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| Introduction | |
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| Introduction | |
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| What is literature? | |
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| What does literature do? | |
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| Why is literature important? | |
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| Interpreting Literature | |
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| The importance of interpretation | |
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| Close reading | |
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| Interpreting Robert Frost''s Fire and Ice | |
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| The process of interpretation | |
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| Interpretation and the author''s intention | |
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| Interpretation and the search for meaning | |
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| Interpretive strategies | |
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| Text-based interpretations | |
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| The Formalist approach | |
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| New criticism | |
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| Psychoanalytic criticism | |
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| Reader-based interpretation | |
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| Reader response criticism | |
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| Context-based interpretations | |
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| Feminist criticism | |
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| Political-Economic criticism | |
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| Cultural criticism | |
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| Historicism and new Historicism | |
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| Combining interpretive strategies | |
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| Using Intepretive Strategies | |
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| Interpreting Nikki Giovanni''s Master Charge Blues | |
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| A Formalist interpretation: New criticism | |
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| A psychoanalytic interpretation | |
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| A reader response interpretation | |
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| A feminist interpretation | |
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| A Political-Economic interpretation | |
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| A cultural interpretation | |
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| A historical interpretation | |
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| Writing About Literature | |
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| The purposes of writing about literature | |
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| Developing insights: Beginning with close reading | |
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| Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias | |
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| Questions for close reading | |
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| Taking notes, summarizing | |
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| Response journals | |
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| The process of writing interpretive essays: Prewriting | |
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| Freewriting, brainstorming, listing | |
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| Narrowing your topic | |
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| Interpretive strategies | |
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| Developing your thesis | |
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| Principles of evidence in literary studies | |
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| Backing up your thesis with details from the text | |
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| Patterns, implications, silent gestures, codes, and subtleties | |
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| Quoting from literary texts | |
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| Punctuating quotations | |
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| Punctuating a lengthy quotation | |
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| Using sources | |
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| What sources are available? | |
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| How to use sources | |
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| Quoting from sources | |
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| Compiling a works cited list | |
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| MLA style | |
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| Citing works in your text | |
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| The form of an interpretive essay | |
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| Manuscript details | |
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| Prewriting, planning, outlining | |
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| Redrafting | |
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| Organization | |
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| Editing | |
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| Style | |
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| The length and structure of a critical essay | |
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| A sample essay interpreting Percy Bysshe Shelley''s Ozymandias using sources and combining Formalist and Historicist interpretive strategies | |
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| A sample essay interpreting Percy Bysshe Shelley''s Ozymandias using Reader Response strategies and no sources | |
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| Short Fiction | |
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| Enjoying Short Fiction | |
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| What is short fiction? Fiction and identity | |
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| A story from The Decameron | |
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| Interpreting The Pot of Basil | |
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| Close reading: Beginning with questions | |
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| A close reading of Suzanne Jacob''s Two Cents | |
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| Meaning: Implied and explicit | |
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| Aesop: The Rooster and the Precious Gem | |
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| Elements of Short Fiction | |
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| Why the elements are important | |
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| The elements of fiction: Which elements are important? | |
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| The elements working together | |
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| Setting and Mood | |
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| The Masque of the Red Death | |
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| Character and Psychology | |
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| Falling Rocks, Narrowing Road, Cul-de-Sac, Stop | |
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| Style and Theme | |
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| The Swimmer | |
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| Plot and Structure | |
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| The Jilting of Granny Weatherall | |
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| Point of View | |
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| Irony and Tone | |
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| The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | |
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| Seeing the Elements Work Together | |
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| Interpreting Short Fiction | |
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| Beginning with close reading | |
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| A Rose for Emily | |
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| Close reading A Rose for Emily | |
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| Responses for an interpretation | |
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| Freewriting on A Rose for Emily | |
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| A sample interpretation of A Rose for Emily | |
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| Further strategies for interpreting A Rose for Emily | |
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| An Album of Short Fiction | |
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| Isabel Allende | |
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| Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother | |
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| The Lesson | |
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| The Cinderella Waltz | |
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| Johnnieruth | |
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| The Dream of the Wolf | |
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| Night School | |
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| Window: Fiction and the Canon | |
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| Concerning Love | |
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| The Story of an Hour | |
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| Woman Hollering Creek | |
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| The Open Boat | |
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| Games at Twilight | |
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| A Poetics for Bullies | |
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| Window: Fiction and Politics | |
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| Communist | |
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| Window: Psychology: Freud and Fiction | |
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| The Yellow Wallpaper | |
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| Rappaccini''s Daughter | |
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| Hills Like White Elephants | |
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| Araby | |
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| Counterparts | |
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| Lucy | |
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| Happiness | |
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| The Horse-Dealer''s Daughter | |
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| Window: Feminist Fiction | |
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| Sur: A Summary Report of the Yelcho Expedition to the Antarctic, 1909-10 | |
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| To Room 19 | |
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| The Garden Party | |
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| Window: Fiction and Culture | |
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| Eyes of a Blue Dog | |
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| The Moons of Jupiter | |
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| Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? | |
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| Window: History and Fiction | |
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| Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong | |
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| A Good Man Is Hard to Find | |
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| The Ballroom of Romance | |
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| Everyday Use: For Your Grandmamma | |
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| Weekend | |
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| Eudora Welty in Depth | |
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| A Worn Path | |
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| Livvie | |
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| Lily Daw and the Three Ladies | |
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| Research materials: Critical studies; reviews; letters; interviews | |
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| POETRY | |
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| Enjoying Poetry | |
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| How poems please us | |
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| Our delight in words and sounds | |
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| Discussion of a Poem | |
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| The Jabberwocky | |
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| The Bells | |
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| How Pleasant to Know | |
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| Algernon Charles Swinburne | |
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| Elements of Poetry | |
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| Language | |
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| McCavity the Mystery Cat, from Old Possum''s Book of Practical Cats | |
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| When Sir Beelzebub | |
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| Poem, or Beauty | |
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| Empty Bed Blues | |
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| Imagery: Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro; Carol Rumens | |
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| An Easter Garland | |
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| The Food-Pickers of Saigon | |
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| Gauguin: The Yellow Christ | |
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| Correspondence | |
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| Tone | |
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| A Glass of Beer | |
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| Eskimo Occasions | |
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| Terence | |
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| This Is Stupid Stuff | |
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| On My First Son | |
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| Rhythm and Rhymes | |
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| Song | |
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| With Rue My Heart Is Laden | |
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| Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town | |
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| Miss Arbuckle | |
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| Mother | |
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| Among the Dustbins | |
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| Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry | |
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| Metaphor and Figurative Language | |
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| Sonnet 73 | |
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| Cancion | |
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| she being brand new | |
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| The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner | |
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| As a Great Prince | |
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| London, 1802 | |
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| At Irony''s Picnic | |
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| Symbol | |
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| The Tyger | |
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| Fences | |
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| l(a; Patrick Kavanagh | |
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| The Man Behind the Plow | |
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