The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature
Thirteenth Edition ©2024 Michael Meyer; D. Quentin Miller Formats: Achieve, E-book, Print
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Authors
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Michael Meyer
Michael Meyer, Emeritus Professor of English, taught writing and literature courses for more than thirty years — since 1981 at the University of Connecticut, and before that at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the College of William and Mary. In addition to being an experienced teacher, Meyer is a highly regarded literary scholar. His scholarly articles have appeared in distinguished journals such as American Literature, Studies in the American Renaissance, and Virginia Quarterly Review. An internationally recognized authority on Henry David Thoreau, Meyer is a former president of the Thoreau Society and coauthor (with Walter Harding) of The New Thoreau Handbook, a standard reference source. His first book, Several More Lives to Live: Thoreau’s Political Reputation in America, was awarded the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize by the American Studies Association. He is also the editor of Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings. He has lectured on a variety of American literary topics from Cambridge University to Peking University. His other books for Bedford/St. Martin’s include The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Literature to Go, Thinking and Writing about Poetry, Poetry: An Introduction, and Thinking and Writing about Literature.
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D. Quentin Miller
D. Quentin Miller, Professor of English, has taught literature and writing at Suffolk University in Boston since 2000. Prior to that he taught at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, at the University of Connecticut (where he wrote his dissertation under the direction of Michael Meyer), and in a variety of other settings, including prisons. Miller is the author, editor, or co-editor of a dozen books and over two dozen critical essays in collections and in scholarly journals such as American Literature, African American Review, and The James Baldwin Review. He is an internationally renowned scholar on the works of James Baldwin and has also published reviews in such publications as TLS and original fiction. His most recent books are The Routledge Introduction to the American Novel (2024), James Baldwin in Context (2019), Understanding John Edgar Wideman (2018), American Literature in Transition: 1980-1990 (2018), and The Routledge Introduction to African American Literature (2016).
Table of Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature
Preface for Instructors
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature
The Nature of Literature
*Danusha Laméris, "Feeding the Worms"
The Value of Literature
The Changing Literary Canon
*Approaching Sensitive Subjects
FICTION
1. Reading Fiction
Reading Fiction Responsively
Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of "The Story of an Hour"
A SAMPLE PAPER: Differences in Responses to Kate Chopins "The Story of an Hour"
Explorations and Formulas
Ann Beattie, "Janus"
2. Plot
T.C. Boyle, "The Hit Man"
*Joy Harjo, "The Reckoning"
William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"
PERSPECTIVE: William Faulkner, On "A Rose for Emily"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of "A Rose for Emily"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Conflict in the Plot of William Faulkners "A Rose for Emily"
Andre Dubus, "Killings"
3. Character
Tobias Wolff, "Powder"
*Zadie Smith, "Martha, Martha"
James Baldwin, "Sonnys Blues"
4. Setting
Ernest Hemingway, "Soldiers Home"
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
5. Point of View
Third-Person Narrator (Nonparticipant)
First-Person Narrator (Participant)
John Updike, "A & P "
Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"
Manuel Muñoz,"Zigzagger"
*Lorrie Moore, "How to Become a Writer"
6. Symbolism
Louise Erdrich, "The Red Convertible"
Ralph Ellison, "King of the Bingo Game"
Cynthia Ozick, "The Shawl"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Layers of Symbol in Cynthia Ozicks "The Shawl"
7. Theme
*Adrian Tomine, "Intruders" (graphic short story)
*A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Danger among Us: Distilling the Theme in "Intruders"
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Ministers Black Veil"
*Carmen Maria Machado, "Eight Bites"
8. Style, Tone, and Irony
Style
Tone
Irony
Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
Mark Twain, "The Story of the Good Little Boy"
*Virginia Woolf, "The Man Who Loved His Kind"
PERSPECTIVE: Virginia Woolf, "On Conventions in Writing"
Approaches to Fiction
Thematic Approaches
9. A Thematic Case Study: War and Its Aftermath
Tim OBrien, "How to Tell a True War Story"
Kurt Vonnegut, "Happy Birthday, 1951"
Edwidge Danticat, "The Missing Peace"
10. A Thematic Case Study: Privacy
Oscar Wilde, "The Sphinx without a Secret: An Etching"
David Long, "Morphine"
ZZ Packer, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere"
John Cheever, "The Enormous Radio"
Genre Studies
11. A Genre Case Study: Speculative Fiction
*Peter Ho Davies, "Minotaur"
*N. K. Jemisin, "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters"
*Mariana Enriquez, "Back When We Talked to the Dead"
*Philip K. Dick, "To Serve the Master"
Authors in Depth
12. *A Study of Alice Munro
An Introduction
A Brief Biography
Alice Munro:
*"Walker Brothers Cowboy"
*"The Moons of Jupiter"
*"Silence"
PERSPECTIVES
*Alice Munro, "In Her Own Words"
*Margaret Atwood, "Alice Munro: An Appreciation"
*Beverly Rasporich, "Alice: The Woman Behind the Art"
*W.R. Martin and Warren U. Ober, "Alice Munro as Small-Town"
Historian: "Spaceships Have Landed"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
13. A Study of Flannery OConnor
A Brief Biography and Introduction
Flannery OConnor:
"A Good Man is Hard to Find"
"Good Country People"
*"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
PERSPECTIVES
Flannery OConnor, "On the Use of Exaggeration and Distortion"
Josephine Hendin, "On OConnors Refusal to Do Pretty"
Claire Katz, "The Function of Violence in OConnors Fiction"
Edward Kessler, "On OConnors Use of History"
TIME Magazine, "On A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories"
14. A Study of Dagoberto Gilb: The Author Reflects on Three Stories
An Introduction
A Brief Biography
Dagoberto Gilb:
"How Books Bounce" (INTRODUCTION)
"Love in L.A." (STORY)
"On Writing Love in L.A." (ESSAY)
"Shout" (Story)
"On Writing Shout" (ESSAY)
"Uncle Rock" (Story)
"On Writing Uncle Rock" (ESSAY)
PERSPECTIVES
Dagoberto Gilb:
"On Physical Labor"
"On Distortions of Mexican American Culture"
"Michael Meyer Interviews Dagoberto Gilb"
FACSIMILES: Dagoberto Gilb, Two Draft Manuscript Pages
Further Reading
15. Stories for Further Reading
Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Volar"
Zora Neale Hurston, "Sweat"
James Joyce, "Eveline"
*Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, "Lets Tell This Story Properly"
Joyce Carol Oates, "Tick"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"
George Saunders, "I Can Speak"
Alice Walker, "The Flowers"
John Edgar Wideman, "All Stories are True"
POETRY
The Elements of Poetry
16. Reading Poetry
Reading Poetry Responsively
Lisa Parker, "Snapping Beans"
*Linda Pastan, "Jump Cabling"
John Updike, "Dogs Death"
The Pleasure of Words
Gregory Corso: "I am 25"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Explication of "I am 25"
Robert Francis, "Catch"
Robert Morgan, "Mountain Graveyard"
E. E. Cummings, "l(a"
Anonymous, "Western Wind"
Regina Barreca, "Nighttime Fires"
Suggestions for Approaching Poetry
Poetic Definitions of Poetry
Marianne Moore, "Poetry"
Billy Collins, "Introduction to Poetry"
Ruth Forman, "Poetry Should Ride the Bus"
Charles Bukowski, "a poem is a city"
*Ada Limón, "The End of Poetry"
Recurrent Poetic Figures: Five Ways of Looking at Roses
Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose"
Edmund Waller, "Go, Lovely Rose"
William Blake, "The Sick Rose"
Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), "Sea Rose"
Poems for Further Study
Mary Oliver, "The Poet with His Face in His Hands"
Jim Tilley, "The Big Questions"
Alberto Ríos, "Seniors"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Eagle"
Edgar Allan Poe, "Sonnet To Science"
Cornelius Eady, "The Supremes"
17. Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone
Word Choice
Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Allusion
Word Order
Tone
Marilyn Nelson, "How I Discovered Poetry"
Katharyn Howd Machan, "Hazel Tells LaVerne"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Tone in Katharyn Howd Machans "Hazel Tells LaVerne"
Martín Espada, "Latin Night at the Pawnshop"
*Joy Harjo, "Granddaughters"
Diction and Tone in Four Love Poems
*Shamim Azad, "First Love"
*Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Sonnet XLIII"
*John Frederick Nims, "Love Poem"
*Pablo Neruda, "Drunk as drunk on turpentine"
Poems for Further Study
Walt Whitman, "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Kwame Dawes, "History Lesson at Eight a.m."
Cathy Song, "The Youngest Daughter"
John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Alice Jones, "The Lungs"
Louis Simpson, "In the Suburbs"
A Note on Reading Translations
Sappho, "Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne" (trans. Henry T. Wharton)
Sappho, "Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite" (trans. Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
Sappho, "Prayer to my lady of Paphos" (trans. Mary Barnard)
18. Images
Poetrys Appeal to the Senses
William Carlos Williams, "Poem"
Walt Whitman, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"
*Suji Kwock Kim, "The Korean Community Garden in Queens"
David Solway, "Windsurfing"
Poems for Further Study
Adelaide Crapsey, "November Night"
Ruth Fainlight, "Crocuses"
Mary Robinson, "Londons Summer Morning"
William Blake, "London"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Imagery in William Blakes "London" and Mary Robinsons "Londons Summer Morning"
Kwame Dawes, "The Habits of Love"
*Charles Simic, "House of Cards"
Sally Croft, "Home-Baked Bread"
John Keats, "To Autumn"
PERSPECTIVE: T. E. Hulme, "On the Differences between Poetry and Prose"
William Shakespeare, from Macbeth
Simile and Metaphor
Langston Hughes, "Harlem"
Jane Kenyon, "The Socks"
Anne Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book"
Other Figures
Edmund Conti, "Pragmatist"
Dylan Thomas, "The Hand That Signed the Paper"
Janice Townley Moore, "To a Wasp"
Tajana Kovics, "Text Message"
Poems for Further Study
William Carlos Williams, "To Waken an Old Lady"
Ernest Slyman, "Lightning Bugs"
Martín Espada, "The Mexican Cabdrivers Poem for His Wife, Who Has Left Him"
Judy Page Heitzman, "The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill"
Robert Pinsky, "Icicles"
Jim Stevens, "Schizophrenia"
Kay Ryan, "Learning"
Ronald Wallace, "Building an Outhouse"
Elaine Magarrell, "The Joy of Cooking"
PERSPECTIVE: John R. Searle, "Figuring Out Metaphors"
20. Symbol, Allegory, and Irony
Symbol
Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night"
Allegory
James Baldwin, "Guilt, Desire and Love"
Irony
Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Richard Cory"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Irony in Edwin Arlington Robinsons "Richard Cory"
*Gwendolyn Brooks, "Sadie and Maud"
E. E. Cummings, "next to of course god america i"
Stephen Crane, "A Man Said to the Universe"
Poems for Further Study
Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market"
Jane Kenyon, "The Thimble"
Kevin Pierce, "Proof of Origin"
Carl Sandburg, "A Fence"
Julio Marzán, "Ethnic Poetry"
Mark Halliday, "Graded Paper"
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"
William Blake, "A Poison Tree"
PERSPECTIVE: Ezra Pound, "On Symbols"
21. Sounds
Listening to Poetry
*Kamau Brathwaite, "Ogun"
John Updike, "Player Piano"
Emily Dickinson, "A Bird came down the Walk"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Sound in Emily Dickinsons "A Bird came down the Walk"
Rhyme
Richard Armour, "Going to Extremes"
Robert Southey, from "The Cataract of Lodore"
PERSPECTIVE: David Lenson, "On the Contemporary Use of Rhyme"
Sound and Meaning
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Gods Grandeur"
Poems for Further Study
Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
William Heyen, "The Trains"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Break, Break, Break"
John Donne, "Song"
Kay Ryan, "Dew"
Andrew Hudgins, "The Ice-Cream Truck"
Robert Francis, "The Pitcher"
Helen Chasin, "The Word Plum"
Richard Wakefield, "The Bell Rope"
Jean Toomer, "Unsuspecting"
John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale"
Howard Nemerov, "Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry"
Major Jackson, "Autumn Landscape"
22. Patterns of Rhythm
Some Principles of Meter
William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up"
Suggestions for Scanning a Poem
Timothy Steele, "Waiting for the Storm"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: The Rhythm of Anticipation in Timothy Steeles "Waiting for The Storm"
William Butler Yeats, "That the Night Come"
Poems for Further Study
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Mnemonic"
John Maloney, "Good!"
Alice Jones, "The Foot"
A .E. Housman, "When I was one-and-twenty"
Robert Herrick, "Delight in Disorder"
Ben Jonson, "Still to Be Neat"
E. E. Cummings, "O sweet spontaneous"
William Blake, "The Lamb"
William Blake, "The Tyger"
Carl Sandburg, "Chicago"
PERSPECTIVE: Louise Bogan, "On Formal Poetry"
23. Poetic Forms
Some Common Poetic Forms
A.E. Housman, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now"
Robert Herrick, "Upon Julias Clothes"
Sonnet
John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapmans Homer"
William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us"
William Shakespeare, "Shall I compare thee to a summers day?"
William Shakespeare, "My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun"
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "I will put Chaos into fourteen lines"
Mark Jarman, "Unholy Sonnet"
R.S. Gwynn, "Shakespearean Sonnet"
Villanelle
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
*Denise Duhamel, "Please Dont Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen"
Sestina
Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Sestina"
Florence Cassen Mayers, "All-American Sestina"
Julia Alvarez, "Bilingual Sestina"
Epigram
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What Is an Epigram?"
David McCord, "Epitaph on a Waiter"
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Theology"
Limerick
Arthur Henry Reginald Buller, "There was a young lady named Bright"
Laurence Perrine, "The limericks never averse"
Haiku
Matsuo Bashō, "Under cherry trees"
Carolyn Kizer, "After Bashō"
Amy Lowell, "Last night it rained"
Gary Snyder, "A Dent in a Bucket"
Ghazal
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, "Ghazal 4"
Patricia Smith, "Hip-Hop Ghazal"
Elegy
Ben Jonson, "On My First Son"
Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Kate Hanson Foster, "Elegy of Color"
Ode
Alexander Pope, "Ode on Solitude"
Parody
Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool"
Joan Murray, "We Old Dudes"
Picture Poem
Michael McFee, "In Medias Res"
Open Form
Walt Whitman, from "I Sing the Body Electric"
PERSPECTIVE: Walt Whitman, "On Rhyme and Meter"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: The Power of Walt Whitmans Open Form Poem "I Sing the Body Electric"
*William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow"
Julio Marzán, "The Translator at the Reception for Latin American Writers"
Major Jackson, "The Chase"
David Hernandez, "All-American"
PERSPECTIVE: Elaine Mitchell, "Form"
Approaches to Poetry
24. *A Thematic Case Study: Poetry and Protest
*Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "Eliza Harris"
Claude McKay, "The Lynching"
*Tillie Lerner Olsen, "I Want You Women Up North to Know"
*Genevieve Taggard, "Ode in a Time of Crisis"
*Audre Lorde, "Power"
*June Jordan, "Poem About My Rights"
*Denise Levertov, "A Poem at Christmas, 1972, During the Terror-Bombing of North Vietnam"
*Kimberly Blaeser, "Apprenticed to Justice"
*Tato Laviera, "Latero Story"
*Claudia Rankine, "Stop-and-Frisk"
*Danez Smith, "not an elegy for Mike Brown"
CASE STUDIES
*Aja Monet, #sayhername
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
25. *A Thematic Case Study: Our Fragile Planet
*Eileen Cleary, "The Way We Fled"
*Tess Gallagher, "Choices"
*Joy Harjo, "Singing Everything"
J. Estanislao Lopez, "Meditation on Beauty"
Gail White, "Dead Armadillos"
Allen Ginsburg, "Sunflower Sutra"
Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"
Sylvia Plath, "Pheasant"
*Teresa Mei Chuc, "Rainforest"
*Jennifer Franklin, "Memento Mori: Apple Orchard"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
26. Case Study: Song Lyrics as Poetry
Frederic Weatherly, "Danny Boy"
*Bessie Smith and W.C. Handy, "Careless Love Blues"
*Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd"
Hank Williams, "Im So Lonesome I Could Cry"
Bob Dylan, "Its Alright, Ma (Im Only Bleeding)"
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "I Am the Walrus"
Joni Mitchell, "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire"
Paul Simon, "Slip Slidin Away"
*Ani DiFranco, "Not a Pretty Girl"
Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, "Alice"
*Adrianne Lenker, "Not"
27. *A Thematic Case Study: The Poetry of Solitude
*Jim Moore, "How to Come Out of Lockdown"
Emily Dickinson, "The Soul selects her own Society"
Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
*John Keats, "To Solitude"
*Elisa Gonzalez, "In Quarantine, I Reflect on the Death of Ophelia"
William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
Robert Lowell, "Skunk Hour"
*Galway Kinnell, "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone"
Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"
Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"
*Dionisio D. Martínez, "Flood: Years of Solitude"
*Li Bai, "The Solitude of Night"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
Claude McKay
"The Harlem Dancer"
"If We Must Die"
"The Tropics in New York"
"America"
"The White City"
"The Barrier"
Georgia Douglas Johnson
"Youth"
"Foredoom"
"Calling Dreams"
"Lost Illusions"
"Fusion"
"Prejudice"
Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
"Jazzonia"
"The Weary Blues"
"Lenox Avenue: Midnight"
"Ballad of the Landlord"
Countee Cullen
"Yet Do I Marvel"
"Incident"
"Heritage"
PERSPECTIVES
Karen Jackson Ford, "Hughess Aesthetics of Simplicity"
David Chinitz, "The Romanticization of Africa in the 1920s"
Alain Locke, "Review of Georgia Douglas Johnsons Bronze: A Book of Verse"
Countee Cullen, "On Racial Poetry"
Onwuchekwa Jemie, "On Universal Poetry"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
Poetry and the Visual Arts
Questions for Responsive Reading and Writing
Grant Wood, "American Gothic" (PAINTING)
John Stone, "American Gothic" (POEM)
Cathy Song, "Girl Powdering Her Neck" (POEM)
Kiagawa Utamaro, "Girl Powdering Her Neck" (WOODBLOCK PRINT)
Yusef Komunyakaa, "Facing It" (POEM)
Maya Lin, "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall" (SCULPTURE)
Wislawa Szymborska, "Brueghels Two Monkeys" (POEM)
Pieter Bruegel The Elder, "Two Chained Monkeys" (PAINTING)
Edward Hirsch, "Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad" (POEM)
Edward Hopper, "House by the Railroad" (PAINTING)
Wislawa Szymborska, "Vermeer" (POEM)
Vermeer, "The Milkmaid" (PAINTING)
Four Poets in Depth
29. A Study of Emily Dickinson
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to Her Work
Emily Dickinson:
"If I can stop one Heart from breaking"
"If I shouldnt be alive"
"The Thought beneath so slight a film"–
"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee"
"Success is counted sweetest"
"Water, is taught by thirst"
"Some keep the Sabbath going to Church"
"I taste a liquor never brewed
"Heaven is what I cannot reach!"
"I like a look of Agony"
"Wild Nights Wild Nights!"
"Much Madness is divinest Sense"
"I dwell in Possibility"
"I heard a Fly buzz when I died"
"Because I could not stop for Death"
"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant"
"Oh Sumptuous moment"
"A Route of Evanescence"
"From all the Jails the Boys and Girls"
PERSPECTIVES
Emily Dickinson, "A Description of Herself"
Thomas Wentworth Higgonson, "On Meeting Dickinson for the First Time"
Mabel Loomis Todd, "The Character of Amherst"
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, "On Dickinsons White Dress"
Paula Bennett, "On I heard a Fly buzz when I died"
Martha Nell Smith, "On Because I could not stop for Death"
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING ABOUT AN AUTHOR IN DEPTH
A Sample In-Depth Study
Emily Dickinson:
"Faith is a fine invention"
"I know that He exists"
"I never saw a Moor"
"Apparently with no surprise"
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: Religious Faith in Four Poems by Emily Dickinson
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
30. A Study of Robert Frost
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to His Work
Robert Frost
"The Road Not Taken"
"The Pasture"
"Mowing"
"Mending Wall"
"Birches"
"Out, Out"
"Fire and Ice"
"The Need of Being Versed in Country Things"
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"
"Neither Out Far nor In Deep"
"Design"
"Desert Places"
"The Gift Outright"
PERSPECTIVES
Robert Frost, "On the Living Part of a Poem"
Amy Lowell, "On Frosts Realistic Technique"
Herbert R. Coursen Jr. "A Parodic Interpretation of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
31. A Study of Julia Alvarez: The Author Reflects on Five Poems
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to Her Work
Julia Alvarez
"Queens, 1963" (POEM)
"On Writing Queens, 1963" (ESSAY)
Queens Civil Rights Demonstration (PHOTO)
"Housekeeping Cages" (ESSAY)
"On Writing ‘Housekeeping Cages’ and Her Housekeeping Poems" (ESSAY)
"Dusting" (POEM)
"On Writing Dusting" (ESSAY)
"Ironing Their Clothes" (POEM)
"On Writing Ironing Their Clothes" (ESSAY)
"Sometimes the Words Are So Close" (POEM)
Drafts of "Sometimes the Words Are So Close": A Poets Writing Process (FACSIMILES)
"On Writing Sometimes the Words Are So Close" (ESSAY)
PERSPECTIVES
Marny Requa, "From an Interview with Julia Alvarez"
Kelli Lyon Johnson, "Mapping an Identity"
32. A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Reflects on Five Poems
A Brief Biography and an Introduction to His Work
Billy Collins:
"How Do Poems Travel?" (INTRODUCTION)
"Osso Buco" (POEM)
"On Writing Osso Buco" (ESSAY)
"Nostalgia" (POEM)
"On Writing Nostalgia" (ESSAY)
"Questions About Angels" (POEM)
"On Writing Questions About Angels" (ESSAY)
"Litany" (POEM)
"On Writing Litany" (ESSAY)
"Building with Its Face Blown Off" (POEM)
PERSPECTIVES
Billy Collins, "On Building with Its Face Blown Off: Michael Meyer Interviews Billy Collins"
Billy Collins, "Three Draft Manuscript Pages (FACSIMILES)"
Draft Poems
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
An Anthology of Poems
W.H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen"
Charles Baudelaire, "A Carrion"
Aphra Behn, "Song: Love Armed"
William Blake, "Infant Sorrow"
Anne Bradstreet, "Before the Birth of One of Her Children"
Emily Brontë, "Stars"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan: or, a Vision in a Dream"
John Donne, "The Flea"
T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"
John Keats, "When I have fears that I may cease to be"
Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"
Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Spring"
John Milton, "When I consider how my light is spent"
Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee"
Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Miniver Cheevy"
William Shakespeare, "When, in disgrace with Fortune and men‘s eyes"
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"
Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning"
Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
Phillis Wheatley, "To S.M., a young African Painter, on seeing his Works"
Walt Whitman, "When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer"
William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
34. An Anthology of Recent Poems
*José Angel Araguz, "The Name"
Michelle Cliff, "The Land of Look Behind"
Gregory Corso, "Marriage"
Rita Dove, "Daystar"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Constantly Risking Absurdity"
*Amanda Gorman, "In This Place (An American Lyric)"
Seamus Heaney, "Digging"
Brionne Janae, "Alternative Facts"
Philip Larkin, "Sad Steps"
Luisa Lopez, "Junior Year Abroad"
Audre Lorde, "Learning to Write"
Naomi Shihab Nye, "To Manage"
Adelia Prado, "Denouement"
*Patricia Smith, "What Its Like to Be a Black Girl (for those of you who arent)"
*Lois Red Elk, "All Thirst Quenched"
Tracy K. Smith, "Self Portrait as the Letter Y"
*Natasha Trethewey, "Graveyard Blues"
DRAMA
The Study of Drama
35. Reading Drama
Reading Drama Responsively
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of Trifles
PERSPECTIVE: Susan Glaspell, "From A Jury of Her Peers, the Short Story Version of Trifles"
Elements of Drama
Plays in Performance
Photos of scenes from:
*Trifles
Oedipus the King
*Othello
The Importance of Being Earnest
*Water by the Spoonful
Proof
Fences
36. A Study of Sophocles
Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama
Tragedy
Sophocles, Oedipus the King (trans. by David Grene)
PERSPECTIVES
Aristotle, "On Tragic Character"
Sigmund Freud, "On the Oedipus Complex"
Muriel Rukeyser, "On Oedipus the King "
David Wiles, "On Oedipus the King as a Political Play"
37. A Study of William Shakespeare
Shakespeares Theater
The Range of Shakespeares Drama: History, Comedy, and Tragedy
A Note on Reading Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice
PERSPECTIVES
The Mayor of London, "Objections to the Elizabethan Theater"
Lisa Jardine, "On Boy Actors in Female Roles"
Samuel Johnson, "On Shakespeares Characters"
Jane Adamson, "On Desdemonas Role in Othello"
David Bevington, "On Othellos Heroic Struggle"
James Kincaid, "On the Value of Comedy in the Face of Tragedy"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
38. Modern Drama
Realism
Naturalism
Theatrical Conventions of Modern Drama
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
39. Contemporary Drama
Beyond Realism
Musical Theater
*Drama in Popular Forms
Suzan-Lori Parks: A Collection of Ten Very Short Plays
From the Authors "Elements of Style "
*Veuve Clicquot
*Here Comes the Message
*Fine Animal
*The Ends of the Earth
*Beginning, Middle, End
*What Do You See?
*This is Shit
*Barefoot and Pregnant in the Park
*Orange
*(Again) Groundhog
40. *A Cultural Case Study: Quiara Alegría Hudess Water by the Spoonful
*Quiara Alegría Hudes, Water by the Spoonful
PERSPECTIVES
*Quiara Alegría Hudes, "Atonality"
*John Coltrane and Leonard Feather, "Coltrane Shaping Musical Revolt: An Interview with John Coltrane"
*Elliott Ackerman, "A Summary of Action"
Anonymous, "Stepping Stones to Recovery from Cocaine/Crack Addiction"
*A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: Water by the Spoonful: Exploring the Internets Role in Bettering the Self
41. A Collection of Contemporary Plays
David Auburn, Proof
Lynn Nottage, POOF!
August Wilson, Fences
PERSPECTIVE: David Savran, "An Interview with August Wilson"
STRATEGIES FOR READING AND WRITING
42. Critical Strategies for Reading
Critical Thinking
Formalist Strategies
Biographical Strategies
Psychological Strategies
Historical Strategies
Marxist Criticism
New Historicist Criticism
Cultural Criticism
Gender Strategies
Feminist Criticism
LGBTQ+ Criticism
Mythological Strategies
Reader-Response Strategies
Deconstructionist Strategies
*Affect Theory Approaches
43. Writing about Literature
Why Am I Being Asked to Do This?
From Reading and Discussion to Writing
Reading the Work Closely
Prewriting
Annotating the Text and Journal Note Taking
Choosing a Topic
More Focused Prewriting
Arguing about Literature
Writing
Writing a First Draft
Textual Evidence: Using Quotations, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing
Writing the Introduction and Conclusion
Revising and Editing
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING: A REVISION CHECKLIST
Types of Writing Assignments
Explication
A SAMPLE STUDENT EXPLICATION: A Reading of Emily Dickinsons "Theres a certain Slant of Light"
Emily Dickinson, "Theres a certain Slant of light"
Analysis
Elizabeth Bishop, "Manners"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Version of "Manners"
A SAMPLE STUDENT ANALYSIS: Memory in Elizabeth Bishop’s "Manners "
Comparison and Contrast
A SAMPLE STUDENT COMPARISON: Coping with Loss in Alice Munros "Silence " and David Auburn’s Proof
Writing about Fiction, Poetry, And Drama
Writing about Fiction
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT FICTION
A SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAY: John Updikes "A & P " as a State of Mind
Writing about Poetry
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT POETRY
The Elements Together
John Donne, "Death Be Not Proud "
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Version of "Death Be Not Proud "
A SAMPLE FIRST RESPONSE
Organizing Your Thoughts
A SAMPLE INFORMAL OUTLINE
The Elements and Theme
A SAMPLE EXPLICATION: The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donnes "Death Be Not Proud"
Writing about Drama
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT DRAMA
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: The Feminist Evidence in Susan Glaspells Trifles
44. The Literary Research Paper
Choosing a Topic
Finding Sources
The List of Works Cited
Parenthetical References
Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes
Developing a Draft, Integrating Sources, and Organizing the Essay
Documenting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER: How William Faulkners Narrator Cultivates a Rose for Emily
Glossary of Literary Terms
Index of First Lines
Index of Authors and Titles
Index of Terms
Product Updates
80 new classic and contemporary selections. 15 stories, 54 poems, and 11 plays representing rich collection of traditional, contemporary, and multicultural literature — works that will make classroom discussion come alive. These include:
- Stories by Zadie Smith, Carmen Maria Machado, N.K. Jemisin, and Adrian Tomine
- Poems by José Angel Araguz, Kamau Brathwaite, Claudia Rankine, and Amanda Gorman
- Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks and Quiara Alegría Hudes
New guidance on approaching sensitive topics in literature. To aid teachers and students in navigating an increasingly polarized response to what should be read and why, a new section in the Introduction explores how to engage with challenging literature – literature with explicit themes, disturbing depictions of reality, or offensive language – that may elicit strong emotions in readers. Students are encouraged to respond to these literary texts cautiously and responsibly while considering historical, cultural, and societal contexts that may alter the meaning of these works.
Six new case study chapters provide a wide range of approaches to engage students including a genre case study on speculative fiction, an in-depth author case study on Nobel-prize winning author Alice Munro, two thematic poetry case studies on protest in relation to social and political movements of the past and present and on solitude as an exploration of post-pandemic resilience, a reimagined thematic case study on the environment, and a cultural case study on the Pulitzer-winning play Water by the Spoonful.
New student sample papers. Three new model papers written with up-to-date MLA guidelines are used as models on how to write about literature, including a graphic short story that is new to this edition.
Authors
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Michael Meyer
Michael Meyer, Emeritus Professor of English, taught writing and literature courses for more than thirty years — since 1981 at the University of Connecticut, and before that at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the College of William and Mary. In addition to being an experienced teacher, Meyer is a highly regarded literary scholar. His scholarly articles have appeared in distinguished journals such as American Literature, Studies in the American Renaissance, and Virginia Quarterly Review. An internationally recognized authority on Henry David Thoreau, Meyer is a former president of the Thoreau Society and coauthor (with Walter Harding) of The New Thoreau Handbook, a standard reference source. His first book, Several More Lives to Live: Thoreau’s Political Reputation in America, was awarded the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize by the American Studies Association. He is also the editor of Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings. He has lectured on a variety of American literary topics from Cambridge University to Peking University. His other books for Bedford/St. Martin’s include The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Literature to Go, Thinking and Writing about Poetry, Poetry: An Introduction, and Thinking and Writing about Literature.
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D. Quentin Miller
D. Quentin Miller, Professor of English, has taught literature and writing at Suffolk University in Boston since 2000. Prior to that he taught at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, at the University of Connecticut (where he wrote his dissertation under the direction of Michael Meyer), and in a variety of other settings, including prisons. Miller is the author, editor, or co-editor of a dozen books and over two dozen critical essays in collections and in scholarly journals such as American Literature, African American Review, and The James Baldwin Review. He is an internationally renowned scholar on the works of James Baldwin and has also published reviews in such publications as TLS and original fiction. His most recent books are The Routledge Introduction to the American Novel (2024), James Baldwin in Context (2019), Understanding John Edgar Wideman (2018), American Literature in Transition: 1980-1990 (2018), and The Routledge Introduction to African American Literature (2016).
Table of Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature
Preface for Instructors
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature
The Nature of Literature
*Danusha Laméris, "Feeding the Worms"
The Value of Literature
The Changing Literary Canon
*Approaching Sensitive Subjects
FICTION
1. Reading Fiction
Reading Fiction Responsively
Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of "The Story of an Hour"
A SAMPLE PAPER: Differences in Responses to Kate Chopins "The Story of an Hour"
Explorations and Formulas
Ann Beattie, "Janus"
2. Plot
T.C. Boyle, "The Hit Man"
*Joy Harjo, "The Reckoning"
William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"
PERSPECTIVE: William Faulkner, On "A Rose for Emily"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of "A Rose for Emily"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Conflict in the Plot of William Faulkners "A Rose for Emily"
Andre Dubus, "Killings"
3. Character
Tobias Wolff, "Powder"
*Zadie Smith, "Martha, Martha"
James Baldwin, "Sonnys Blues"
4. Setting
Ernest Hemingway, "Soldiers Home"
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
5. Point of View
Third-Person Narrator (Nonparticipant)
First-Person Narrator (Participant)
John Updike, "A & P "
Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"
Manuel Muñoz,"Zigzagger"
*Lorrie Moore, "How to Become a Writer"
6. Symbolism
Louise Erdrich, "The Red Convertible"
Ralph Ellison, "King of the Bingo Game"
Cynthia Ozick, "The Shawl"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Layers of Symbol in Cynthia Ozicks "The Shawl"
7. Theme
*Adrian Tomine, "Intruders" (graphic short story)
*A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Danger among Us: Distilling the Theme in "Intruders"
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Ministers Black Veil"
*Carmen Maria Machado, "Eight Bites"
8. Style, Tone, and Irony
Style
Tone
Irony
Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
Mark Twain, "The Story of the Good Little Boy"
*Virginia Woolf, "The Man Who Loved His Kind"
PERSPECTIVE: Virginia Woolf, "On Conventions in Writing"
Approaches to Fiction
Thematic Approaches
9. A Thematic Case Study: War and Its Aftermath
Tim OBrien, "How to Tell a True War Story"
Kurt Vonnegut, "Happy Birthday, 1951"
Edwidge Danticat, "The Missing Peace"
10. A Thematic Case Study: Privacy
Oscar Wilde, "The Sphinx without a Secret: An Etching"
David Long, "Morphine"
ZZ Packer, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere"
John Cheever, "The Enormous Radio"
Genre Studies
11. A Genre Case Study: Speculative Fiction
*Peter Ho Davies, "Minotaur"
*N. K. Jemisin, "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters"
*Mariana Enriquez, "Back When We Talked to the Dead"
*Philip K. Dick, "To Serve the Master"
Authors in Depth
12. *A Study of Alice Munro
An Introduction
A Brief Biography
Alice Munro:
*"Walker Brothers Cowboy"
*"The Moons of Jupiter"
*"Silence"
PERSPECTIVES
*Alice Munro, "In Her Own Words"
*Margaret Atwood, "Alice Munro: An Appreciation"
*Beverly Rasporich, "Alice: The Woman Behind the Art"
*W.R. Martin and Warren U. Ober, "Alice Munro as Small-Town"
Historian: "Spaceships Have Landed"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
13. A Study of Flannery OConnor
A Brief Biography and Introduction
Flannery OConnor:
"A Good Man is Hard to Find"
"Good Country People"
*"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
PERSPECTIVES
Flannery OConnor, "On the Use of Exaggeration and Distortion"
Josephine Hendin, "On OConnors Refusal to Do Pretty"
Claire Katz, "The Function of Violence in OConnors Fiction"
Edward Kessler, "On OConnors Use of History"
TIME Magazine, "On A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories"
14. A Study of Dagoberto Gilb: The Author Reflects on Three Stories
An Introduction
A Brief Biography
Dagoberto Gilb:
"How Books Bounce" (INTRODUCTION)
"Love in L.A." (STORY)
"On Writing Love in L.A." (ESSAY)
"Shout" (Story)
"On Writing Shout" (ESSAY)
"Uncle Rock" (Story)
"On Writing Uncle Rock" (ESSAY)
PERSPECTIVES
Dagoberto Gilb:
"On Physical Labor"
"On Distortions of Mexican American Culture"
"Michael Meyer Interviews Dagoberto Gilb"
FACSIMILES: Dagoberto Gilb, Two Draft Manuscript Pages
Further Reading
15. Stories for Further Reading
Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Volar"
Zora Neale Hurston, "Sweat"
James Joyce, "Eveline"
*Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, "Lets Tell This Story Properly"
Joyce Carol Oates, "Tick"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"
George Saunders, "I Can Speak"
Alice Walker, "The Flowers"
John Edgar Wideman, "All Stories are True"
POETRY
The Elements of Poetry
16. Reading Poetry
Reading Poetry Responsively
Lisa Parker, "Snapping Beans"
*Linda Pastan, "Jump Cabling"
John Updike, "Dogs Death"
The Pleasure of Words
Gregory Corso: "I am 25"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Explication of "I am 25"
Robert Francis, "Catch"
Robert Morgan, "Mountain Graveyard"
E. E. Cummings, "l(a"
Anonymous, "Western Wind"
Regina Barreca, "Nighttime Fires"
Suggestions for Approaching Poetry
Poetic Definitions of Poetry
Marianne Moore, "Poetry"
Billy Collins, "Introduction to Poetry"
Ruth Forman, "Poetry Should Ride the Bus"
Charles Bukowski, "a poem is a city"
*Ada Limón, "The End of Poetry"
Recurrent Poetic Figures: Five Ways of Looking at Roses
Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose"
Edmund Waller, "Go, Lovely Rose"
William Blake, "The Sick Rose"
Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), "Sea Rose"
Poems for Further Study
Mary Oliver, "The Poet with His Face in His Hands"
Jim Tilley, "The Big Questions"
Alberto Ríos, "Seniors"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Eagle"
Edgar Allan Poe, "Sonnet To Science"
Cornelius Eady, "The Supremes"
17. Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone
Word Choice
Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Allusion
Word Order
Tone
Marilyn Nelson, "How I Discovered Poetry"
Katharyn Howd Machan, "Hazel Tells LaVerne"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Tone in Katharyn Howd Machans "Hazel Tells LaVerne"
Martín Espada, "Latin Night at the Pawnshop"
*Joy Harjo, "Granddaughters"
Diction and Tone in Four Love Poems
*Shamim Azad, "First Love"
*Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Sonnet XLIII"
*John Frederick Nims, "Love Poem"
*Pablo Neruda, "Drunk as drunk on turpentine"
Poems for Further Study
Walt Whitman, "The Dalliance of the Eagles"
Kwame Dawes, "History Lesson at Eight a.m."
Cathy Song, "The Youngest Daughter"
John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Alice Jones, "The Lungs"
Louis Simpson, "In the Suburbs"
A Note on Reading Translations
Sappho, "Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne" (trans. Henry T. Wharton)
Sappho, "Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite" (trans. Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
Sappho, "Prayer to my lady of Paphos" (trans. Mary Barnard)
18. Images
Poetrys Appeal to the Senses
William Carlos Williams, "Poem"
Walt Whitman, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"
*Suji Kwock Kim, "The Korean Community Garden in Queens"
David Solway, "Windsurfing"
Poems for Further Study
Adelaide Crapsey, "November Night"
Ruth Fainlight, "Crocuses"
Mary Robinson, "Londons Summer Morning"
William Blake, "London"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Imagery in William Blakes "London" and Mary Robinsons "Londons Summer Morning"
Kwame Dawes, "The Habits of Love"
*Charles Simic, "House of Cards"
Sally Croft, "Home-Baked Bread"
John Keats, "To Autumn"
PERSPECTIVE: T. E. Hulme, "On the Differences between Poetry and Prose"
William Shakespeare, from Macbeth
Simile and Metaphor
Langston Hughes, "Harlem"
Jane Kenyon, "The Socks"
Anne Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book"
Other Figures
Edmund Conti, "Pragmatist"
Dylan Thomas, "The Hand That Signed the Paper"
Janice Townley Moore, "To a Wasp"
Tajana Kovics, "Text Message"
Poems for Further Study
William Carlos Williams, "To Waken an Old Lady"
Ernest Slyman, "Lightning Bugs"
Martín Espada, "The Mexican Cabdrivers Poem for His Wife, Who Has Left Him"
Judy Page Heitzman, "The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill"
Robert Pinsky, "Icicles"
Jim Stevens, "Schizophrenia"
Kay Ryan, "Learning"
Ronald Wallace, "Building an Outhouse"
Elaine Magarrell, "The Joy of Cooking"
PERSPECTIVE: John R. Searle, "Figuring Out Metaphors"
20. Symbol, Allegory, and Irony
Symbol
Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night"
Allegory
James Baldwin, "Guilt, Desire and Love"
Irony
Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Richard Cory"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Irony in Edwin Arlington Robinsons "Richard Cory"
*Gwendolyn Brooks, "Sadie and Maud"
E. E. Cummings, "next to of course god america i"
Stephen Crane, "A Man Said to the Universe"
Poems for Further Study
Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market"
Jane Kenyon, "The Thimble"
Kevin Pierce, "Proof of Origin"
Carl Sandburg, "A Fence"
Julio Marzán, "Ethnic Poetry"
Mark Halliday, "Graded Paper"
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"
William Blake, "A Poison Tree"
PERSPECTIVE: Ezra Pound, "On Symbols"
21. Sounds
Listening to Poetry
*Kamau Brathwaite, "Ogun"
John Updike, "Player Piano"
Emily Dickinson, "A Bird came down the Walk"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: Sound in Emily Dickinsons "A Bird came down the Walk"
Rhyme
Richard Armour, "Going to Extremes"
Robert Southey, from "The Cataract of Lodore"
PERSPECTIVE: David Lenson, "On the Contemporary Use of Rhyme"
Sound and Meaning
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Gods Grandeur"
Poems for Further Study
Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
William Heyen, "The Trains"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Break, Break, Break"
John Donne, "Song"
Kay Ryan, "Dew"
Andrew Hudgins, "The Ice-Cream Truck"
Robert Francis, "The Pitcher"
Helen Chasin, "The Word Plum"
Richard Wakefield, "The Bell Rope"
Jean Toomer, "Unsuspecting"
John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale"
Howard Nemerov, "Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry"
Major Jackson, "Autumn Landscape"
22. Patterns of Rhythm
Some Principles of Meter
William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up"
Suggestions for Scanning a Poem
Timothy Steele, "Waiting for the Storm"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: The Rhythm of Anticipation in Timothy Steeles "Waiting for The Storm"
William Butler Yeats, "That the Night Come"
Poems for Further Study
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Mnemonic"
John Maloney, "Good!"
Alice Jones, "The Foot"
A .E. Housman, "When I was one-and-twenty"
Robert Herrick, "Delight in Disorder"
Ben Jonson, "Still to Be Neat"
E. E. Cummings, "O sweet spontaneous"
William Blake, "The Lamb"
William Blake, "The Tyger"
Carl Sandburg, "Chicago"
PERSPECTIVE: Louise Bogan, "On Formal Poetry"
23. Poetic Forms
Some Common Poetic Forms
A.E. Housman, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now"
Robert Herrick, "Upon Julias Clothes"
Sonnet
John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapmans Homer"
William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us"
William Shakespeare, "Shall I compare thee to a summers day?"
William Shakespeare, "My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun"
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "I will put Chaos into fourteen lines"
Mark Jarman, "Unholy Sonnet"
R.S. Gwynn, "Shakespearean Sonnet"
Villanelle
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
*Denise Duhamel, "Please Dont Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen"
Sestina
Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Sestina"
Florence Cassen Mayers, "All-American Sestina"
Julia Alvarez, "Bilingual Sestina"
Epigram
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What Is an Epigram?"
David McCord, "Epitaph on a Waiter"
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Theology"
Limerick
Arthur Henry Reginald Buller, "There was a young lady named Bright"
Laurence Perrine, "The limericks never averse"
Haiku
Matsuo Bashō, "Under cherry trees"
Carolyn Kizer, "After Bashō"
Amy Lowell, "Last night it rained"
Gary Snyder, "A Dent in a Bucket"
Ghazal
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, "Ghazal 4"
Patricia Smith, "Hip-Hop Ghazal"
Elegy
Ben Jonson, "On My First Son"
Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Kate Hanson Foster, "Elegy of Color"
Ode
Alexander Pope, "Ode on Solitude"
Parody
Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool"
Joan Murray, "We Old Dudes"
Picture Poem
Michael McFee, "In Medias Res"
Open Form
Walt Whitman, from "I Sing the Body Electric"
PERSPECTIVE: Walt Whitman, "On Rhyme and Meter"
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE: The Power of Walt Whitmans Open Form Poem "I Sing the Body Electric"
*William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow"
Julio Marzán, "The Translator at the Reception for Latin American Writers"
Major Jackson, "The Chase"
David Hernandez, "All-American"
PERSPECTIVE: Elaine Mitchell, "Form"
Approaches to Poetry
24. *A Thematic Case Study: Poetry and Protest
*Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "Eliza Harris"
Claude McKay, "The Lynching"
*Tillie Lerner Olsen, "I Want You Women Up North to Know"
*Genevieve Taggard, "Ode in a Time of Crisis"
*Audre Lorde, "Power"
*June Jordan, "Poem About My Rights"
*Denise Levertov, "A Poem at Christmas, 1972, During the Terror-Bombing of North Vietnam"
*Kimberly Blaeser, "Apprenticed to Justice"
*Tato Laviera, "Latero Story"
*Claudia Rankine, "Stop-and-Frisk"
*Danez Smith, "not an elegy for Mike Brown"
CASE STUDIES
*Aja Monet, #sayhername
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
25. *A Thematic Case Study: Our Fragile Planet
*Eileen Cleary, "The Way We Fled"
*Tess Gallagher, "Choices"
*Joy Harjo, "Singing Everything"
J. Estanislao Lopez, "Meditation on Beauty"
Gail White, "Dead Armadillos"
Allen Ginsburg, "Sunflower Sutra"
Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"
Sylvia Plath, "Pheasant"
*Teresa Mei Chuc, "Rainforest"
*Jennifer Franklin, "Memento Mori: Apple Orchard"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
26. Case Study: Song Lyrics as Poetry
Frederic Weatherly, "Danny Boy"
*Bessie Smith and W.C. Handy, "Careless Love Blues"
*Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd"
Hank Williams, "Im So Lonesome I Could Cry"
Bob Dylan, "Its Alright, Ma (Im Only Bleeding)"
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "I Am the Walrus"
Joni Mitchell, "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire"
Paul Simon, "Slip Slidin Away"
*Ani DiFranco, "Not a Pretty Girl"
Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, "Alice"
*Adrianne Lenker, "Not"
27. *A Thematic Case Study: The Poetry of Solitude
*Jim Moore, "How to Come Out of Lockdown"
Emily Dickinson, "The Soul selects her own Society"
Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
*John Keats, "To Solitude"
*Elisa Gonzalez, "In Quarantine, I Reflect on the Death of Ophelia"
William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
Robert Lowell, "Skunk Hour"
*Galway Kinnell, "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone"
Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"
Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"
*Dionisio D. Martínez, "Flood: Years of Solitude"
*Li Bai, "The Solitude of Night"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
Claude McKay
"The Harlem Dancer"
"If We Must Die"
"The Tropics in New York"
"America"
"The White City"
"The Barrier"
Georgia Douglas Johnson
"Youth"
"Foredoom"
"Calling Dreams"
"Lost Illusions"
"Fusion"
"Prejudice"
Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
"Jazzonia"
"The Weary Blues"
"Lenox Avenue: Midnight"
"Ballad of the Landlord"
Countee Cullen
"Yet Do I Marvel"
"Incident"
"Heritage"
PERSPECTIVES
Karen Jackson Ford, "Hughess Aesthetics of Simplicity"
David Chinitz, "The Romanticization of Africa in the 1920s"
Alain Locke, "Review of Georgia Douglas Johnsons Bronze: A Book of Verse"
Countee Cullen, "On Racial Poetry"
Onwuchekwa Jemie, "On Universal Poetry"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
Poetry and the Visual Arts
Questions for Responsive Reading and Writing
Grant Wood, "American Gothic" (PAINTING)
John Stone, "American Gothic" (POEM)
Cathy Song, "Girl Powdering Her Neck" (POEM)
Kiagawa Utamaro, "Girl Powdering Her Neck" (WOODBLOCK PRINT)
Yusef Komunyakaa, "Facing It" (POEM)
Maya Lin, "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall" (SCULPTURE)
Wislawa Szymborska, "Brueghels Two Monkeys" (POEM)
Pieter Bruegel The Elder, "Two Chained Monkeys" (PAINTING)
Edward Hirsch, "Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad" (POEM)
Edward Hopper, "House by the Railroad" (PAINTING)
Wislawa Szymborska, "Vermeer" (POEM)
Vermeer, "The Milkmaid" (PAINTING)
Four Poets in Depth
29. A Study of Emily Dickinson
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to Her Work
Emily Dickinson:
"If I can stop one Heart from breaking"
"If I shouldnt be alive"
"The Thought beneath so slight a film"–
"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee"
"Success is counted sweetest"
"Water, is taught by thirst"
"Some keep the Sabbath going to Church"
"I taste a liquor never brewed
"Heaven is what I cannot reach!"
"I like a look of Agony"
"Wild Nights Wild Nights!"
"Much Madness is divinest Sense"
"I dwell in Possibility"
"I heard a Fly buzz when I died"
"Because I could not stop for Death"
"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant"
"Oh Sumptuous moment"
"A Route of Evanescence"
"From all the Jails the Boys and Girls"
PERSPECTIVES
Emily Dickinson, "A Description of Herself"
Thomas Wentworth Higgonson, "On Meeting Dickinson for the First Time"
Mabel Loomis Todd, "The Character of Amherst"
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, "On Dickinsons White Dress"
Paula Bennett, "On I heard a Fly buzz when I died"
Martha Nell Smith, "On Because I could not stop for Death"
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING ABOUT AN AUTHOR IN DEPTH
A Sample In-Depth Study
Emily Dickinson:
"Faith is a fine invention"
"I know that He exists"
"I never saw a Moor"
"Apparently with no surprise"
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: Religious Faith in Four Poems by Emily Dickinson
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
30. A Study of Robert Frost
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to His Work
Robert Frost
"The Road Not Taken"
"The Pasture"
"Mowing"
"Mending Wall"
"Birches"
"Out, Out"
"Fire and Ice"
"The Need of Being Versed in Country Things"
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"
"Neither Out Far nor In Deep"
"Design"
"Desert Places"
"The Gift Outright"
PERSPECTIVES
Robert Frost, "On the Living Part of a Poem"
Amy Lowell, "On Frosts Realistic Technique"
Herbert R. Coursen Jr. "A Parodic Interpretation of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
31. A Study of Julia Alvarez: The Author Reflects on Five Poems
A Brief Biography
An Introduction to Her Work
Julia Alvarez
"Queens, 1963" (POEM)
"On Writing Queens, 1963" (ESSAY)
Queens Civil Rights Demonstration (PHOTO)
"Housekeeping Cages" (ESSAY)
"On Writing ‘Housekeeping Cages’ and Her Housekeeping Poems" (ESSAY)
"Dusting" (POEM)
"On Writing Dusting" (ESSAY)
"Ironing Their Clothes" (POEM)
"On Writing Ironing Their Clothes" (ESSAY)
"Sometimes the Words Are So Close" (POEM)
Drafts of "Sometimes the Words Are So Close": A Poets Writing Process (FACSIMILES)
"On Writing Sometimes the Words Are So Close" (ESSAY)
PERSPECTIVES
Marny Requa, "From an Interview with Julia Alvarez"
Kelli Lyon Johnson, "Mapping an Identity"
32. A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Reflects on Five Poems
A Brief Biography and an Introduction to His Work
Billy Collins:
"How Do Poems Travel?" (INTRODUCTION)
"Osso Buco" (POEM)
"On Writing Osso Buco" (ESSAY)
"Nostalgia" (POEM)
"On Writing Nostalgia" (ESSAY)
"Questions About Angels" (POEM)
"On Writing Questions About Angels" (ESSAY)
"Litany" (POEM)
"On Writing Litany" (ESSAY)
"Building with Its Face Blown Off" (POEM)
PERSPECTIVES
Billy Collins, "On Building with Its Face Blown Off: Michael Meyer Interviews Billy Collins"
Billy Collins, "Three Draft Manuscript Pages (FACSIMILES)"
Draft Poems
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
An Anthology of Poems
W.H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen"
Charles Baudelaire, "A Carrion"
Aphra Behn, "Song: Love Armed"
William Blake, "Infant Sorrow"
Anne Bradstreet, "Before the Birth of One of Her Children"
Emily Brontë, "Stars"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan: or, a Vision in a Dream"
John Donne, "The Flea"
T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"
John Keats, "When I have fears that I may cease to be"
Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"
Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Spring"
John Milton, "When I consider how my light is spent"
Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee"
Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Miniver Cheevy"
William Shakespeare, "When, in disgrace with Fortune and men‘s eyes"
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"
Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning"
Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
Phillis Wheatley, "To S.M., a young African Painter, on seeing his Works"
Walt Whitman, "When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer"
William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
34. An Anthology of Recent Poems
*José Angel Araguz, "The Name"
Michelle Cliff, "The Land of Look Behind"
Gregory Corso, "Marriage"
Rita Dove, "Daystar"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Constantly Risking Absurdity"
*Amanda Gorman, "In This Place (An American Lyric)"
Seamus Heaney, "Digging"
Brionne Janae, "Alternative Facts"
Philip Larkin, "Sad Steps"
Luisa Lopez, "Junior Year Abroad"
Audre Lorde, "Learning to Write"
Naomi Shihab Nye, "To Manage"
Adelia Prado, "Denouement"
*Patricia Smith, "What Its Like to Be a Black Girl (for those of you who arent)"
*Lois Red Elk, "All Thirst Quenched"
Tracy K. Smith, "Self Portrait as the Letter Y"
*Natasha Trethewey, "Graveyard Blues"
DRAMA
The Study of Drama
35. Reading Drama
Reading Drama Responsively
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Section of Trifles
PERSPECTIVE: Susan Glaspell, "From A Jury of Her Peers, the Short Story Version of Trifles"
Elements of Drama
Plays in Performance
Photos of scenes from:
*Trifles
Oedipus the King
*Othello
The Importance of Being Earnest
*Water by the Spoonful
Proof
Fences
36. A Study of Sophocles
Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama
Tragedy
Sophocles, Oedipus the King (trans. by David Grene)
PERSPECTIVES
Aristotle, "On Tragic Character"
Sigmund Freud, "On the Oedipus Complex"
Muriel Rukeyser, "On Oedipus the King "
David Wiles, "On Oedipus the King as a Political Play"
37. A Study of William Shakespeare
Shakespeares Theater
The Range of Shakespeares Drama: History, Comedy, and Tragedy
A Note on Reading Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice
PERSPECTIVES
The Mayor of London, "Objections to the Elizabethan Theater"
Lisa Jardine, "On Boy Actors in Female Roles"
Samuel Johnson, "On Shakespeares Characters"
Jane Adamson, "On Desdemonas Role in Othello"
David Bevington, "On Othellos Heroic Struggle"
James Kincaid, "On the Value of Comedy in the Face of Tragedy"
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR LONGER PAPERS
38. Modern Drama
Realism
Naturalism
Theatrical Conventions of Modern Drama
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
39. Contemporary Drama
Beyond Realism
Musical Theater
*Drama in Popular Forms
Suzan-Lori Parks: A Collection of Ten Very Short Plays
From the Authors "Elements of Style "
*Veuve Clicquot
*Here Comes the Message
*Fine Animal
*The Ends of the Earth
*Beginning, Middle, End
*What Do You See?
*This is Shit
*Barefoot and Pregnant in the Park
*Orange
*(Again) Groundhog
40. *A Cultural Case Study: Quiara Alegría Hudess Water by the Spoonful
*Quiara Alegría Hudes, Water by the Spoonful
PERSPECTIVES
*Quiara Alegría Hudes, "Atonality"
*John Coltrane and Leonard Feather, "Coltrane Shaping Musical Revolt: An Interview with John Coltrane"
*Elliott Ackerman, "A Summary of Action"
Anonymous, "Stepping Stones to Recovery from Cocaine/Crack Addiction"
*A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: Water by the Spoonful: Exploring the Internets Role in Bettering the Self
41. A Collection of Contemporary Plays
David Auburn, Proof
Lynn Nottage, POOF!
August Wilson, Fences
PERSPECTIVE: David Savran, "An Interview with August Wilson"
STRATEGIES FOR READING AND WRITING
42. Critical Strategies for Reading
Critical Thinking
Formalist Strategies
Biographical Strategies
Psychological Strategies
Historical Strategies
Marxist Criticism
New Historicist Criticism
Cultural Criticism
Gender Strategies
Feminist Criticism
LGBTQ+ Criticism
Mythological Strategies
Reader-Response Strategies
Deconstructionist Strategies
*Affect Theory Approaches
43. Writing about Literature
Why Am I Being Asked to Do This?
From Reading and Discussion to Writing
Reading the Work Closely
Prewriting
Annotating the Text and Journal Note Taking
Choosing a Topic
More Focused Prewriting
Arguing about Literature
Writing
Writing a First Draft
Textual Evidence: Using Quotations, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing
Writing the Introduction and Conclusion
Revising and Editing
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING: A REVISION CHECKLIST
Types of Writing Assignments
Explication
A SAMPLE STUDENT EXPLICATION: A Reading of Emily Dickinsons "Theres a certain Slant of Light"
Emily Dickinson, "Theres a certain Slant of light"
Analysis
Elizabeth Bishop, "Manners"
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Version of "Manners"
A SAMPLE STUDENT ANALYSIS: Memory in Elizabeth Bishop’s "Manners "
Comparison and Contrast
A SAMPLE STUDENT COMPARISON: Coping with Loss in Alice Munros "Silence " and David Auburn’s Proof
Writing about Fiction, Poetry, And Drama
Writing about Fiction
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT FICTION
A SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAY: John Updikes "A & P " as a State of Mind
Writing about Poetry
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT POETRY
The Elements Together
John Donne, "Death Be Not Proud "
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING: An Annotated Version of "Death Be Not Proud "
A SAMPLE FIRST RESPONSE
Organizing Your Thoughts
A SAMPLE INFORMAL OUTLINE
The Elements and Theme
A SAMPLE EXPLICATION: The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donnes "Death Be Not Proud"
Writing about Drama
QUESTIONS FOR RESPONSIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT DRAMA
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER: The Feminist Evidence in Susan Glaspells Trifles
44. The Literary Research Paper
Choosing a Topic
Finding Sources
The List of Works Cited
Parenthetical References
Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes
Developing a Draft, Integrating Sources, and Organizing the Essay
Documenting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
A SAMPLE STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER: How William Faulkners Narrator Cultivates a Rose for Emily
Glossary of Literary Terms
Index of First Lines
Index of Authors and Titles
Index of Terms
Product Updates
80 new classic and contemporary selections. 15 stories, 54 poems, and 11 plays representing rich collection of traditional, contemporary, and multicultural literature — works that will make classroom discussion come alive. These include:
- Stories by Zadie Smith, Carmen Maria Machado, N.K. Jemisin, and Adrian Tomine
- Poems by José Angel Araguz, Kamau Brathwaite, Claudia Rankine, and Amanda Gorman
- Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks and Quiara Alegría Hudes
New guidance on approaching sensitive topics in literature. To aid teachers and students in navigating an increasingly polarized response to what should be read and why, a new section in the Introduction explores how to engage with challenging literature – literature with explicit themes, disturbing depictions of reality, or offensive language – that may elicit strong emotions in readers. Students are encouraged to respond to these literary texts cautiously and responsibly while considering historical, cultural, and societal contexts that may alter the meaning of these works.
Six new case study chapters provide a wide range of approaches to engage students including a genre case study on speculative fiction, an in-depth author case study on Nobel-prize winning author Alice Munro, two thematic poetry case studies on protest in relation to social and political movements of the past and present and on solitude as an exploration of post-pandemic resilience, a reimagined thematic case study on the environment, and a cultural case study on the Pulitzer-winning play Water by the Spoonful.
New student sample papers. Three new model papers written with up-to-date MLA guidelines are used as models on how to write about literature, including a graphic short story that is new to this edition.
The literature you love to teach—with the critical thinking, reading, and writing support your students need.
The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature is a bestseller for a reason: it helps transform students into lifelong readers, better writers, and more critical thinkers. Classics from many periods and cultures appear alongside works from today’s authors, including case studies on relatable themes. In-depth chapters on major authors like Flannery O’Connor take students deeper into their work, and three chapters on the fiction of Dagoberto Gilb and the poetry of Billy Collins and Julia Alvarez—created in collaboration with the authors themselves—are one more way that the anthology showcases literature as a living, changing art form. There is plenty of support for students, with critical reading and writing support, helpful sample close readings, writing assignments, and student papers in up-to-date MLA style. Interactive close reading models, skill-building close reading activities, and LearningCurve for Literature offer even more student support in an engaging digital format with Achieve with The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, now available with writing assignments, reading quizzes, videos, and more.
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If you’re a verified instructor, you can request a free sample of our courseware, e-book, or print textbook to consider for use in your courses. Only registered and verified instructors can receive free print and digital samples, and they should not be sold to bookstores or book resellers. If you don't yet have an existing account with Macmillan Learning, it can take up to two business days to verify your status as an instructor. You can request a free sample from the right side of this product page by clicking on the "Request Instructor Sample" button or by contacting your rep. Learn more.
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Sometimes also referred to as a spiral-bound or binder-ready textbook, loose-leaf textbooks are available to purchase. This three-hole punched, unbound version of the book costs less than a hardcover or paperback book.
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Achieve (full course) includes our complete e-book, as well as online quizzing tools, multimedia assets, and iClicker active classroom manager.
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Achieve (full course) includes our complete e-book, as well as online quizzing tools, multimedia assets, and iClicker active classroom manager.
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The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature
The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature is a bestseller for a reason: it helps transform students into lifelong readers, better writers, and more critical thinkers. Classics from many periods and cultures appear alongside works from today’s authors, including case studies on relatable themes. In-depth chapters on major authors like Flannery O’Connor take students deeper into their work, and three chapters on the fiction of Dagoberto Gilb and the poetry of Billy Collins and Julia Alvarez—created in collaboration with the authors themselves—are one more way that the anthology showcases literature as a living, changing art form. There is plenty of support for students, with critical reading and writing support, helpful sample close readings, writing assignments, and student papers in up-to-date MLA style. Interactive close reading models, skill-building close reading activities, and LearningCurve for Literature offer even more student support in an engaging digital format with Achieve with The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, now available with writing assignments, reading quizzes, videos, and more.
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