A Short Guide to Writing About Literature

by Barnet, Sylvan; Cain, William E.

• ISBN13: 9780321026507
• ISBN10: 0321026500
• Edition: 8th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

The tenth edition of A Short Guide to Writing about Literature continues to offer students sound advice on how to become critical thinkers and enrich their reading response through accessible, step-by-step instruction. This highly respected text is ideal as a supplement to any course where writing about literature or literary studies is emphasized. New to the Tenth Edition: A prefatory "Letter to Students" introduces students to the importance of writing about literature. New Chapter 1: What Is Literature, and Why Write About It? Chapter 2 features new material on critical thinking. Epigraphs have been added to the beginning of each chapter to engage the attention of students and instructors. Seventeen "Rules for Writers" have been addded to various chapters. Tips and practical suggestions are highlighted throughout the text. Four checklists have been added: basic matters, revising for clarity, revising for conciseness, and reviewing a revised draft. Two poems, one by Emily Dickinson and one by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a fable by Aesop have been added. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Preface	xvii
PART 1 Jumping In
The Writer as Reader: Reading and Responding	3	(9)
``Ripe Figs''	3	(1)
Kate Chopin
Reading as Re-creation	4	(1)
Making Reasonable Inferences	5	(2)
Reading with a Pen in Hand	7	(1)
Recording Your First Responses	8	(1)
Audience and Purpose	9	(1)
A Writing Assignment on ``Ripe Figs''	10	(2)
The Assignment	10	(1)
A Sample Essay	10	(1)
Other Possibilities for Writing	11	(1)
The Reader as Writer: Drafting and Writing	12	(21)
Pre-writing: Getting Ideas	12	(11)
Annotating a Text	12	(1)
More about Getting Ideas: A Second Story ``The Story of an Hour''	12	(1)
Kate Chopin
``The Story of an Hour''	13	(1)
Kate Chopin
Brainstorming for Ideas for Writing	14	(1)
Focused Free Writing	15	(1)
Listing	16	(2)
Asking Questions	18	(1)
Keeping a Journal	19	(1)
Critical Thinking: Arguing with Yourself	20	(2)
Arriving at a Thesis and Arguing It	22	(1)
Writing a Draft	23	(7)
A Sample Draft: ``Ironies in an Hour''	24	(1)
Revising a Draft	25	(1)
Outlining a Draft	26	(1)
Peer Review	27	(3)
The Final Version	30	(3)
``Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin's `The Story of an Hour'''	30	(1)
A Brief Overview of the Final Version	31	(2)
Two Forms of Criticism: Explication and Analysis	33	(23)
Explication	33	(6)
A Sample Explication: Langston Hughes's ``Harlem''	33	(1)
Working toward an Explication of ``Harlem''	34	(2)
Some Journal Entries	36	(2)
The Final Draft	38	(1)
Analysis: The Judgment of Solomon	39	(8)
Other Possible Topics for Analysis	43	(1)
Comparison: An Analytic Tool	44	(3)
Finding a Topic	47	(1)
Considering the Evidence	48	(1)
Organizing the Material	48	(1)
Communicating Judgments	49	(1)
Review: How to Write an Effective Essay	50	(6)
Pre-writing	50	(1)
Drafting	50	(1)
Revising	51	(2)
Editing	53	(1)
Learning from Duke Ellington	54	(1)
A Word about Technical Language	54	(1)
Editing Checklist: Questions to Ask Yourself	55	(1)
Other Kinds of Writing About Literature	56	(17)
A Summary	56	(1)
A Paraphrase	57	(2)
A Literary Response	59	(4)
Writing a Literary Response	59	(1)
A Story Based on a Story	60	(3)
A Parody	63	(2)
A Review	65	(8)
A Review of a Dramatic Production	65	(1)
A Sample Review: ``An Effective Macbeth''	66	(7)
PART 2 Standing Back: Thinking Critically about Literature
What is Literature??	73	(13)
Literature and Form	74	(5)
Literature and Meaning	77	(1)
Arguing about Meaning	78	(1)
Form and Meaning	79	(2)
``The Span of Life''	79	(2)
Robert Frost
The Literary Canon	81	(2)
Literature, Texts, Discourses, and Cultural Studies	83	(1)
In Brief: A Contemporary Author Speaks about Literature	84	(2)
Suggestions for Further Reading	84	(2)
What is Interpretation?	86	(12)
Interpretation and Meaning	86	(1)
Is the Author's Intention a Guide to Meaning?	87	(1)
Is the Work the Author's or the Reader's?	87	(1)
What Characterizes a Good Interpretation?	88	(2)
An Example: Interpreting Pat Mora's ``Immigrants''	90	(1)
Thinking Critically about Literature	91	(1)
A Student Interpretation of Robert Frost's ``Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening''	92	(6)
Suggestions for Further Reading	97	(1)
What is Evaluation?	98	(12)
Criticism and Evaluation	98	(1)
Evaluative Language and the Canon	99	(1)
Are There Critical Standards?	99	(5)
Morality and Truth as Standards	100	(1)
Other Ways to Think about Truth and Realism	101	(3)
Is Sentimentality a Weakness---and If so, Why?	104	(6)
``Little Boy Blue''	105	(1)
Eugene Field
``Little Elegy''	106	(1)
X.J. Kennedy
``We Real Cool''	107	(2)
Gwendolyn Brooks
Suggestions for Further Reading	109	(1)
Writing About Literature: An Overview	110	(31)
The Nature of Critical Writing	110	(1)
Some Critical Approaches	111	(30)
Formalist Criticism (New Criticism)	112	(2)
Deconstruction	114	(2)
Reader-Response Criticism	116	(3)
Archetypal (or Myth) Criticism	119	(2)
Historical Scholarship	121	(1)
Marxist Criticism	121	(1)
The New Historicism	122	(2)
Biographical Criticism	124	(1)
Psychological (or Psychoanalytic) Criticism	124	(2)
Gender (Feminist, and Lesbian and Gay) Criticism	126	(8)
Suggestions for Further Reading	134	(7)
PART 3 Up Close: Thinking Critically about Literary Forms
Writing About Fiction: The World of The Story	141	(41)
Plot and Character	141	(7)
Writing about a Character	143	(2)
A Sample Essay on a Character: ``Holden's Kid Sister''	145	(3)
Foreshadowing	148	(3)
Organizing an Essay on Foreshadowing	150	(1)
Setting and Atmosphere	151	(1)
Symbolism	151	(6)
A Sample Essay on Setting as Symbol: ``Spring Comes to Mrs. Mallard''	153	(4)
Point of View	157	(4)
Third-Person Narrators	157	(2)
First-Person Narrators	159	(2)
Notes and a Sample Essay on Narrative Point of View in James Joyce's ``Araby''	161	(4)
``The Three First-Person Narrators in Joyce's `Araby'''	162	(3)
Theme: Vision or Argument?	165	(2)
Determining and Discussing the Theme	166	(1)
Preliminary Notes and a Sample Essay on the Theme of Eudora Welty's ``A Worn Path''	167	(15)
Preliminary Notes	167	(3)
``Rising into Love''	170	(4)
Comments and Questions	174	(1)
Basing the Paper on Your Own Response	174	(1)
Note on Secondary Sources	175	(2)
Suggestions for Further Reading	177	(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Fiction	178	(4)
Writing About Drama	182	(29)
A Sample Essay	182	(6)
Preliminary Notes	182	(2)
``The Solid Structure of The Glass Menagerie''	184	(4)
Types of Plays	188	(7)
Tragedy	189	(3)
Comedy	192	(1)
Tragicomedy	193	(2)
Aspects of Drama	195	(16)
Theme	195	(2)
Plot	197	(4)
Characterization and Motivation	201	(2)
Conventions	203	(1)
Costumes, Gestures, and Settings	204	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	208	(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Drama	208	(3)
Writing About Poetry	211	(41)
The Speaker and the Poet	211	(6)
``Wild Nights---Wild Nights''	211	(1)
Emily Dickinson
The Language of Poetry	212	(1)
Diction
Tone
Writing about the Speaker: Robert Frost's ``The Telephone''	213	(2)
Journal Entries	215	(2)
Figurative Language	217	(7)
``On First Looking into Chapman's Homer''	218	(3)
John Keats
Preparing to Write about Figurative Language	221	(2)
``The Sick Rose''	223	(1)
William Blake
Structure	224	(7)
``Upon Julia's Clothes''	224	(1)
Robert Herrick
Annotating and Thinking about a Poem	224	(2)
The Student's Finished Essay: ``Herrick's Julia, Julia's Herrick''	226	(2)
Some Kinds of Structure	228	(1)
``A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal''	228	(2)
William Wordsworth
``The Flea''	230	(1)
John Donne
Verbal Irony	231	(1)
Paradox	231	(1)
Explication	231	(4)
A Sample Explication of Yeats's ``The Balloon of the Mind''	232	(3)
Rhythm and Versification: A Glossary for Reference	235	(9)
Rhythm	235	(2)
Meter	237	(3)
Patterns of Sound	240	(1)
Stanzaic Patterns	241	(2)
Blank Verse and Free Verse	243	(1)
``When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer''	243	(1)
Walt Whitman
Sample Essay on Metrics: ``Sound and Sense in Housman's `Eight O'Clock' ''	244	(8)
Suggestions for Further Reading	248	(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Poetry	249	(3)
Writing About an Author in Depth	252	(14)
A Case Study: Writing about Langston Hughes	253	(13)
``The South''	254	(2)
Langston Hughes
``Ruby Brown''	256	(1)
Langston Hughes
``Ballad of the Landlord''	257	(1)
Langston Hughes
``Let America Be America Again''	258	(3)
Langston Hughes
``A National Problem: Race and Racism in the Poetry of Langston Hughes''	261	(5)
Writing About Film	266	(21)
Film as a Medium	266	(3)
Film Techniques	269	(5)
Shots	269	(2)
Sequences	271	(1)
Transitions	271	(1)
Editing	272	(2)
Theme	274	(2)
Getting Ready to Write	276	(1)
A Sample Essay on Visual Symbols: ``A Japanese Macbeth''	277	(5)
The Big Picture	282	(5)
Suggestions for Further Reading	283	(1)
A Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Film	283	(4)
PART 4 Inside: Style, Format, and Special Assignments
Style and Format	287	(20)
Principles of Style	287	(14)
Get the Right Word	288	(3)
Write Effective Sentences	291	(3)
Write Unified and Coherent Paragraphs	294	(5)
A Checklist: Revising Paragraphs	299	(1)
Write Emphatically	299	(1)
Notes on the Dash and the Hyphen	300	(1)
Remarks about Manuscript Form	301	(6)
Basic Manuscript Form	301	(1)
Corrections in the Final Copy	302	(1)
Quotations and Quotation Marks	303	(4)
Writing A Research Paper	307	(35)
What Research is Not. and What Research is	307	(1)
Primary and Secondary Materials	308	(1)
From Topic to Thesis	308	(1)
Locating Material	309	(3)
First Steps	309	(3)
Other Bibliographic Aids	312	(1)
Taking Notes	312	(4)
Two Mechanical Aids: The Photocopier and the Word Processor	313	(1)
A Guide to Note Taking	314	(2)
Drafting the Paper	316	(1)
A Sense of Proportion	317	(1)
Documentation	317	(15)
What to Document: Avoiding Plagiarism	317	(2)
How to Document: Footnotes and Internal Parenthetical Citations	319	(13)
Sample Essay with Documentation: ``The Women in Death of a Salesman''	332	(10)
A Checklist: Reading Drafts of Research Papers	341	(1)
New Approaches to The Research Paper: Literature, History, and The World Wide Web	342	(33)
Case Study on Literature and History: The Internment of Japanese-Americans	342	(33)
Literary Texts	343	(1)
``The Question of Loyalty''	344	(1)
Mitsuye Yamada
``An Argument: On 1942''	344	(3)
David Mura
Historical Sources	347	(10)
Electronic Sources	357	(9)
A Checklist for Evaluating Sources on the World Wide Web	366	(1)
Documenting Electronic Sources in MLA Style	367	(8)
Essay Examinations	375	(4)
What Examinations Are	375	(1)
Writing Essay Answers	376	(3)
APPENDIX A: TWO STORIES	379	(10)
``Araby''	379	(4)
James Joyce
``A Worn Path''	383	(6)
Eudora Welty
APPENDIX B: LITERARY RESEARCH: PRINT AND ELECTRONIC RESOURCES	389	(8)
APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS	397	(14)
Credits	411	(2)
Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines of Poems	413	(4)
Index of Literary Terms	417