Short Guide to Writing about Literature, A, 12th edition
Published by Pearson (June 28, 2011) © 2012
- Sylvan Barnet Tufts University
- William Cain Wellesley College
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Part of Longman's successful Short Guide Series, A Short Guide to Writing about Literature emphasizes writing as a process and incorporates new critical approaches to writing about literature.
The twelfth edition 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.
- Part I (Chs. 1-5) emphasizes the close connections between reading and writing, reflecting the need for good writers to be effective, analytic readers.
- Part II (Chs. 6-9) offers strategies and practical guidelines for understanding how literature "works" (form and meaning), and for understanding the differences between interpretation and evaluation.
- Part III (Chs. 10-15) explores the differences between writing about fiction, drama, and poetry, and includes an in-depth look at the writing of a single author (Langston Hughes).
- Part IV (Chs. 16-17) offers guidance for writing academic papers including research and formatting.
- Appendices include two stories that are the subjects of student essays in the book, a glossary of literary terms, and a quick review quiz.
- A wealth of student papers, including preliminary notes, drafts, and revisions of drafts appear throughout the book.
- Checklists on a variety of topics offer brief, effective guidelines.
- A new chapter on graphic novels (Ch. 11) offers guidance for writing about a fast-emerging genre.
- A new chapter on writing about poems and pictures (Ch. 14) lexplores the challenges of assignments that ask for comparisons of these two genres.
- New selections include works by Gwendolyn Brooks, William Blake, Robert Frost, and Anne Sexton, as well as the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
- Several new sample texts for analysis and interpretation appear throughout (see particularly Chs. 4 and 7).
- A new section on synthesis (Ch. 17) encourages students to understand and practice this critical skill.
- A new appendix on plagiarism--including a quick self-review quiz--enables student to test themselves on their use of sources.
PREFACE
LETTER TO STUDENTS
PART 1
Jumping In
1—WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE: A CRASH COURSE
The Pleasures of Reading—and of Writing about Literature
The Open Secret of Good Writing
The Writing Process
A Checklist of the Basics
2—THE WRITER AS READER: READING AND RESPONDING
Kate Chopin, “Ripe Figs”
The Act of Reading
Reading with a Pen in Hand
Recording Your First Responses
Audience and Purpose
A Writing Assignment on “Ripe Figs”
The Assignment
A Sample Essay: “Images of Ripening in Kate Chopin’s ‘Ripe Figs’ ”
The Student’s Analysis Analyzed
Critical Thinking and the Study of Literature
3—THE READER AS WRITER: DRAFTING AND WRITING
Pre-writing: Getting Ideas
Annotating a Text
More about Getting Ideas: A Second Story by Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
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
A Checklist for Revising for Clarity
Two Ways of Outlining a Draft
A Checklist for Reviewing a Revised Draft
Peer Review
The Final Version
Sample Essay: “Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’ ”
The Analysis Analyzed
Quick Review: From First Response to Final Version: Writing an Essay about a Literary Work
4—TWO FORMS OF CRITICISM: EXPLICATION AND ANALYSIS
Explication
A Sample Explication: Langston Hughes’s “Harlem”
Working toward an Explication of “Harlem”
Some Journal Entries
The Final Draft: “Langston Hughes’s ‘Harlem’ ”
The Analysis Analyzed
A Checklist: Drafting an Explication
Analysis: The Judgment of Solomon
Thinking about Form
Thinking about Character
Thoughts about Other Possibilities
For Further reading and Analysis: The Parable of the Prodigal Son NEW
Comparison: An Analytic Tool
A Checklist: Revising a Comparison
For Further Reading and Comparison: Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” NEW
Finding a Topic
Considering the Evidence
Organizing the Material
Communicating Judgments
Review: How to Write an Effective Essay
1. Pre-writing
2. Drafting
3. Revising
4. Editing
An Editing Checklist: Questions to Ask Yourself When Editing
For Further Reading, Explication, and Comparison: William Blake’s “The Tyger” NEW
5–OTHER KINDS OF WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
A Summary
A Paraphrase
A Review
A Review of a Dramatic Production
A Sample Review: “An Effective Macbeth”
PART 2
Standing Back: Thinking Critically about Literature
6–LITERATURE, FORM, AND MEANING
Literature and FormLiterature and Meaning
Arguing about Meaning
Form and Meaning
Robert Frost, “The Span of Life”
Literature, Texts, Discourses, and Cultural Studies
Suggestions for Further Reading
7–WHAT IS INTERPRETATION?
Interpretation and Meaning
Is the Author’s Intention a Guide to Meaning?
Features of a Good Interpretation
An Example: Interpreting Pat Mora’s “Immigrants”
Thinking Critically about Literature
A Student Interpretation of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Sample Essay: “Stopping by Woods and Going On”
For Further Interpretation, Comparison, and Writing: Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” NEW
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Checklist: Writing an Interpretation NEW
8–WHAT IS EVALUATION?
Criticism and Evaluation
Are There Critical Standards?
Morality and Truth as Standards
Other Ways to Think about Truth and Realism
Suggestions for Further Reading
9–WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE: AN OVERVIEW
Some Critical Approaches
Formalist Criticism (New Criticism)
Deconstruction
Reader-Response Criticism
Archetypal (or Myth) Criticism
Historical Criticism
Marxist Criticism
The New Historicism
Biographical Criticism
Psychological (or Psychoanalytic) Criticism
Gender (Feminist, and Lesbian and Gay) Criticism
Suggestions for Further Reading
PART 3
Up Close: Thinking Critically about Literary Forms
10—WRITING ABOUT FICTION: THE WORLD OF THE STORY
Plot and Character
Writing about a Character
A Sample Essay on a Character: “Holden’s Kid Sister”
The Analysis Analyzed
Foreshadowing
Organizing an Essay on Foreshadowing
Setting and Atmosphere
Symbolism
A Sample Essay on Setting as Symbol: “Spring Comes to Mrs. Mallard”
“Spring Comes to Mrs. Mallard”
Point of View
Third-Person Narrators
First-Person Narrators
Notes and a Sample Essay on Narrative Point of View in James Joyce’s “Araby”
“The Three First-Person Narrators of Joyce’s ‘Araby’ ”
The Analysis Analyzed
Theme: Vision or Argument?
Determining and Discussing the Theme
Preliminary Notes and a Sample Essay on the Theme of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path”
Preliminary Notes
“Rising into Love” (essay on “A Worn Path”)
A Brief Overview of the Essay
A Checklist: Writing about Theme NEW
Basing the Paper on Your Own Responses
A Note on Secondary Sources
A Second Essay about Theme: Notes and the Final Version of an Essay on Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
“ We All Participate in ‘The Lottery’ ”
The Analysis Analyzed
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Fiction
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about a Film Based on a Work of Literature
11–GRAPHIC FICTION NEW
Letters and PicturesGrant Wood’s “Death on the Ridge Road” (painting)
Topic for Writing
Reading an Image: A Short Story Told in One Panel
Tony Carillo’s “F Minus”
12–WRITING ABOUT DRAMA
A Sample Essay
Preliminary Notes
“The Solid Structure of The Glass Menagerie”
Types of Plays
Tragedy
A Checklist: Writing about Tragedy
Comedy Writing about Comedy
A Checklist: Writing about Comedy
Aspects of Drama
Theme
Plot
A Checklist: Writing about Plot
Characterization and Motivation
Conventions
Costumes, Gestures, and Settings
A Sample Essay on Setting in Drama
“ What the Kitchen in Trifles Tells Us”
The Analysis Analyzed
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Drama
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about a Film Based on a Play
A Student’s Essay on a Filmed Version of a Play
“Branagh’s Film of Hamlet”
A Checklist: Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing
13—WRITING ABOUT POETRY
The Speaker and the Poet Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights—Wild Nights”
The Language of Poetry: Diction and Tone
Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I, being born a woman and distressed”
Writing about the Speaker: Robert Frost’s “The Telephone”
Robert Frost, “The Telephone”
Journal Entries
Figurative Language
John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
Preparing to Write about Figurative Language
Imagery and Symbolism
William Blake, “The Sick Rose”
Structure
Robert Herrick, “Upon Julia’s Clothes”
Annotating and Thinking about a Poem
The Student’s Finished Essay: “Herrick’s Julia, Julia’s Herrick”
Some Kinds of Structure
Repetitive Structure
William Wordsworth, “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”
Logical Structure
John Donne, “The Flea”
Verbal Irony
Paradox
Explication
A Sample Explication of Yeats’s “The Balloon of the Mind”
William Butler Yeats, “The Balloon of the Mind”
Rhythm and Versification: A Glossary for Reference
Rhythm
Meter
Patterns of Sound
Stanzaic Patterns
Blank Verse and Free Verse
Walt Whitman, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
Preparing to Write about Prosody
Sample Essay on Metrics: “Sound and Sense in A. E. Housman’s ‘Eight O’Clock’”
“Sound and Sense in A. E. Housman’s ‘Eight O’Clock’ ”
The Analysis Analyzed
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Poetry
14–POEMS AND PICTURES NEW
A Poem and a Sample Student Essay
Vincent van Gogn, “The Starry Night” (painting)
Anne Sexton, “The Starry Night”
Sample Essay: “Two Ways of Looking at a Starry Night”
The Language of Pictures
Writing about Pictures
Comparing and Contrasting
William Notman, “Foes in ’76, Friends in ‘85” (photograph)
Analyzing and Evaluating Evidence
Thinking Critically: Arguing with Oneself,
Asking Questions, and Comparing–E.E. Cummings’s “Buffalo Bill’s”
A Writing Assignment: Connecting a Picture with a Work of Literature
Sample essay: “Two Views of Buffalo Bill”
15–WRITING ABOUT AN AUTHOR IN DEPTH
A Case Study: Writing about Langston Hughes Langston Hughes, “The South”
Langston Hughes, “Ruby Brown”
Langston Hughes, “Ballad of the Landlord”
Sample essay: “A National Problem: Race and Racism in the Poetry of Langston Hughes”
A Brief Overview of the Essay
PART 4
Inside: Style, Format, and Special Assignments
16–STYLE AND FORMAT
Principles of StyleGet the Right Word
Write Effective Sentences
A Checklist for Revising for Conciseness
Write Unified and Coherent Paragraphs
A Checklist: Revising Paragraphs
Write Emphatically
Notes on the Dash and the Hyphen
Remarks about Manuscript Form
Basic Manuscript Form
Quotations and Quotation Marks
17–WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
What Research Is Not, and What Research Is
Primary and Secondary Materials
Locating Material: First Steps
Other Bibliographic Aids
The Basics
Moving Ahead: Finding Sources for Research Work
What Does Your Own Institution Offer?
Taking Notes
Incorporating Your Reading into Your Thinking: The Art and Science of Synthesis NEW
Drafting Your Paper
Focus on Primary Sources
Documentation
What to Document: Avoiding Plagiarism
A Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism
How to Document: Footnotes, Internal Parenthetical Citations, and a List of Works Cited (MLA Format)
Sample Essay with Documentation: “The Women in Death of a Salesman”
A Checklist: Reading the Draft of a Research Paper
Electronic Sources
Encyclopedias: Print and Electronic Versions
The Internet/World Wide Web
Evaluating Sources on the World Wide Web
A Checklist: A Review for Using the World Wide Web
Documentation: Citing a Web Source
A Checklist: Citing World Wide Web Sources
APPENDIX A: TWO STORIES
James Joyce, “Araby”
Eudora Welty, “A Worn Path”
APPENDIX B: GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS
APPENDIX C: HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CITING SOURCES? A QUIZ WITH ANSWERS
CREDITS
INDEX OF AUTHORS, TITLES, AND FIRST LINES OF POEMS
INDEX OF TERMS
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