Cover image for Literature for composition : essays, fiction, poetry, and drama
Title:
Literature for composition : essays, fiction, poetry, and drama
Edition:
3rd ed
Publication Information:
New York : Harper Collins, 1992
ISBN:
9780673521804
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30000001628050 PE1417 L57 1992 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

"Literature for Composition" offers the finest writing and argument coverage, helpful discussions of the literary elements, compelling case studies, and a diverse array of selections. The book includes complete coverage of the writing process, three chapters devoted to argument, complete chapters on interpretation and evaluation, coverage of the literary elements and the study of visual images, and case studies. The book opens with five chapters devoted to reading, writing, and argument. An entire chapter on critical thinking equips readers with a foundation upon which to study the chapters on the literary forms that follow. An anthology is organized around six engaging themes. Special chapters on visuals and film along with ten case studies offer additional resources. For those interested in the study and composition of literature.


Author Notes

Sylvan Saul Barnet was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 11, 1926. During World War II, he served in the Army for two years. He received a bachelor's degree in English from New York University in 1948 and a master's degree in 1950 and a doctorate in 1954 from Harvard University. For the next three decades, he taught freshman writing and literature at Tufts University.

He wrote or edited numerous textbooks including An Introduction to Literature, A Short Guide to Writing About Literature, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, The Study of Literature: A Handbook of Critical Essays and Terms, and Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument.

In the early 1960s, he decided that his students at Tufts University needed an edition of Shakespeare with each play in a separate volume including an introduction and study aids. He presented the idea to editors at the New American Library. The editors approved of the idea and Barnet became the general editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare series. He was the co-author with William Burto of Zen Ink Paintings, which was published in 1982. He died of cancer on January 11, 2016 at the age of 89.

(Bowker Author Biography)


Table of Contents

I Getting Started
1 The Writer as Reader: Reading and Responding
Ripe FigsKate Chopin
Reading as Re-Creation
Making Reasonable Inferences
Reading with Pen in Hand
Recording Your First Responses
Audience and Purpose
A Writing Assignment on Ripe Figs
The Assignment
A Sample Student Essay: Ripening
Other Possibilities for Writing
2 The Reader as Writer: Developing a Thesis, Drafting, and Writing an Argument
Pre-Writing: Getting Ideas
Annotating a Text
More about Getting Ideas: A Second Story by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Brainstorming for Ideas for Writing
Focused Free Writing
Listing
Asking Questions
Keeping a Journal
Critical Thinking: Arguing with Yourself
Arriving at a Thesis, and Arguing It
Writing a Draft
A Sample Draft: Ironies in an Hour
Revising a Draft
Outlining a Draft
Peer Review
The Final Version (Sample Student Essay): Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'
A Brief Overview of the Final Version
Writing with a Word Processor
A Checklist for Writing with a Word Processor
A Third Story by Kate Chopin, The Storm
Writing about The Storm
A Note about Literary Evaluations
3 What Is Literature?
Literature and Form
Literature and Meaning
Arguing about Meaning
Form and Meaning
Robert Frost, The Span of Life,
The Literary Canon
Literature, Texts, Discourses, and Cultural Studies
In Brief: A Contemporary
Author Speaks about Literature
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Casebook on The Titanic: Songs, Poems, and an Essay on a Film
Columbia Encyclopedia, Titanic
The Convergence of the TwainThomas Hardy
The Titanic and Folk Songs
The Titanic (with music), Anonymous
The Titanic, Anonymous
The Titanic (with music)Huddie Leadbetter
Three Poems for Study
The Arrival of the TitanicWilliam Dickey
ReliquaryMichael Donaghy
TitanicDavid R. Salvitt
Film and Literature
An Essay on James Cameron's Film, Titanic
Women and Children FirstKatha Pollitt
4 Reading Literature Closely: (1) Explication
Reading in Slow Motion
A Sample Explication: Langston Hughes's Harlem
HarlemLangston Hughes
Working Toward an Explication of Harlem
Some Journal Entries
A Sample Student Essay (The Final Draft): Langston Hughes's 'Harlem'
Why Write? Purpose and Audience
Five Poems for Explication
Sonnet 73 (That time of year thou mayst in me behold)William Shakespeare
LondonWilliam Blake
SpellboundEmily BrontÃ(c)
I Ask My Mother to SingLi-Young Lee and Martin Luther King and Gwendolyn Brooks
5 Reading Literature Closely: (2) Analysis
The Judgment of Solomon
Analyzing the Story
Other Possible Topics for Analysis
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Comparison: An Analytic Tool
A Sample Student Essay Making a Comparison: Two New Women
Evaluation in Explication and Analysis
Choosing a Topic and Developing a Thesis in an Analytic Paper
An Analysis of a Story
The Secret Life of Walter MittyJames Thurber
Some Journal Entries
List Notes
Sample Draft by a student: Walter Mitty Is No Joke
Introductions, Middles, Endings
Introductory Paragraphs
Middle Paragraphs
Concluding Paragraphs
A Checklist for Revising Paragraphs
Review: Writing an Analysis
A Word about Technical Terminology
Example: A Lyric and a Student's Essay
Aphra Behn, Song: Love Armed
Journal Entries
A Sample Student Essay: The Double Nature of Love
Editing Checklist: Questions to Ask Yourself
Three Short Stories for Analysis
Roger Malvin's Burial, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Everyday UseAlice Walker
El Tonto del BarrioJosÃ(c) Armas
Three Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
Filling Station
The Fish
Brazil, January 1, 1502
6 Other Kinds of Writing about Literature
Summary
Paraphrase
What is Paraphrase?
The Value of Paraphrase
Literary Response
Writing a Literary Response
A Sample Student Story Based on a Story: The Ticket(A Different View of The Story of an Hour)
A Poem Based on a Poem: William Blake, The Tyger, X. J. Kennedy For Allen Ginsberg Parody
Reviewing a Dramatic Production
A Sample Student Review: An Effective Macbeth
The Review Reviewed
II Up Close: Thinking Critically About Literary Works And Literary Forms
7 Critical Thinking: Asking Questions and Making Comparisons
What Is Critical Thinking?
Asking and Answering Questions
Sitting Bull and Buffalo BillWilliam Notman
Comparing and Contrasting
Analyzing and Evaluating Evidence
Thinking Critically about a Work of Literature, and Asking Questions and by Comparing: e.e. cummings's Buffalo Bill's
Two Encyclopedia Accounts of Sitting Bull: An Exercise in Close Reading and Critical Thinking
8 Reading (and Writing about) Essays
Some Kinds of Essays
The Essayist's Persona
Tone
Pre-writing
Black Men and Public SpaceBrent Staples
Summarizing
Some Writing Assignments
Five Essays
A Modest ProposalJonathan Swift
The Death of the MothVirginia Woolf
SalvationLangston Hughes
A Woman's LandSallie Bingham
The American Indian WildernessLouis Owens
9 Reading (and Writing about) Fiction
Stories True and False
SamuelGrace Paley
Plot and Character
Foreshadowing
Setting and Atmosphere
Symbolism
Narrative Point of View
Determining and Discussing the Theme
Six Short Stories
The Cask of AmontilladoEdgar Allan Poe
GriefAnton Chekhov
A Worn PathEudora Welty
The LessonToni Cade Bambara
PowderTobias Wolff
In the GloamingAlice Elliot Dark
10 Thinking Critically about a Short Story
A Casebook on Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal
Battle RoyalRalph Ellison
Atlanta Exposition AddressBooker T. Washington
On Our Spiritual StrivingsW.E.B. Du Bois
On Social EqualityGunnar Myrdal
On Negro Folklore
Ralph Ellison
Life in Oklahoma CityRalph Ellison
11 Reading (and Writing about) Drama
Types of Plays
Tragedy
Comedy
Elements of Drama
Theme
Plot
Gestures
Setting
Characterization and Motivation
Organizing an Analysis of a character
First Draft
Three Plays
A Note on Greek Tragedy
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
TriflesSusan Glaspell
Harvey Fierstein,On Tidy Endings
12 Thinking Critically about Drama
A Sample Essay by a Student
The Glass MenagerieTennessee Williams
Production NotesTennessee Williams
13 Reading (and Writing about) Poetry
The Speaker and the Poet
I'm Nobody! Who are you?Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights Wild NightsEmily Dickinson
The Language of Poetry: Diction and Tone
Writing about the Speaker: Robert Frost's The Telephone
Journal Entries
Figurative Language
Imagery and Symbolism
The Sick RoseWilliam Blake
Verbal Irony and Paradox
Structure
Upon Julia's ClothesRobert Herrick
Student Essay: Herrick's JuliaJulia's Herrick
In an Artist's StudioChristina Rossetti
Explication
An Example
The Balloon of the MindWilliam Butler Yeats
Annotations and Journal Entries
A Sample Essay by a Student: Explication of W. B. Yeats's The Balloon of the Mind
Rhythm and Versification: A Glossary for Reference
Meter
Patterns of Sound
Stanzaic Patterns
Blank Verse and Free Verse
Fifteen Poems about People, Places, and Things
People
Sir Patrick Spence, Anonymous
On My First SonBen Jonson
My Last DuchessRobert Browning
Anyone lived in a pretty new town, e.e. cummings
The MotherGwendolyn Brooks
DaddySylvia Plath
Indian Boarding School: The RunawaysLouise Erdrich
Places
An Old Pond, Basho
A Supermarket in CaliforniaAllen Ginsberg
Lying in a Hammock at William Dufy's Farm in Pine Island, MinnesotaJames Wright
Nothing in Heaven Functions as It OughtX. J. Kennedy
Things
The World Is Too Much with UsWilliam Wordsworth
I like to see it lap the Miles-Emily Dickinson
A noiseless patient spiderWalt Whitman
Hawk, Mary Oliver
14 Thinking Critically about Poetry
A Casebook on Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz-when I died-
The Soul selects her own Society
These are the days when Birds come back
Papa above
There's a certain Slant of light
This World is not Conclusion
I got so I could hear his name-
Because I could not stop for Death
Those-dying, then
A Sample Essay by a Student: Religion and Religious Imagery in Emily Dickenson
III Standing Back: Arguing Interpretations And Evaluations, And Understanding Critical Approaches
15 Arguing an Interpretation
Interpretation and Meaning
Is the Author's Intention a Guide to Meaning?
Is the Work the Author's or the Reader's?
What Characterizes a Good Interpretation?
An Example: Interpreting Pat Mora's Immigrants
Thinking Critically about Responses to Literature
Two Sample Interpretations
Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Sample Essay by a Student: Stopping by Woods-and Going On
Sample Essay by a Student: 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' as a Short Story
Additional Poems for Interpretation
Mending WallRobert Frost
Nothing Gold Can StayRobert Frost
A Slumber Did My Spirit SealWilliam Wordsworth
16 Arguing an Evaluation
Criticism and Evaluation
Evaluative Language and the Canon
Are there Critical Standards?
Morality and Truth as Standards
Other Ways of Thinking about Truth and Realism
Is Sentimentality a Weakness-And If So, Why?
Little Boy BlueEugene Field
Little ElegyX. J. Kennedy
We Real CoolGwendolyn Brooks
Additional Works for Evaluation
Dover BeachMatthew Arnold
The Dover BitchAnthony Hecht
From the Wash the laundress sendsA. E. Housman
The Man That Got AwayIra Gershwin
WomenLouise Bogan
An Occurrence at Owl Creek BridgeAmbrose Bierce
17 Writing about Literature: An Overview
Criticism as Argument: Assumptions and Evidence
Some Critical Stances
Formalist Criticism (New Criticism)
Deconstruction
Reader-Response Criticism
Archetypal Criticism (Myth Criticism)
Historical Scholarship
Marxist Criticism
New Historicism
Biographical Criticism
Psychological or Psychoanalytic Criticism
Gender Criticism (Feminist, and Lesbian and Gay Criticism)
Suggestions for Further Reading
IV A Thematic Anthology
18 Love and Hate
Essays
A Lover's DepartureSei Shonagon
I Fell in Love, or My Hormones AwakenedJudith Ortiz Cofer
Like MexicansGary Soto
Love StoriesLouis Menand
Fiction
Cat in the RainErnest Hemingway
Student's Annotations and Journal Entries on Cat in the Rain
Asking Questions about a Story
A Sample Student Essay: Hemingway's American Wife
A Second Example: An Essay Drawing on Related Material in the Chapter
The Happy PrinceOscar Wilde
A Rose for EmilyWilliam Faulkner
SweatZora Neale Hurston
Popular MechanicsRaymond Carver
Second-Hand ManRita Dove
Poetry
Western Wind, Anonymous
Come Live with Me and Be My LoveChristopher Marlowe
The Nymph's Reply to the ShepherdSir Walter Raleigh
The BaitJohn Donne
Sonnet 29 (When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes)William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds)William Shakespeare
A Valediction: Forbidding MourningJohn Donne
To His Coy MistressAndrew Marvell
The Garden of LoveWilliam Blake
A Poison TreeWilliam Blake
Soliloquy of the Spanish CloisterRobert Browning
When I Heard at the Close of the DayWalt Whitman
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak GrowingWalt Whitman
A BirthdayChristina Rossetti
The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockT. S. Eliot
The Spring and the FallEdna St. Vincent Millay
Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor DrinkEdna St. Vincent Millay
The Silken TentRobert Frost
Diving into the WreckAdrienne Rich
NovellaAdrienne Rich
XI.Adrienne Rich
The Frog PrinceRobert Pack
Love SongJoseph Brodsky
QuarrelEllen Bryant Voight
Love in PlaceNikki Giovanni
ChivalryCarol Muske
Drama
The Man in a CaseWendy Wasserstein
19 Gender Roles: Making Men and Women
Essays
Why Boys Don't Play with DollsKatha Pollitt
I Want a WifeJudy Brady
The Men We Carry in Our Minds . . . and How They Differ from the Real Lives of Most MenScott Russell Sanders
Fiction
The Yellow WallpaperCharlotte Perkins Gilman
The Horse Dealer's DaughterD. H. Lawrence
The Man Who Was Almost a ManRichard Wright
ShilohBobbie Ann Mason
BridgingMax Apple
The RumorJohn Update
TerritoryDavid Levant
A Woman on a RoofDoris Lessing
The TwoGloria Naylor
Casebook on Alice Munro
Boys and GirlsAlice Munro
How I Met My HusbandAlice Munro
The Children StayAlice Munro
What Is Real? (Lecture)Alice Munro
A Conversation (Interview)Alice Munro
Poetry
Three Nursery Rhymes
What are little boys made of?
Georgie Porgie
The Milkmaid
DaystarRita Dove
Those Winter SundaysRobert Hayden
MythMuriel Rukeyser
My Papa's WaltzTheodore Roethke
Wishes for SonsLucille Clifton
Rites of PassageSharon Olds
HomosexualityFrank O'Hara
A Boy Named SueShel Silverstein
I Stop Writing the PoemTess Gallagher
Woman's WorkJulia Alvarez
Is There Life After FeminismMaud Meehan
Barbie DollMarge Piercy
A Work of ArtificeMarge Piercy
Drama
A Doll's HouseHenrik Ibsen
OleannaDavid Mamet
20 Innocence and Experience
Essays
GraduationMaya Angelou
Fiction
ArabyJames Joyce
One Friday MorningLangston Hughes
Yoneko's EarthquakeHisaye Yamamoto
A & PJohn Updike
The Stolen PartyLiliana Heker
Poems
Infant JoyWilliam Blake
Infant SorrowWilliam Blake
The Echoing GreenWilliam Blake
Spring and Fall: To a Young ChildGerard Manley Hopkins
When I was One-and-Twenty (Shropshire Lad # 13)A. E. Housman
Into my heart an Air That Kills, (Shropshire Lad #40)A. E. Housman
In Just-, E.E. Cummings
The School Children, Louise Glück
Gretel in Darkness, Louise Glück
Drama
A Casebook on William Shakespeare's Hamlet
A Note on the Elizabethan Theater
A Note on the Text of Hamlet
HamletWilliam Shakespeare
Hamlet and OedipusErnst Jones
The Promulgation of ConfusionAnne Barton
On the First SoliloquyStanley Wells
Representing OpheliaElaine Showalter
Playing Gertrude for the BBC TV, 1980Claire Bloom
The BBC Hamlet: A Television ProductionBernice W. Kliman
At Elsinore, [A Review of Branagh's Film]Stanley Kauffmann
Branagh's Hamlet [review]Will Saretta
21 Identity in Pluralistic America
Essays
A Conflict of InterestZora Neale Hurston
It's Hard Enough Being MeAnna Lisa Raya
Goodbye, Saigon, FinallyAndrew Lam
Fiction
The Son from America, Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Oriental ContingentDiana Chang
The Red ConvertibleLouise Erdrich
CathedralRaymond Carver
Poetry
The New ColossusEmma Lazarus
The Unguarded GatesThomas Bailey Aldrich
Ellis IslandJoseph Bruchac III
Richard CoryEdwin Arlington Robinson
Joe HillAlfred Hayes
Child of the AmericasAurora Levins Morales
To Live in the Borderlands Means YouGloria Anzaldà
So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from AmericansJimmy Santiago Baca
Theme for English BLangston Hughes
For a White person who wants to know how to be my friendPat Parker
To the LadyMitsuye Yamada
Drama
FencesAugust Wilson
Casebook on American Indian Identity
My Children, When at First I Liked the WhitesAnonymous Arapaho
Father, Have Pity on MeAnonymous Arapaho
The Indians' Welcome to the Pilgrim FathersLydia Howard Huntley Sigourney
The Vanishing RedRobert Frost
Three Thousand Dollar Death songWendy Rose
Moving Camp Too Far, Nila Northsun 1963, Durango, Colorado
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York CitySherman Alexie
Representations-Visual and Verbal-of Pocahontas
John Smith Saved by PocahontasJohn Smith
Last Wish of PocahontasMiss Baker
PocahontasGeorge P. Morris
PocahontasMoses Y. Scott
Pocahontas to Her English HusbandJohn Rolfe and Paula Gunn Allen
Playing Indian in the NinetiesPauline Turner
Review of Disney's PocahontasJohn d'Entremont
22 Literary Visions: Poems and Paintings
Thinking and Writing about Poems and Paintings
Essays
Van Gogh's BedJane Flanders
The Great FigureWilliam Carlos Williams
Mourning PictureAdrienne Rich
Beauty and SadnessCathy Song
The Rebirth of VenusMary Jo Salter
The Starry NightAnne Sexton
Musée des Beaux ArtsW. H. Auden
Nude Descending a StaircaseX. J. Kennedy
American FlamingoGreg Pape
Brueghel's Two MonkeysWislawa Szymborska
Luncheon on the GrassCarl Phillips
Before the MirrorJohn Updike
23 Religion and Society
Essays
God the Mother Rules-OK?Jill Tweedie
Of the Sorrow SongsW.E.B. Du Bois
Heaven in the Age of ReasonJeffrey L. Sheler
Fiction
Young Goodman BrownNathaniel Hawthorne
If Not HigherI. L. Peretz
The Jilting of Granny WeatherallKatherine Anne Porter
The Man to Send Rain CloudsLeslie Marmon Silko
Casebook on Flannery O'Connor
A Good Man Is Hard To FindFlannery O'Connor
RevelationFlannery O'Connor
Remarks from Essays and LettersFlannery O'Connor
On Interpreting A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Flannery O'Connor
Poetry
A Note on the Psalms
Psalm 19
Psalm 23
Psalm 121 There Is No God But He..., Qu'ran
A Note on Spirituals
Deep River, Anonymous
Go Down, Moses, Anonymous
Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel, Anonymous
Sonnet 146 (Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth)William Shakespeare
Holy Sonnet XIV (Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth)
Holy Sonnet XIV (Batter my heart, three-personed God)John Donne
When I Consider How My Light is SpentJohn Milton
UphillChristina Rossetti
God's GrandeurGerard Manley Hopkins
DesignRobert Frost
Journey of the MagiT. S. Eliot
NocturneGabriela Mistral
Salvator Mundi: Via CrucisDenise Levertov
On the Bus to UticaCarl Dennis
Drama
Antigone, Sophocles
Appendix A Remarks about Manuscript Form
Basic Manuscript Form
Corrections in the Final Copy
Quotations and Quotation Marks
Quotation marks or Underlining?
A Note on the Possessive
Appendix B Writing a Research Paper
What Research is Not, and What Research is
Primary and Secondary Materials
From Topic to Thesis
Locating Materials: First Steps
Other Bibliographic Aids
Taking Notes
Two Mechanical Aids: The Photocopier and the Word Processor
A Guide to Note-Taking
Drafting the Paper
A Sense of Proportion
Documentation
What to Document: Avoiding Plagiarism
How to Document: Footnotes and Internal Parenthetical Citations, and a list of works cited (MLA format)
Appendix C New Approaches to the Research Paper: Literature, History, and the World Wide Web
Case Study on Literature and History: The Internment of Japanese Americans
Literary Texts
Historical Sources
Electronic Sources
Evaluating Sources on the World Wide Web
Documentation: Citing a WWW Source
A Checklist: Citing WWW Sources
Additional Print and Electronic Sources
Appendix D Literary Research: Print and Electronic Resources
Print Reference Sources
Other Reference Resources
Bibliographies
Electronic Sources
Other Useful Sites on Authors
History-Reference and Bibliography Sources
For General Bibliography in the Humanities
For Evaluating the Point of View, the Content, and the Intended Audience of Sources
Other Resources
What Does Your Own Institution Offer?
Appendix E Glossary of Literary Terms
Credits
Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines of Poems
Index of Terms
Editing Checklist: Questions to Ask Yourself (inside back cover)