea 
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 
Rita Dove, Daystar
John Dryden, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Sympathy
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, The Poet
T.S. Eliot, Preludes
T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi 
Rhina Espaillat, Agua
Rhina Espaillat, Bra
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Adam Posed
Robert Frost, Mowing
Robert Frost, Birches 
Robert Frost, Mending Wall 
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California 
Dana Gioia, California Hills in August
Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Thomas Hardy, I Look into My Glass
Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain 
Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush 
Thomas Hardy, Hap 
HD, Oread
HD, Sea Rose
Seamus Heaney, Digging 
Anthony Hecht, The Vow
George Herbert, The Collar
George Herbert, The Pulley
George Herbert, Love 
Robert Herrick, Delight and Disorder
Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 
Tony Hoagland, Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins, No Worst, There is None
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall 
Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover 
A. E. Housman, Into My Heart an Air that Kills
A. E. Housman, Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
A. E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 
A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young 
Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 
Robinson Jeffers, Rock and Hawk
Ha Jin, Missed Time
Ben Jonson, On My First Son 
Donald Justice, On the Death of Friends in Childhood 
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 
John Keats, When I have fears that I may cease to be
John Keats, To Autumn 
John Keats, ode on Melancholy
John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
XJ Kennedy, In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day
Suji Kwock Kim, Monologue for an Onion
Ted Kooser, Abandoned Farmhouse 
Philip Larkin, Home is so Sad 
Philip Larkin, Poetry of Departures 
D. H. Lawrence, Piano 
Denise Levertov, O Taste and See
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Learning to Love America
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Proem to Eveangeline
Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour 
Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress 
Andrew Marvell, The Definition of Love
Andrew Marvell, The Garden
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Passer Mortuus Est
Edna St. Vincent Millay, First Fig
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Time does not bring relief
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Recuerdo 
John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent 
Marianne Moore, The Fish
Marianne Moore, Poetry 
Marilyn Nelson, A Strange Beautiful Woman 
Howard Nemerov, The War in the Air 
Lorine Niedecker, Sorrow Moves in Wide Waves
Yone Noguchi, A Selection of Hokku
Sharon Olds, The One Girl at the Boys’ Party 
Wilfred Owen, Futility
Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth 
Sylvia Plath, Daddy 
Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
Edgar Allen Poe, Alone
Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream within a Dream 
Alexander Pope, From an Essay on Man
Alexander Pope, A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing 
Ezra Pound, The Garden
Ezra Pound, Portrait d'une Femme
Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter 
Dudley Randall, A Different Image 
John Crowe Ransom, Piazza Piece 
Henry Reed, Naming of Parts 
Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin 
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Mr. Flood's Party
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy 
Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane 
Christina Rossetti, Song
Christina Rossetti, Amor Mundi
William Shakespeare, When daisies pied and violets blue
William Shakespeare, When icicles hang by the wall
William Shakespeare, When my love swears that she is made of truth
William Shakespeare, Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth
William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes 
William Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me behold 
William Shakespeare, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing likethe sun 
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley,To -- [Music, when soft voices die]
Charles Simic , The Butcher Shop
Christopher Smart, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry 
Cathy Song, Stamp Collecting 
William Stafford, The Farm on the Great Plains 
Gertrude Stein, Susia Asado
Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream 
Wallace Stevens, Peter Quince at the Clavier
Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memorium AHH "Old yew, which graspest at the stones."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memorium AHH "Dark house, by which I once more steal"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memorium AHH "Be near me when my light is low."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses 
Diane Thiel, Memento Mori in Middle School
Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill 
John Updike, Ex-Basketball Player 
Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes
Margaret Walker, For Malcolm X
Edmund Waller, Go, Lovely Rose 
Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America
Walt Whitman, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whiman, A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman, from Song of the Open Road 
Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing 
Richard Wilbur, The Writer 
William Carlos Williams, To Waken an Old Lady
William Carlos Williams, The Young Housewife
William Carlos Williams, Danse Russe
William Carlos Williams, Spring and All 
William Carlos Williams, Queen-Anne’s-Lace
William Wordsworth, Lines (Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey)
William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality
William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge 
James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio 
Mary Sidney Wroth, In this strange labyrinth 
Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me that sometime did me sekë 
William Butler Yeats, No Second Troy
William Butler Yeats, An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
William Butler Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop 
William Butler Yeats, The Magi 
William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old 

DRAMA
A Conversation with David Ives

34. Reading a Play
Theatrical Conventions
Elements of a Play       
Susan Glaspell, Trifles 
Analyzing Trifles    
Writing Effectively: Susan Glaspell
THINKING About a Play 

35. Modes of Drama: Tragedy and Comedy 
Tragedy
Christopher Marlowe, Scene From Doctor Faustus (Act 2, Scene 1) 
Comedy
David Ives, Sure Thing
Writing Effectively: David Ives
THINKING about Comedy

36. Critical Casebook: Sophocles 
The Theater of Sophocles 
The Civic Role of Greek Drama 
Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy 
The Origins of Oedipus the King 
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
(Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald) 
The Background of Antigonê 
Sophocles, Antigoné
(Translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald) 
Critics on Sophocles
Writing Effectively: Robert Fitzgerald
THINKING About Greek Tragedy 

37. Critical Casebook: Shakespeare 
The Theater of Shakespeare 
William Shakespeare 
A Note on Othello 
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice 
The Background of Hamlet 
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 
The Background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare, MacBeth
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Critics on Shakespeare
Writing Effectively: Ben Jonson
Understanding Shakespeare

38. The Modern Theater
Realism
Naturalism
Symbolism and Expressionism
American Modernism
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
(Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, Revised by Viktoria Michelsen)
Henrik Ibsen on Writing, Correspondence on the Final Scene of A Doll’s House
Eugene O'Neill, The Hairy Ape
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 
Tennessee Williams on Writing, How to Stage The Glass Menagerie
Tragicomedy and the Absurd
Return to Realism
Experimental Drama
Milcha Sanchez-Scott, The Cuban Swimmer
Milcha Sanchez-Scott on Writing, Writing The Cuban Swimmer
Documentary Drama
Anna Deavere Smith, Scenes from Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
Anna Deavere Smith on Writing, A Call to the Community 
THINKING About Dramatic Realism 

39. Evaluating a Play
Judging a Play

40. Plays for Further Readings
David Henry Hwang, The Sound of a Voice 
David Henry Hwang on Writing, Multicultural Theater 
Edward Bok Lee, El Santo Americano
Edward Bok Lee on Writing
Jane Martin, Beauty 
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman 
Arthur Miller on Writing, Tragedy and the Common Man 
J.M. Synge, Riders to the Sea
August Wilson, Fences 
August Wilson on Writing, A Look into Black America

Read Actively 
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay 
Plan Your Essay 
Pre-Writing: Discover Your Ideas 
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises 
Develop a Literary Argument 
Write a Rough Draft 
Revise Your Draft 
Some Final Advice on Rewriting 
Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism
The Form of Your Finished Paper 
Spell-Check and Grammar-Check Programs 
Anonymous (after a poem by Jerrold H. Zar), 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 
Revise Your Draft  
What’s Your Purpose? Common Approaches to Writing About Fiction 
Explication 
Analysis 
The Card report 
Comparison and Contrast 
Response paper

43. Writing About a Poem
Read Actively 
Robert Frost, Design 
Think About the Poem 
Pre-Writing: Discover Your Ideas
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises 
Write a Rough Draft 
Revise Your Draft 
Common Approaches to Writing About Poetry 
Explication 
Analysis 
Comparison and contrast 
Abbie Huston Evans, Wing-Spread 
How to Quote a Poem 
Robert Frost, In White

44. Writing About a Play 
Read Critically
Common Approaches to Writing About Drama 
Explication 
Analysis 
Comparison and contrast 
Card report 
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 
Visual Images 
Evaluate 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
Taking an Essay Exam 
    Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson

48. Critical Approaches to Literature
Formalist Criticism 
Cleanth Brooks, The Formalist Critic 
Michael Clark, Light and Darkness in “Sonny’s Blues” 
Robert Langbaum, On Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” 
Biographical Criticism 
Leslie Fiedler, The Relationship of Poet and Poem
Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” 
Emily Toth, The Source for AlcÉé LaballiÈre in “The Storm” 
Historical Criticism 
Hugh Kenner, Imagism 
Seamus Deane, Joyce’s Dublin
Kathryn Lee Seidel, The Economics of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”
Psychological Criticism 
Sigmund Freud, The Nature of Dreams 
Gretchen Schulz and R. J. R. Rockwood, Fairy Tale Motifs in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Harold Bloom, Poetic Influence
Mythological Criticism 
Carl Jung, The Collective Unconscious and Archetypes 
Northrop Frye, Mythic Archetypes 
Edmond Volpe, Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” 
Sociological Criticism 
Georg Lukacs, Content Determines Form 
Daniel P. Watkins, Money and Labor in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” 
Alfred Kazin, Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln 
Gender Criticism 
Elaine Showalter, Toward a Feminist Poetics
Nina Pelikan Straus, Transformations in The Metamorphosis 
Richard R. Bozorth, “Tell Me the Truth About Love” 
Reader-Response Criticism 
Stanley Fish, An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily” 
Robert Scholes, “How Do We Make a Poem?” 
Michael J. Colacurcio, The End of Young Goodman Brown 
Deconstructionist Criticism 
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author 
Barbara Johnson, Rigorous Unreliability        
Geoffrey Hartman, On Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” 
Cultural Studies 
Vincent B. Leitch, Poststructuralist Cultural Critique 
Mark Bauerlein, What Is Cultural Studies?  
Camille Paglia, A Reading of William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”

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