Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama

Table of Contents Preface for InstructorsIntroduction: Connecting with LiteratureStudent Essay: Raymond Carver’s “Creative Writing101”Part One: Fiction1. What Is a Short Story?Grace Paley, SamuelCommentary: Edgar Allan Poe2. The Elements of Fiction: A Storyteller’s Means Plot • Character • Setting • Point of View • Voice and Style • Theme Commentaries: Anton Chekhov, Flannery O’Connor, Frank O’Connor, David S. Reynolds3. The Art of the Story: Reading, Thinking,and Writing about Short Fiction Reading Short FictionGuidelines for Reading Short FictionSample Close Reading Critical Thinking about Short Fiction Writing about Short FictionSample Essay: Paley’s Point of View in SamuelCommentaries: Ralph Ellison, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, J. Hillis Miller, Grace PaleyRelated Section: Part Four: Writing about Literature4. Stories and StorytellersSherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in HeavenCommentary: Sherman Alexie Isabelle Allende, An Act of VengeanceCommentary: Isabelle Allende Margaret Atwood, Happy EndingsJames Baldwin, Sonny’s BluesCommentary: James Baldwin Toni Cade Bambara, The LessonRussell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green RowboatConnections: Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants; David Foster Wallace, Good PeopleAimee Bender, The RemembererConnection: Franz Kafka, The MetamorphosisRaymond Carver, CathedralCommentary: Raymond Carver Lan Samantha Chang, Water NamesAnton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet DogConnection: Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady With the Pet DogCommentaries: Anton Chekhov; Richard Ford Kate Chopin, Desiree’s Baby; The Story of an HourCommentary: Kate Chopin Junot Diaz, How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl,Whitegirl, or HalfieRalph Ellison, Battle RoyalCommentary: Ralph Ellison Louise Erdrich, The Red ConvertibleWilliam Faulkner, A Rose for EmilyCommentary: William Faulkner Richard Ford, Leaving for KenoshaCommentary: Richard Ford Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous WingsCharlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow WallpaperCommentaries: Charlotte Perkins Gilman,Sandra M. Gilbert, and Susan Gubar Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her PeersConnections: Susan Glaspell, Trifles; Lynn Nottage, POOF!Commentary: Leonard Mustazza Nadine Gordimer, Some Are Born to Sweet DelightNathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman BrownCommentarie: Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White ElephantsConnections: Russell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat;David Foster Wallace, Good PeopleAmy Hempel, Church Cancels CowZora Neale Hurston, SpunkCommentaries: Zora Neale Hurston; Alice Walker Shirley Jackson, The LotteryCommentary: Shirley Jackson Ha Jin, A Bad JokeEdward P. Jones, Bad NeighborsCommentary: Wyatt Mason James Joyce. ArabyFranz Kafka, A Hunger Artist; Jackals and Arabs; The MetamorphosisConversations: Gustav Janouch; John Updike;R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz; John Gardner Jamaica Kincaid, GirlCommentary: Jamaica Kincaid Jumpha Lahiri, A Real DurwanCommentary: Jhumpa Lahiri D.H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse WinnerRelated Commentary: D. H. Lawrence Jack London, To Build a FireGuy de Maupassant, The NecklaceCommentary: Kate Chopin Herman Melville, Bartleby, the ScrivenerCommentaries: Herman Melville, J. Hillis Miller Lorrie Moore, How to Become a WriterAlice Munro, Dance of the Happy ShadesJoyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog; Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?Connection: Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet DogConversations: Joyce Carol Oates, Don Moser; Matthew C. Brennan Tim O’Brien, The Things They CarriedCommentary: Bobbie Ann Mason Flannery O’Connor, Good Country People; A Good Man is Hard to FindConversations: Flannery O’Connor; Sally Fitzgerald Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here IroningEdgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado; The Fall of the House of UsherConversations: Edgar Allan Poe; D.H.Lawrence; Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren; J. Gerald Kennedy; David S.Reynolds Annie Proulx, Job HistoryLeslie Marmon Silko, Yellow WomanCommentary: Paula Gunn Allen Helen Simpson, HomeworkJohn Steinbeck, The ChrysanthemumsAmy Tan, Two KindsCommentary: Amy Tan John Updike, A&PCommentary: John Updike Helena Maria Viramontes, The MothsKurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison BergeronAlice Walker, Everyday UseCommentary: Alice Walker David Foster Wallace, Good PeopleConnections: Russell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat;Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White ElephantsBrad Watson, Seeing EyeCommentary: Brad Watson Eudora Welty, A Worn PathCommentary: Eudora Welty William Carlos Williams, The Use of ForceTobias Wolff, Say YesHisaye Yamamoto, The Brown House5. Commentaries on Stories and StorytellersSherman Alexie, Superman and MePaula Gunn Allen, Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow WomanIsabelle Allende. Short Stories by Latin American WomenJames Baldwin, Autobiographical NotesRaymond Carver, On Writing; Creative Writing 101Anton Chekhov, Technique in Writing the Short StoryKate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon MaupassantRalph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on Battle Royal William Faulkner, The Meaning of A Rose for Emily Richard Ford, On Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous ProstrationZora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored MeShirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948 and The Lottery Jhumpa Lahiri, On Writing FictionBobbie Ann Mason, On Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried Wyatt Mason On Edward P. Jones’s FictionHerman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown J. Hillis Miller, Who Is He? Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener Grace Paley, A Conversation with Ann ChartersElaine Showalter, On Glaspell's A Jury of Her PeersAmy Tan, In the Canon, for All the Wrong ReasonsAlice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan ViewBrad Watson, On Southern FictionEudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson Really Dead?6. Conversations on Stories and Storytellers On Meaning and Intention in Franz Kafka’s StoriesGustav Janouch, Kafka’s View of The Metamorphosis John Updike, Kafka and The Metamorphosis R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz, A Hunger ArtistJohn Gardner, On Myths and Literary Fairy TalesOn Revisions of Joyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story Into FilmDon Moser, The Pied Piper of TusconMatthew C. Brennan, Plotting Against Chekhov:Joyce Carol Oates and The Lady with the DogOn Flannery O’Connor’s FictionFlannery O’Connor, From Letters, 1954-55; Writing Short Stories; The Element of Suspense in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Sally Fitzgerald, Southern Sources of A Good Man Is Hard to FindOn Critical Views of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short StoriesEdgar Allan Poe; The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose TaleD.H. Lawrence, On The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, ANew Critical Reading of The Fall of the House of Usher J. Gerald Kennedy, On The Fall of the House of Usher David S. Reynolds, Poe’s Art of Transformation in The Cask of AmontilladoPart Two: Poetry7. What Is a Poem?Muriel Rukeyser, The Sixth Night: WakingArchibald MacLeish, Ars PoeticaMarianne Moore, PoetryLawrence Ferlinghetti, Constantly Risking AbsurdityAnn Merebroker, A Mere GlimpseNina Penfold, My PoemsTed Kooser, Selecting a ReaderAlice Walker, I Said to PoetryCommentary: Louise Glück8. The Elements of Poetry: A Poet’s MeansEmily Dickinson, A word is deadWords and Their SoundAlliteration and AssonanceWalt Whitman, A Farm PictureOnomatopoeia RhymeA.E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowGwendolyn Brooks, Notes from the Childhood and the GirlhoodA Range of RhymeRobert Frost, A Time to TalkStevie Smith, Not Waving but DrowningPoems for Further ReadingSir Thomas Wyatt, They Flee from MeBen Jonson, On My First SonRobert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of TimeChristina Rossetti, SongDorothy Parker, Indian SummerTheodore Roethke, My Papa’s WaltzElizabeth Jennings, One FleshSong and RhymeLou Reed, Chelsea GirlsBruce Springsteen, The RiverRhythm Accent and Meter Blank VerseThe Pattern PoemGeorge Herbert, Easter WingsCommentary: T.S. Eliot, Richard Howard9. The Elements of Poetry: A Poet’s MeaningsToneEdwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver CheevyEdwin Arlington Robinson, Richard CoryWords and Their MeaningLewis Carroll, JabberwockyDenotative and Connotative Meaning Diction Syntax ImageryJohn Keats, To AutumnElizabeth Bishop, The BightSimile and MetaphorGalway Kinnell, The Road Between Here and ThereFigurative and Literal Language Symbol Figures of SpeechRolf Aggestam, Lightning BoltPoems for Further ReadingAndrew Marvell, To His Coy MistressWilliam Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a CloudGeorge Gordon, Lord Byron, She Walks in BeautyEmily Bronte, If grief for griefAlfred, Lord Tennyson, UlyssesCommentaries: Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Mark Strand10. The Types of Poetry: A Poet’s Forms Types of VerseElinor Wylie, Village MysteryNarrative PoetryThe BalladBarbara AllanBallads for Further ReadingThe Daemon LoverRobert Duncan, The Ballad of Mrs. NoahDudley Randall, The Ballad of BirminghamRobert Creeley, Ballad of the Despairing HusbandLyric PoetryH.D., Mid-daye.e. cummings, (O sweet spontaneous)Carolyn Kizer, For Jan, in Bar MariaLi-Young Lee, Eating AloneLorna Dee Cervantes, The Body as BrailleHilda Morley, I RememberThe OdeJohn Keats, Ode on a Grecian UrnPercy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West WindThe ElegyThomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardMargaret Gibson, October ElegyThe SonnetWilliam Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me beholdSonnets for Further ReadingFrancesco Petrarca, Love’s InconsistencyJohn Donne, Death, be not proudPercy Bysshe Shelley, OzymandiasElizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?Countee Cullen, Yet Do I MarvelRita Dove, Sonnet in Primary ColorsBilly Collins, American SonnetThe Epigram and the AphorismDorothy Parker, News ItemDorothy Parker, From A Pig’s Eye View of Literature Wendy Cope, Two Cures for LoveThe LimerickDylan Thomas, The last time I slept with the QueenWendy Cope, The fine English poet, John DonneJ.S. Walker, On T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock”Richard Leighton Green, Apropos Coleridge’s“Kubla Khan”A. Cinna, On HamletCommentaries: Rita Dove, Erica Jong11. The Types of Poetry: Other Poetic FormsElizabeth Bishop, SestinaJudith Barrington, Villanelles for a Drowned Parent, VIDylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good NightOpen FormSharon Olds, The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the CurbThe Prose PoemRobert Bly, Welcoming a Child in the Limantour DunesMarcia Southwick, A Star Is Born in the Eagle NebulaRobert Hass, A Story about the BodyHaikuMatsuo Basho, Ripening barleyMatsuo Basho, Day by dayMatsuo Basho, Having no talentTanaguchi Buson, The sea in springtimeKoboyashi Issa, Children imitating cormorantsMasaoka Shiki, The ocean freshly greenRichard Wright, I would like a bellRichard Wright, A soft wind at dawnRonald Baatz, as though the whole earthRonald Baatz, our beautiful old loveImagismEzra Pound, In a Station of the MetroT.E. Hulme, ImagesH.D., OreadWilliam Carlos Williams, The Red WheelbarrowWallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a BlackbirdDramatic PoetryThe Dramatic MonologueRobert Browning, My Last DuchessPoems for Further ReadingNick Carbo, American AdoboMarisa de los Santos, Because I Love YouNaomi Shihab Nye, Making a FistMargaret Atwood, Siren SongWislawa Szymborska, True LoveCommentaries: Ezra Pound, Mark Strand12. Poet to PoetJohn Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s HomerQuotation Paraphrase AllusionSamuel Charters, A Man Dancing Alone on an Island in GreeceImitation ParodyLeigh Hunt, Jenny Kissed MeT.S. Kerrigan, Elvis Kissed MeAddress and TributeEzra Pound, A PactAllen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in CaliforniaMaxine Kumin, Mother of EveryoneGalway Kinnell, OatmealCommentaries: Marilyn Chin, T.S. Eliot,Samuel Charters13. The Art of the Poem: Reading, Thinking,and Writing about Poetry Reading PoetryAnonymous, Western Winde.e. cummings, since feeling is firstGuidelines for Reading PoetrySample Close ReadingLinda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving HomeCritical Thinking about Poetry Writing about PoetrySample Essay: A Moving Lyric: Pastan’s "To A Daughter Leaving Home"Related Sections: Part Four, Writing about Literature14. Poets Speaking Out Poetry of Protest and Social ConcernNikki Giovanni, AdulthoodLawrence Ferlinghetti, The World Is a Beautiful PlaceDenise Levertov, Mid-American TragedyCarolyn Forché, The ColonelJoan Jobe Smith, Feminist Arm Candy for the Mafia and SinatraFred Voss, I Once Needed a Chance TooCharles Bukowski, Beach BoysFaces of WarStephen Crane, War is KindThomas Hardy, The Man He KilledWilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum EstStephen Vincent Benet, 1935Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret GunnerEd Webster, From San Joaquin Valley Poems:1969Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing ItBlack Consciousness, Black VoicesPhillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to AmericaPaul Laurence Dunbar, SympathyJames Weldon Johnson, Sunset in the TropicsEtheridge Knight, The Idea of AncestryAmiri Baraka, LegacyAudre Lorde, Hanging FireLucille Clifton, to ms. annWomen’s Consciousness, Women’s VoicesMuriel Rukeyser, MythMina Loy, One O’Clock at NightLouise Glück, First MemoryAlicia Suskin Ostriker, The ChangeMarilyn Chin, How I Got that NameThe Living EarthFrom a Zuni InvocationPrimo Levi, AlmanacKenneth Rexroth, Heart of HeraklesGary Snyder, Straight-Creek—Great BurnMary Oliver, MusselsMark Strand, Shooting WhalesJohn Clellon Holmes, Fayetteville Dawn (1)15. Conversations on Modern Traditions in Poetry Poets of the Harlem RenaissanceAlain Locke, From The New Negro Langston Hughes, From The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain James Weldon Johnson, The CreationAngelina Weld Grimke, The Black FingerAngelina Weld Grimke, TenebrisClaude McKay, If We Must DieClaude McKay, The LynchingLangston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of RiversCountee Cullen, From Heritage Countee Cullen, IncidentArna Bontemps, A Black Man Talks of ReapingThe Beat PoetsJohn Clellon Holmes, From This Is the Beat Generation Allen Ginsberg, From Kaddish Gregory Corso, I am 25Bob Kaufman, From Jail Poems d.a. levy, perhaps #5Diane DiPrima, Revolutionary Letter #57Frank O’Hara, The Day Lady DiedRichard Brautigan, It’s Raining in LoveGary Snyder, What I Have LearnedJoanne Kyger, October 29, 1963, WednesdayPhilip Whalen, I Give UpPoetry of the Chaps and ZinesDennis Donoghue, The Issue Is Not the Dearth of Poets or PoemsGerald Locklin, The Small Presses and Little Magazines: A Few ReflectionsAnn Menebroker, RepossessedAnn Menebroker, The Second Flood and then the FireAnn Menebroker, LoveTom Kryss, Of Dry Strings and River BedsTom Kryss, What Harmonica?Tom Kryss, Night StormJoan Jobe Smith, The Carol Burnett ShowJoan Jobe Smith, Dancing in the Frying PanRonald Baatz, The Oldest SongsRonald Baatz, Only for the Old and FragileGerald Locklin, A LoserGerald Locklin, So It GoesGerald Locklin, Second Hand TelevisionCharles Bukowski, writer’s blockCharles Bukowski, huge ear ringsDifficult PoemsCharles Bernstein, The Difficult PoemCharles Olson, Projective VerseCharles Olson, Le BonheurDenise Levertov, From Matins Amy Clampitt, Beach GlassLes Murray, An Absolutely Ordinary RainbowJorie Graham, I Watched a SnakeConnection: Emily Dickinson, A narrow fellow in the grass.16. Poems and PoetsMatthew ArnoldDover BeachCommentary: James Dickey.W.H. Auden,Musée des Beaux Arts Stop All the Clocks Lay your sleeping head, my loveElizabeth BishopThe Fish One ArtCommentary: Brett C. Millier.William Blake From Songs of Innocence: IntroductionThe Lamb Holy Thursday The Little Boy Lost The Little Boy Found From Songs of Experience: IntroductionThe Sick Rose The Tyger London A Poison Tree The Garden of LoveAnne BradstreetTo My Dear and Loving Husband Before the Birth of One of Her Children In Memory of my Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, who deceased August, 1665, being a Year and a Half OldGwendolyn BrooksWe Real Cool The Mother The Bean EatersCommentary: Robert Hayden.Samuel Taylor ColeridgeKubla Khan: or, a Vision in a DreamFrost at MidnightConnection: Richard Leighton Green, Apropos Coleridge's Kubla Khan.Billy CollinsTuesday, June 4, 1991Memento Mori By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusae.e. cummingssomewhere i have never travelled Buffalo Bill’s in Just-Emily DickinsonYou love me—you are sure—I’m “wife”—I’ve finished that—I taste a liquor never brewed—Wild Nights—Wild Nights!“Hope” is the thing with feathers—There’s a certain Slant of light,I’m Nobody! Who are you?After great pain, a formal feeling comes—Much Madness is divinest Sense—I died for Beauty—but was scarce I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—Because I could not stop for Death—A narrow Fellow in the Grass I never saw a Moor—Connection: Jorie Graham, I Watched a SnakeConversations: Thomas Wentworth Higginson,Thomas H. Johnson, Thomas Bailey Aldrich,Richard Wilbur, Linda Gregg.John DonneA Valediction: Forbidding Mourning The Sun Rising Batter my heart, three-personed GodConnection: Wendy Cope.Rita DoveSingsong Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967The Porch, Pond View: Six P.M. Early SpringCommentary: Rita Dove.T.S. EliotThe Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockConnection: J. WalkerCommentaries: Cleanth Brooks Jr. and Robert Penn Warren, T.S. Eliot.Martín EspadaSoliloquy at Gunpoint Public School 190, Brooklyn, 1963Sleeping on the BusRobert FrostThe Pasture Mending Wall Home Burial Birches Fire and Ice To Earthward Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The Road Not Taken After Apple-PickingConversations: Rose C. Feld, Robert Frost,Robert Lowell, Joseph Brodsky, Philip L. Gerber,James Wright.Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays A Letter from Phillis Wheatley Night, Death, MississippiCommentary: Robert Hayden/Seamus HeaneyDigging Mid Term BreakGerard Manley HopkinsThe Windhover Pied Beauty God’s Grandeur Thou Art Indeed Just, LordCommentary: Bernard Bergonzi Langston HughesMother to Son I, Too Bound No’th Blues Song for a Dark Girl House in the World Florida Road Workers Merry-Go-Round Down Where I Am Theme for English B Dream DeferredConversations: Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset,Arnold Rampersad, Kevin Young, Carl Phillips John KeatsOde to a Nightingale When I Have FearsRobert LowellSkunk Hour For the Union Dead DepartureCommentary: Robert Lowell Marianne MooreThe FishIn the Public GardenCommentary: Marianne Moore Sharon OldsParents’ Day Summer Solstice, New York City Sex without LoveCommentary: Sharon Olds.Sylvia PlathMorning Song Daddy ElmCommentary: Robert Lowell Adrienne RichAunt Jennifer’s Tigers Diving Into the WreckMuriel RukeyserChapultepec Park/1Madboy’s Song Salamander Waiting for IcarusConnection: W.H. Auden, Maxine Kumin Anne SextonThe Starry NightFor My Lover, Returning to His WifeWilliam ShakespeareShall I compare thee to a summer’s day?When to the sessions of sweet silent thought Let me not to the marriage of true minds My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sunCommentary: Erica Jong Gary SotoMexicans Begin Jogging Teaching English from an Old Composition Book Waiting at the Curb, Lynwood, California, 1967Walt WhitmanFrom Song of Myself, 1,6, 50-52A Noiseless Patient SpiderCommentary: Ezra Pound.William Carlos WilliamsSpring and All This Is Just to Say The ProblemWilliam WordsworthOde: Intimations of Immortality The world is too much with usCommentary: William Wordsworth James WrightEvening A Blessing Milkweed Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, MinnesotaCommentary: James Wright William Butler YeatsThe Lake Isle of Innisfree Easter 1916The Second Coming17. Commentaries on Poetry and PoetsBernard Bergonzi, On Hopkins’ The Windhover Cleanth Brooks Jr. and Robert Penn Warren, On Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Samuel Charters, That First Look into Chapman’s HomerMarilyn Chin, On the CanonRita Dove, An Intact WorldT.S. Eliot, From Tradition and the Individual Talent Louise Glück, Poems Are AutobiographyRobert Hayden, On Negro PoetryEdwin Honig, On Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess Erica Jong, Devouring Time: Shakespeare’s SonnetsRobert Lowell, An Explication of Skunk Hour; Forward to Plath’s Ariel Brett C. Millier, On Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art Sharon Olds, From the Salon InterviewEzra Pound, On the Principles of Imagism; What I Feel About Walt WhitmanPercy Bysshe Shelley, From “A Defence of Poetry”Mark Strand, The Rhetoric of Richard Cory David Wojahn, On Political PoetryWilliam Wordsworth, From the Introduction toLyrical Ballads18. Conversations on Three Poets On Interpreting Emily DickinsonThomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily Dickinson’s LettersThomas H. Johnson, The Text of Emily Dickinson’s PoetryThomas Bailey Aldrich, In Re Emily DickinsonRichard Wilbur, On Emily Dickinson Linda Gregg, Not Understanding Emily DickinsonOn Robert Frost’s PoeticsRose C. Feld, An Interview with Robert FrostRobert Frost, The Figure a Poem MakesRobert Lowell, On Robert Frost (poem)Joseph Brodsky, On Grief and ReasonPhilip L. Gerber, On Frost’s After Apple-Picking James Wright, On the Music of Robert Frost’s Stoppingby Woods on a Snowy EveningConversations on Langston Hughes’ LegacyLangston Hughes, A Toast to HarlemJessie Fauset, Meeting Langston HughesArnold Rampersad, Langston Hughes as Folk PoetCarl Phillips, Langston Hughes and Poetic IdentityKevin Young, Langston Hughes (poem)Part Three: Drama19. What Is a Play?Commentary: Aristotle20. The Elements of Drama: A Playwright’s MeansAnton Chekhov, A MonologueAugust Strindberg, The StrongerPlot • Characterization • Dialogue • Staging •ThemeWilly Russell, From Educating RitaCommentary: Leonard Mustazza21. The Art of the Play: Reading, Thinking, and Writing about Drama Reading DramaGuidelines for Reading DramaSample Close Reading Critical Thinking about Drama Writing about Drama Sample Essay: A Reader’s Response to the Opening Lines of Strindberg’s The StrongerCommentaries: Geoffrey Bullough, Frances Fergusson, Leonard Mustazza, Helge Normann Nilsen, Joan Templeton22. Plays and PlaywrightsSophocles, Oedipus the KingCommentaries: Aristotle, Francis Fergusson,Sigmund Freud.William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkConversation: Geoffrey Bullough, H.D.F. Kitto,John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Tom Stoppard,Sir John Gielgud, (Performance Photos), John LahrHenrik Ibsen, A Doll House Commentary: Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Joan Templeton, Liv Ullmann Susan Glaspell, TriflesConnection: Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers; Lynn Nottaage, POOF!Commentary: Elaine Showalter, Leonard Mustazza Tennessee Williams, The Glass MenagerieCommentaries: Benjamin Nelson, Tennessee Williams Arthur Miller, Death of a SalesmanCommentaries: Arthur Miller, Helge Normann NilsenLorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the SunCommentaries: Lorraine Hansberry Lynn Nottage, POOF!Connections: Susan Glaspell, TriflesCommentary: Lynn Nottage23. Commentaries on Plays and PlaywrightsAristotle, On the Elements and General Principles of TragedyFrancis Fergusson, Oedipus, Myth and PlaySigmund Freud, The Oedipus ComplexLorraine Hansberry, An Author’s Reflections: Willie Loman, Walter Younger, and He Who Must LiveLorraine Hansberry, My Shakespearean ExperienceHenrik Ibsen, Notes for A Doll HouseArthur Miller, On Death of a Salesman as an American TragedyArthur Miller, From the Paris Review InterviewLeonard Mustazza, Generic Translation and Thematic Shift in Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers Benjamin Nelson, Problems in The Glass Menagerie Helge Normann Nilsen, Marxism and the Early Plays of Arthur MillerLynn Nottage, On Writing POOF!George Bernard Shaw, On A Doll House Joan Templeton, Is A Doll House a Feminist Text?Liv Ullman, On Performing Nora in A Doll House Tennessee Williams, Production Notes to The Glass Menagerie24. Conversations on Plays and Playwrights On Hamlet as Text andPerformanceGeoffrey Bullough, Sources of Shakespeare’s Hamlet H.D.F. Kitto, Hamlet and the Oedipus John Keats, From a Letter to George and Thomas Keats, 21 December 1817Virginia Woolf, What If Shakespeare Had Had a Sister?Stephen Greenblatt, On the Ghost in Hamlet Tom Stoppard, Dogg’s Hamlet: The EncorePhotographs of Hamlet in Performance Sir John Gielgud, On Playing HamletJohn Lahr, Review of HamletPart Four: Writing about Literature25. Critical Perspectives and Literary Theory Formalist Criticism Biographical Criticism Psychological Criticism Mythological Criticism Historical Criticism Sociological Criticism Reader-Response Criticism Poststructuralist and Deconstructionist Criticism Gender Criticism Cultural Criticism Selected Bibliography26. Developing Your Ideas in an Essay Keeping a Journal or Notebook to Record Your Initial Responses to the Text Using the Commentaries to Ask New Questions about What You Have Read Generating Ideas for Brainstorming, Freewriting,and Listing Organizing Your Notes into a Preliminary Thesis Sentence and Outline Writing the Rough Draft Revising Your Essay Sample Revised Draft: The Voice of the Storyteller in Eudora Welty’s A Worn PathMaking a Final Check of Your Finished EssayPeer ReviewCommon Problems in Writing about Literature Guidelines for Writing an Essay about Literature27. Basic Types of Literary Papers Explication Sample Essay: An Interpretation of Langston Hughes’s The Negro Speaks of RiversAnalysis Sample Essay: Nature and Neighbors in Robert Frost’s Mending WallComparison and Contrast Sample Essay: On the Differences between Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her PeersWriting about the Context of Literature28. Writing Research Papers Three Keys to Literary Research Finding and Focusing a TopicAssigned Topics Choosing Your Own TopicFinding and Using SourcesLibrary Research Using the Web for Research Evaluating Print and Online Sources Your Working BibliographyWorking with Sources and Taking Notes Drafting Your Research PaperSummarizing, Paraphrasing, and QuotingDocumenting Your SourcesMLA Format In-Text or Parenthetical Citations List of Works Cited Footnotes and EndnotesRevising Your Research Paper Student Research Paper: Jennifer Silva, Emily Dickinson and ReligionGlossary of Literary Terms Index of First Lines Index of Authors and Titles