AP English Literature & Composition Summer Reading Assignment
Ms. Morgan [email protected] HS East W24
I am so happy you are interested in entering the strange and exciting world of AP Literature!
Please realize that the Guidance Department still needs to process all course requests and prerequisite
requirements over the summer. Attending this meeting and / or completing the AP Literature Summer
Reading Assignment DOES NOT MEAN you are officially in the course yet, nor does it ‘guarantee’
your acceptance, which again is dependent upon your satisfaction of the minimum prerequisites, etc.
If you choose to complete the assignment prior to Guidance’s confirmation of your placement in
the course – which usually occurs in July – you do so AT YOUR OWN RISK.
BUT … if you are accepted … which I certainly hope you will be … then yes, we will work hard.
Yes, we will learn a lot. Yes, we will have FUN!! (You might have to trust me on that last one…)
First, though, we have to get through the summer. And who wants to lie around
on the beach or by the pool when you could be reading great literature? The good news is,
you don’t have to make that horrible choice—you can kill two birds with one stone!
Your AP Lit assignment for this summer has two parts:
(1) The Dastardly Lit Terms—
· Study the attached list of literary terms and definitions.
They are one among several tickets to the Mystical Land of 5!
· Be prepared for a comprehensive vocabulary test in September.
That will be one among several tickets to the Mystical Land of A+!
(2) The Dastardly Lit (naturally)—
· Read two (2) works from the reverse list that you have NOT read before.
If you took AP Language last year instead of American Lit, then you
MUST include at least one (1) American work among your selections.
· Complete a Blue Review Sheet for each work you read.
(Don’t lose these! They are more tickets to your desired destination…)
· Be prepared to write an extensive literary analysis of both works in September,
including the author’s use of literary devices such as symbolism, figurative language
(metaphors, similes, etc), sensory imagery (visual as well as the other physical senses),
character foils, parallel plotlines, and so on to convey plot, character, and theme development.
· DO YOUR OWN INTERPRETIVE WORK! “Easy interpretation” sites (SparkNotes, et al) are
NOT ACCEPTABLE sources of academic literary analysis, especially at the AP level. Additionally,
working from such sites without crediting them is PLAGIARISM. Copying or submitting the same
work as one another is also PLAGIARISM and is NOT ALLOWED. Either action, if detected, will
result in not only a 0, but also disciplinary action. Besides, these are the ways of the literary coward.
I would rather you get it FLAT WRONG all by yourself than STEAL it from somebody else!!
(See reverse for list of Summer Reading selections.)
Read Two!
(See front for further instructions.)
Atonement (Ian McEwan)
My Antonia (Willa Cather)
The Beautiful and the Damned
(F. Scott Fitzgerald)
No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
O Pioneers! (Willa Cather)
La Bête Humaine (Emile Zola)
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
One Hundred Years of Solitude
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
Emma (Jane Austen)
Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)
Faust, Part 1 (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway)
Silas Marner (George Eliot,
i.e. Mary Ann Evans)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
The Stranger (Albert Camus)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)
Inferno (Part I of Divina Commedia)
(Dante Alighieri)
The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
(Zora Neale Hurston)
Les Miserables (The novel, not the musical!)
(Victor Hugo)
Love in the Time of Cholera
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Middlemarch (George Eliot,
i.e. Mary Ann Evans)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
The Trial (Franz Kafka)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(Edward Albee)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)
Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
NOTE: Please secure parental permission
before reading any work listed.
Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: ____________________
Advanced Honors & AP English Literature and Composition
Review Form for Major Works (CIRCLE ONE: Epic Poem OR Drama OR Novel)
Full Title of Work: ___________________________________ Year of Publication: ____________
Genre: _____________ Historical Era / Cultural Movement: _______________________________
Author: ______________________ Birth–Death Dates / Places: _____________________________
Setting(s) [times and places as well as significant socio-economic and historical aspects]
Primary: ___________________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Major Characters
Protagonists / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________________
Antagonists / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________________
Primary Foils [to whom?]/ Archetypes: _________________________________________________
Primary Love Interests & Sidekicks / Archetypes: _______________________________________
Minor Characters
Of Significant Plot Function / Archetypes: ______________________________________________
Of Symbolic Function / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
Central Conflicts [identify both sides, eg “X vs. Y”]
Primary External: ___________________________________________________________________
Primary Internal: ____________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
Key Plot Points
Exposition / Status Quo: _____________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) E:] ____________________________________________________________________
Rising Action: ______________________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) RA:] __________________________________________________________________
Dramatic Climax / Height of Dramatic Tension: ________________________________________
[Subplot(s) DC:] __________________________________________________________________
Falling Action: ______________________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) FA:] __________________________________________________________________
Resolution / Catastrophe / Denouement: ______________________________________________
[Subplot(s) R:] ___________________________________________________________________
Narrative Style [point of view / perspective, distinctive literary style / devices used, and
narrator’s name / character traits]: ____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Themes [full statements of the lessons or messages of the work, not 1-word “concepts”]
Primary: ___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Symbols, Metaphors, and Allegories: _________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Mythological, Biblical, Literary, Historical, Scientific, and Cultural Allusions: ____________
___________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Irony and Other Significant Literary Devices / Notable Aspects: _________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
QUOTES!!! [include at least 3, from beginning, middle, and end of work]
[SPECIAL NOTE: Many students do not fill this part in—and later express EXTREME REGRET!]
Who?
Said What? [“EXACT WORDS & PUNCTUATION!”]
To Whom?
Why?
Chapter / page OR
Act / scene / line
Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: ____________________
Advanced Honors & AP English Literature and Composition
Review Form for Major Works (CIRCLE ONE: Epic Poem OR Drama OR Novel)
Full Title of Work: ___________________________________ Year of Publication: ____________
Genre: _____________ Historical Era / Cultural Movement: _______________________________
Author: ______________________ Birth–Death Dates / Places: _____________________________
Setting(s) [times and places as well as significant socio-economic and historical aspects]
Primary: ___________________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Major Characters
Protagonists / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________________
Antagonists / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________________
Primary Foils [to whom?]/ Archetypes: _________________________________________________
Primary Love Interests & Sidekicks / Archetypes: _______________________________________
Minor Characters
Of Significant Plot Function / Archetypes: ______________________________________________
Of Symbolic Function / Archetypes: ___________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
Central Conflicts [identify both sides, eg “X vs. Y”]
Primary External: ___________________________________________________________________
Primary Internal: ____________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
Key Plot Points
Exposition / Status Quo: _____________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) E:] ____________________________________________________________________
Rising Action: ______________________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) RA:] __________________________________________________________________
Dramatic Climax / Height of Dramatic Tension: ________________________________________
[Subplot(s) DC:] __________________________________________________________________
Falling Action: ______________________________________________________________________
[Subplot(s) FA:] __________________________________________________________________
Resolution / Catastrophe / Denouement: ______________________________________________
[Subplot(s) R:] ___________________________________________________________________
Narrative Style [point of view / perspective, distinctive literary style / devices used, and
narrator’s name / character traits]: ____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Themes [full statements of the lessons or messages of the work, not 1-word “concepts”]
Primary: ___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Secondary: _________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Other: _____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Symbols, Metaphors, and Allegories: _________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Mythological, Biblical, Literary, Historical, Scientific, and Cultural Allusions: ____________
___________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Irony and Other Significant Literary Devices / Notable Aspects: _________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
QUOTES!!! [include at least 3, from beginning, middle, and end of work]
[SPECIAL NOTE: Many students do not fill this part in—and later express EXTREME REGRET!]
Who?
Said What? [“EXACT WORDS & PUNCTUATION!”]
To Whom?
Why?
Chapter / page OR
Act / scene / line
A Division of The McGraw-HiU Companies
McGraw-Hill Higher Education
gz
LITERATURE: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
Published by McGraw-Hill, an imprint ofThe McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY, 10020. Copyright © 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990, 1986 by The McGraw­
Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the
prior written consent ofThe McGraw-Hili Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any
network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may no.t be available to customers
outside the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1234567890DOC/DOC0987654321
ISBN 0-07-242617-9
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Executive editor: Sarah Touborg
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Compositor: GAC Indianapolis
Printer: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company
Library of Congress Ca~oging-in-PublicationData
DiYanni, Robert.
I
Li~erature: reading fiction, poetry, and drama 1 Robert DiYanni.-5th ed.
I
p. cm.
I
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0_07'-242617-9 (:11k. paper)
I
1. Literature. 2;-Literature-Collections. I. Title.
,PN49 .052 2002:"
'..
2001031249
;808--<1c21
www.mhhe.com
About the Author
iRobert DiYanni is Director ofInternational Services for the College Board's
Advanced Placement Program. Dr. DiYanni has been a Professor ofEnglish and
Humanities for nearly thirty years, including serving as Visiting Professor at
NYU and Harvard. He holds a B.A. in English from Rutgers University and a
Ph.D. from the City University of NewYork.
Dr. DiYanni has written and edited two dozen books, primarily for college
students ofliterature and the humanities. His publications include The McGraw­
Hill Book ojPoetry, me McGraw-Hill Book ojFiction, Writing about the Humanities,
The Scribner Handbook for Writers, The Insider's Guide to College Success, and Mod­
emAmerican Poets: Their liOices and Visions (a text to accompany the popular PBS
television series). He updated the most recent edition of Strunk and White's
classic Elements oj Style and co-authored Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the
liumanities, the basis for a lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum ofArt.
"
•/
2I60
Text
IIiIIIiIWI
~
'
George W. Bush elected president
TIMELINE: LITERATURE IN CONTEXT
,e (193(1.. ): "M,arriage Is a Privata
A r"; B.mbara (1939-): "The Lesson"
(197
Sliko (194 ): "Yellow Womsn"; Walker - - - - - ­
(1944- ): verydlay Use" (1973)
)= "Why I Like Country - - - - ­
McPherson (19
Music" (1974)
~
Dust" (2000)
­
Wideman (1941-): "Damballah'
Mason (1940-): "Shiloh"; vale~1938-):
""m Your Horse lin the Night" (19~
Atwood (1939-): "Hlappy Endings"; C,
(1939-88): "Cath,edral"; Wasserstaln
(195G-): Tender OOer(1983)
Hood (1946-): "HoV'V Far She Went"; --.),\:~---l
Kincaid (1949- I:: "Girt"; Sanchez-Scott
(1953-): The Culban Swlmmer(1984)
Wilson (1945- ): Fences (1985)
L~
T. O'Brien (1946- ): "'The Things They
:-..,/
Carried"; Dove (1952-): Thomas and Beulah
(1986)
Beloved (1987)
Hegi (1946-): "To the Gate"; Morrison,
if
.
~'Di..mond
Hwang (1957-): M. Butterfly; Mukherjee
(194G-): "The Tenant" (1998)
Tan (1952-), "Rules 01 tha Game" (1989)
McNally (1939-): Andre's Mother, Hall ('
Poems Old and New (1990)
Cisneros (1954-): ~Eleven," "Barb' Q," - - - - - ­
''There Was 8 Melin, There Was Woman,"
"Woman Holleriflg Craek" (1 1)
Keillor (1942-): prod/gal Son: boon, Lost in - - - ­
Yonkers (1991)
Alexie (1961>- ): "Indian E cation";
Kushner, Angels in Am . (1993) - - - - - - ­
Song (1955- ): SChool
ures (1994) - - - - - McKenty (1935- ): Fa
t/rom tha Nuclear - - - - ­
Family; Sanchez 935- ): Does your house
have lions? Col
(1941-):
TheArtolD
n/ng(1995)
L6pez (1969-): Imply Maria; Taylor (1962-): - - - ­
Only D,.., sand Chl/dren Tel/the Truth
(1996)
Alvarez (1 G-): "The Kiss"; Jln (1956-): - - - - ­
''Tak g a Husb..nd"; Hirshfield (1953- ):
U~
01 the Heat1 (1997)
ngl der (1971-)' ''The Tumblers"; Jon
956-): "Who's Irish?"; E. O'Brien (1936-):
.
"long Distance"; Pastan (1932-): Camlval
Evening; Proulx (1935-): ''The Bunchgrass
Edge ot the World" (1996)
I
.
Desai (1937-):
Glossary
Allegory A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Alle­
gory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities. The
most famous example in English is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which the name of the
central character, Pilgrim, epitomizes the book's allegorical nature. Kay Boyle's story ','As­
tronomer's Wife" and Christina Rossetti's poem "Up-Hill" both contain allegorical elements.
Alliteration The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Exam­
ple: "Fetched fresh, as 1 suppose, off some sweet wood." Hopkins, "In the v..lley of the Elwy."
Anapest Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in comprehend or intervene.
An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron's lines from "The Destruction of
Sennacherib": "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, I When the blue
wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."
Antagonist A character or force against which another character struggles. Creon is
Antigone's antagonist in Sophocles' play Antigoni!; Tiresias is the antagonist of Oedipus in
Sophocles' Oedipus the King.
Aside Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience which are not "heard" by the other
characters on stage during a play. In Shakespeare's Othello, lago voices his inner thoughts a
number of times as "asides" for the play's audience.
Assonance The repe~ition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose,
as in "I rose and told him of my woe."Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"
contains assonantal ''I's'' in the following lines: "How soon unaccountable I became tired
and sick, I Till rising and gliding out I wander'd offby myself."
Aubade A love lyric in which the speaker complains about the arrival of the dawn, when he
must part from his 10ver.John Donne's "The Sun Rising" exemplifies this poetic genre.
Ballad A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swi'ft action and nar­
rated in a direct style.The anonymous medieval ballad "Barbara Allan" exemplifies the genre.
Blank verse A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's sonnets,
Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost's meditative poems such as "BircheS"
2161
2
1/
GLOSSARY
...., . .,--~<
.~ .
1
1
II
I
1
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It
HardY's'''Th~ MJ.!.1,j
.
include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of "Birches"·,
"When I see birches bend .to the left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker tre
I like to think some boy's been swingng them."
Caesura A strong pause within a line of verse. The following stanza from
He Killed" contains caesuras in the middle of two lines:
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand-like-just as 1­
Was out of work-had sold his traps­
No other reason why.
Catastrophe The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates thl1. denouement or faIl!Eg~,a..t~'·
tion of a play. One example is the dueling scene in Act V of Hamlet in which Hamlet. dies,
along with Laertes, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude.
Catharsis The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occurs in
the audience of tragic drama. The audience experiences catharsis at the end of the play, fol­
lowing the catastrophe.
Character An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Literary characters may be ma­
jor or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change). In Shakespeare's q~h.~lI..A
Desdemona is a major character, but one who is static, like the minor character B,~~nca.
Othello is a major character who is dynamic, exhibiting an ability to change. : <>.;,
Characterization The means by which writers present and reveal character.Although,:~ech~
niques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through,!their
speech, dress, manner, and actions. Readers come to understand the character Miss EmifX~~'
Faulkner's story"A Rose for Emily" through what she says, how she lives, and what sh~f floes'.
Chorus A group of characters in Greek tragedy (and in later forms of drama) who cO!]ffi1e.!3~
on the action of a play without participation in it. Their leader is the choragos. SOPhocles'
Antigone and Oedipus the King both contain an explicit chorus with a choragos. Teppessee
Williams's Glass Menagerie contains a character who functions like a chorus.
Climax The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climaxrepr~s.~9.~
the point of greatest tension in the work. The climax ofJohn Updike's "A&P," for example,
occurs when Sammy quits his job as a cashier.
Closed form A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and cq~~s-:­
tency in sllch elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern. Frost's "Stopp~ng by
Woods on a Snowy Evening" provides one of many examples. A single stanza illustrates
some of the features of closed form:'
... "
Whose woods there are I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Comedy A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually
for the better. In comedy, things work out happily in the end. Comic drama may be e~­
ther romantic-characterized by a tone of tolerance and geniality-or satiric. Satiric'
works offer a darker vision of human nature, one that ridicules human folly. Shaw's Arms
and the Man is a romantic comedy; Chekhov's A Marriage Proposal is a satiric comedy. ".
Glossary
216 3
Comic relief The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession. of intensely tragic dra­
matic moments. The comedy of scenes offering comic relief typically parallels the. tragic
action that the scenes interrupt. Comic reliefis lacking in Greek tragedy, but occurs.reg.:.
ularly in Shakespeare's tragedies. One example is the opening scene of Act V of Hamlet,
in which a gravedigger banters with Hamlet.
Complication An intensification of the conflict in a story or play. Complication builds up,
accumulates, and develop~ the primary OF central conflict' in a literary work. Frank
O'Connor's story "Guests of the Nation" provides a striking example, as does Ralph El­
lison's "Battle Royal."
Conflict A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved'by the end
of the work. The conflict may occur within a character as well as between characters.
Connotation The associations called up by a word that go beyond its dictionary meaning.
Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation, Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gen­
tle into that good night" includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines: "Good
men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay, I Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
.
.
Convention A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek
tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a pailicular rhyme
scheme in a villanelle. Literary conventions are defining features of particular literary
genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.
Couplet A pair of rhymed lines that mayor may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem.
Shakespeare's sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in "For thy sweet lQve remembered such
wealth brings / That then I scorn to change niy state with kings."
Dactyl A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as injIut-ter-lng or blue-bir-fy.
The following playful lines illustrate double dactyls, two dactyls per line:
Higgledy piggledy,
Emily Dickinson
Gibbering; jabbering.
,
.J.::'
;/,;.:
'I·
'.
,J
~-: it,.-•. j, ~ •.•/
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Denotation The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically playoff a word's denota­
tive meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications.
In the following lines from Peter Meinke's "Advice to My Son," the references to flowers
and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the
literal, dictionary meanings of the words:
To be specific, between the peony and rose
Plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;
Beauty' is nectar and nectar, in"a 'desert, saves-
and always serve bread with your wine.
But, son,
always serve wine.
,j!'1
Denouement The resolution of the plot of a literary work. The denouement of Hamlet .bk~s
place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. During. the deno~ement
II
II
II
2164
GLOSSARY
I.
Fortinbras makes an ~ntrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of
Hamlet.
Deus ex machina A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural interven­
tion. The Latin phrase means, literally, "a god from the machine."The phrase refers to the
use of artificial means to resolve the plot of a play.
Dialogue The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction and poetry dialogue:is
typically enclosed within quotation marks. See Frost's "Home Burial" for an example. In
plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.
~
Diction The selection of words in a literary work. A work's diction forms one ofits centrally
important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character;'imply
attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a
character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very different ways of speaking in Othello:· We'crn.
also refer to a poet's diction as represented over the body ofhi~ or her work, as in' Donne's
or Hughes's diction.
,II
Dramatic monologue A type ofpoem in which a speaker addresses a silent Iistener.As'read~.
ers, we overhear the speaker in a dramatic monologue. Robert Browning's "'MyfLast
·· ....,v·I>iJ
Duchess" represents the epitome of the genre.
Dramatispersonae Latin for the characters or persons in a play. Included among the':dramatis'
personae of Miller's Death of a Salesman are Willy Loman, the salesman, ius wife ,Lintla': arid
his sons Biff and Happy.
.. ' : .~ I. ;
.
:'ot
Elegy A lyric poem that laments the dead. Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sunda~s"iis ele­
giac in tone. A more explicitly identified elegy is WH. Auden's "In Memory ofWilIiam"
BuderYeats" and his "Funeral Blues."
•
Elision The omission ofan unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a Iin~'ljf'~o~
etry.A1exander uses elision in "Sound and Sense": "Flies o'erth' unbending corn.'.·!"" . ,..:.
Enjambment A run-on line of poetry in which.logical and grammatical sense carrieseYG~t,..
from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line inwiiicli~;
the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. In the opening line~
Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess;' for example, the first line is end-stop~~.1;;~j~{*;
=~~~
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now ...
Epic A long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero. Epics typically'dironi:a
the origins of a civilization and embody its central values. Examples from Western Iiteratute..
include Homer's iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Milton's Paradise Lost.
..
Epigram A brief witty poem, often satirical. Alexander Pope's "Epigram engraved,chth .
Collar of a Dog" exemplifies the genre:
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;·
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Exposition The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary backgrtiuitd :~
formation is provided. Ibsen's A Doll House, for instance, begins With a conversati0nib-e~
the two central characters, a dialogue that fills the audience in on events that oc~~n-:;d:b{,i6'
the action of the play begins, but which are important in the development ofits plot
Glossary
...
Fable A briefstory with an explicit moral provided by the author. Fables typically include an­
imals as characters. Their most famous practitioner in the West is the ancient Greek writer
Aesop, whose "The Dog and the Shadow" and "The Wolf and the Mastiff" are included in
this book. Compare Parable.
Falling action In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that
moves it towards its denouement or resolution. The falling action of Othello begins after
Othello realizes that Iago is responsible for plotting against him by spurring him on to
'
.
murder his wife, Desdemona.
Falling meter Poetic meters such as trochaic and dactylic that move or fall from a stre~sed to
an unstressed. syllable. The nonsense line, "Higgledy, piggledy," is dactylic, with' the accent
on the first syllable and the two syllables following falling off from that accent in each wotd'.
Trochaic meter is represented by this line: "Hip-hop, be-bop, treetop-freedom?
Fiction An imagined story, whether in prose, poetry, or drama, or an imagined character-a
"fiction." Ibsen's Nora is fictional, a "make-believe" character in a play, as are Hamlet and
Othello. Characters like Robert Browning's Duke and Duchess from his poem "My Last
Duchess" are fictional as well, though they may be based on actual historical individuals.
And, of course, characters in stories and novels are fictional, t110ugh they, too,.may be based,
in some way, on real people.The important thing to remember is that writers embellish and
embroider and alter actual life when they use real life as the basis for their work; They fic­
tionalize facts, deviate from real life situations as they "make things up." .
Figurative language A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey some­
thing other than the literal ineaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exagger­
ation, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and syne(doche
and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.
Flashback An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that oc­
curred prior to the main time frame of a work's action. Writers use flashbacks to compli­
cate the sense of chronology in the plot of their works and to convey the richness of the
experience of human time. Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" includes flashbacks.
Foil A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in
Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Oihello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona.
Foot A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb or
iambic foot is represented by "' that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one.
Frost's line "Whose woods these are I think I know" contains four iambs, and is thus an
iambic foot.
Foreshadowing Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story. Ibsen's A Doll
House includes foreshadowing as does Synge's Riders to the Sea. So, too, do Poe's "Cask of
Amontillado" and Chopin's "Story of an Hour."
Fourth wall The imaginary wall of the box theater setting, supposedly removed to allow the
audience to see the action. The fourth wall is especially common in modern and contem­
porary plays, such as Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Wasserstein's Tender Offer, and Wilson's
Fences.
Free verse Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is "free" in not be­
ing bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and iden­
tifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern and
contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free verse:
Williams's "This Is Just to Say" is one of many examples.
GLOSSARY
Gesture The physical movement of a character during a play. Gesture is used to reve'al char­
acter, and may include facial expressions as well as movements of other parts of an actor's
body. Sometimes a playwright will be very explicit about both bodily and facial gestures,
providing detailed instructions in the play's stage directions. Shaw's Arms and the Man in­
cludes such stage directions. See Stage direction.
Hyperbole A figure of speech involving exaggeration. John Donne uses hyperbole in_his
poem "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star."
Iamb An ullStressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in today. See Foot.
Iambic pentameter A poetic line of five iambic feet: When i;l. disgrace With fortune and
mel'i's eyes.
~
Image A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to
the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by
recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writ­
ers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey impli­
cations of thought and action. Some modern poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos
Williams, write poems that lack discursive explanation entirely and include only images.
Among the most f.1mous examples is Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro":
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Imagery The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a
literary work. Imagery of light and darkness pervades James Joyce's stories "Araby:' "The
Boarding House," and "The Dead." So, too, does religious imagery.
Irony' A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what
happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters
say the opposite of what they mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of
what is expected occurs. In dran1<1tic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or
event known to the audience or to the other characters. Flannery O'Connor's short stories
employ all these forms of irony, as does Poe's "Cask ofAmontillado."
Literallanguage A form oflanguage in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their
words denote. See Figurative language, Denotation, and Connotation.
Lyric poem A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of
feeling. Most of the poems in this book are lyrics. The anonymous "Western Wind" epito­
mizes the genre:
Western Wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!
Metaphor A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative
word such as like or as. An example is "My love is a red, red rose," from Burns's "A Red,
Red Rose." Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred" is built entirely of metaphors. Metaphor
Gloss.ary
216 7
is one of the most important ofliterary uses oflanguage. Shakespeare employs a wide range
of metaphor in his sonnets and his plays, often in such density and profusion that readers
are kept busy analyzip.g and interpreting and unraveling them. Compare Simile.
Meter The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems. See Foot and Iamb.
Metonymy A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or
idea. An example: "We have alWolYS remained loyal to the crown.~' Compare Synecdoche.
Monologue A speech by a single character without another character:s response. See Dramatic
monologue and Soliloquy.
.
Narrative poem A poem that tells a'Story. See Ballad.
Narrator The voice and implied speaker ofa fictional work, to be distinguished from the ac­
tualliving author. For example, the narrator ofJoyce's "Araby" is not James Joyce himself
but a literary fictional character created expressly to tell the story. Faulkner's"A Rose for
Emily" contains a communal narrator, identified only as "we." See Point of view.
NoveUa A short novel,as, for example, Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."
Octave An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section ofa poem,'as in the oc­
tave of a sonnet.
Ode A long, stately poem in stanzas ofvaried length, meter, and form. Usually a serious poem
on an exalted subject, such as Horace's "Eheu fugaces," but sometimes a more lighthearted
work, such as Neruda's "Ode. to My Socks."
Onomatopoeia The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz
and crack are onomatopoetic. The following from Pop~'s "Sound and Sense" onomatopoet­
ically imitates in sound what it describes:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow.
Most often, however, o.nomatopoeia refers to words and groups of words, such as Tennyson's
description of the "murmqr of innumerable bees," which attempts to capture the sound of a
Sw.Irm of bees buzzing.
Open form A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regular­
ity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern, and overall
poetic structure. E. E. Cummings's "Buffalo Bill's" is one example. See also Free verse.
. I
Parable A brief story that teaches a lesson often ethical or spiritual. Examples include "The
Prodigal Son," from the New Testament, and the Zen parable, "Learning to Be Silent."
Compare Fable.
Parody A humorouos, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often
playful and even respectful in its playful imitation. Examples include Bob MeKenty's par­
ody of Frost's "Dust of Snow" and Kenneth Koch's parody ofWilliams's "This Is Just to
Say."
Pathos A quality of a play's action that stimulates the audience to feel. pity for a character.
Pathos is alWolys an aspect of tragedy, and may be present in comedy as v:.ell.
Personification The endowment ofinanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or
living qualities. An example: "The yellow leaves flaunted their color gaily in the breeze.','
Wordsworth's "I WoIndered lonely as a cloud" exemplifies personification.
"r'
2168
Plot
GLOSSARY
The unified structure of incidents in a literary work. See Conflict, Climax, Denouement,
and Flashback.
",
Point of view The angle of vision from which a story is narrated. A work's point of view
can be first person, in which the narrator is a character or an observer; objective, in which
the narrator knows or appears to know no more than the reader; omniscient, in which th~ .
narrator knows everything about the characters; and limited omniscient, which allows the
narrator to know some things about the characters but not everything. See Narrator. . .-1,.
Props Articles or objects that appear on stage during a play. The Christmas tree in A Do'll
Hor./se and Laura's collection of glass animals in The Glass Menagerie are examples.
Protagonist The main character of a literary work-Hamlet and Othello in the plays
named after them, Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis, Paul in Lawrence's "RocIqng-"
Horse Winner."
Pyrrhic A metrical foot with two unstressed syllables ("of the").
Quatrain A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a Pe~
trarchan sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrain's followed by a couplet.
Recognition The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is.
Sophocles' Oedipus comes to this point near the end of Oedipus the King; Othello comes
to a similar understanding of his situation in ActV of Othello.
Resolution The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story. See
Plol and Denouemenl.
Reversal The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction (or the
protagonist. Oedipus' and Othello's recognitions are also reversals. They learn what they
did not expect to learn. See Recognition and also Irony.
Rhyme The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The fol­
lowing stanza of Ric/lard Cory employs alternate rhyme, with. the third line rhyming with
the first and the fourth with the second:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gendeman from sole to crown,
Clean favored and imperially slim.
Rhythm The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from
"Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:
I mrl to illy baby,
~by t..'\ke it ~ ...
ldllu said to I&2nard,
I Y!1alll a .diamond ~
Rising action A set of conflicts and crises that constitute that part of a play's or story's plot
leading up to the climax. See Climax, Denouement, and Plot.
Rising meter Poetic meters such as iambic and anapestic that move or ascend from an un~
stressed to a stressed syllable. See Anapest, Iamb, and Falling Meter.
Satire A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and
follies. Swift's Gr<lIiver~< Travels is a famous example. Chekhov's A Marriage Proposal and
O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" have strong satirical elements.
Glossary
b
Sestet A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of
an Italian sonnet. Examples: Petrarch's "If it is not love, then what is it that I feel" and Frost's
"Design."
Sestina A poem of dllrty-nine lines written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanzas repeat
in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the
sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two words, two
per line.
Setting The time and place of a literary work that establish its context. The stories of Sandra
Cisneros are set in the American Southwest in the mid- to late twentieth century, those of
James Joyce in Dublin, Ireland, in the early twentieth century.
Simile A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as
though. An example: "My love is like a red, red rose." Compare Metaphor.
Soliloquy A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other char­
acters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the
character thinking aloud. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech is an example. Compare
Aside and Monologue.
Sonnet A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The Shakespearean or English sonnet is
arranged as duee quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efefgg. The./letrarchan or
Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba
abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd.
Spondee A metrical foot represented by two stressed syllables, such as kn{ck~knack.
Stage direction A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers
(and actors) wiili information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. Modern
playwrights, including Ibsen, Shaw, Miller, and Williams, tend to include substantial stage
directions, while earlier playwrights typically used them more sparsely, implicitly, or not at
all. See Gesture.
Staging The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position ofactors on stage,
the scenic background, the props and costumes, and ilie lighting and sound effects.Tennessee
Williams describes these in his detailed stage directions for The Glass Menagerie and also in his
Production Notes for the play.
Stanza A division or unit o( a poem that is repeated in ilie same form-either wiili similar or
identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to anoilier. The
stanzas of Gertrude Schnackenberg's "Signs" are regular; those of Rita Dove's "Canary" are
irregular.
Style The wayan author chooses words, and arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue
or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary tech­
niques. See also Connotation, Denotation, Diction, Figurative language, Image, Imagery, Irony,
Metaphor, Narrator, Point of view, Syntax, and Tone.
Subject What a story or play is about; to be distinguished from plot and theme. Faulkner's "A
Rose for Emily" is about the decline of a particular way of life endemic to the American
Souili before ilie Civil War. That is its subject. (Its plot is how Faulkner organizes the actions
of the story's characters. Its ilieme is the overall meaning Faulkner conveys.)
Subplot A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story iliat coexists wiili the
main plot.The story ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern forms a subplot wit!J.in ilie overall plot
of Hamlet.
Symbol An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for some­
thing beyond itself.The glass unicorn in The Glass Menagerie, the rocking horse in "The Roc~­
ing-Horse Winner," the road in Frost's "The Road NotTaken"--a1l are symbols in this sense.
GLOSSARY
Synecdoche A figure ofspeech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example:"Lend
me a hand." Compare Metonymy.
Syntax The granunatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue. The organi­
z.1tion of words and phrases and clauses in sentences of prose, verse, and dialogue. In the fol­
lowing example, normal syntax (subject, verb, object order) is inverted: "Whose woods these
are I think 1know."
Tale A story that narrates strange happenings in a direct manner, without detailed descriptions of
character. Petronius' "The Widow of Ephesus" is an example.
-
Tercet A three-line stanza, as exemplified by Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."The three-line stan­
zas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet.
Terza rima A three-line stanz:lic pattern with interlocking tercet rhymes: aba bcb, and so on, as in
Frost's "Acquainted with the Night."
Theme The idea of a Iiternry work abstracted from its details oflangua~e, character, and action, and
cast in the form of a generalization. See the discussion of Dickinson's "Crumbling is not an
inst.1nt's Act."
Tone The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work, as, for example,
Flannery O'Connor's ironic tone in her "Good Country People." Compare Irony.
Tragedy A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the
worse. In tragedy, cat.1strophe and suffering await many of the characters, especially the hero. Ex­
amples include Shakespeare's Othello and Hamlet; Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King;
Arthur Miller's Death ofa Salesman. See Tragic.flawand Tragic Hero.
Tragic flaw A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero. Othello's
jealousy is one example. See Tragedy and Tra<~;c hero.
Tragic hero A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue ofa tragic flaw and fate,
suffers a f.11l from glory into suffering. Sophocles' Oedipus is an example. See Tragedy and Tragic
.flaw.
Tragicomedy Works of drama that include and blend tragic anQ comic elements in fairly equal
measure. lonesco's The Gap is one example.
Trochee An accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, as inf6otbiHi.
Understatement A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she
means; the opposite of exaggeration. The last line of i"rost's "Birches" illustrates this literary de­
vice:"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
Unities The idea that a play should be limited to a specific time, place, and story line. The events
of the plot should occur within a twenty-four hour period, should occur within a given geo­
graphic locale, and should tell a single stoty. Aristotle argued that Sophocles' Oedipus the King was
the perfect play for embodying the "unities."
Villanelle A nineteen-line lyric poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate
throughout the poem, which is structured in six stanzas-five tercets and a concluding quatrain.
Examples include Bishop's "One Art:' Roethke's "The Waking:' and Thomas's "Do not go gentle into
that good night."
\ Acknowledgmen
\
.,
iU\;;"
~.
10·"
'-'(11
. -: ;
;r
CHINUA ACHEBE "Marriage s a rivate Affair" from Girls at War and Other Stories by
Chinua Achebe. Copyright 1972, 973 by Chinua Achebe. Used by permission ofDou­
bleday, a division of Rand
House, c. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Asso­
ciates Incorporated.
DIANE ACKERMAN "piders" fromJag r of Sweet LAughter by Diane Ackerman. Copy­
right © 1991. Repr' ted by permi~sion 0 Random House, Inc. Excerpt from "What a
Poem Knows" by lane Ackerman reprinte from The Writer on Her Work, edited by Janet
Sternberg, by pe . sion ofW.W. Norton & ompany, Inc. Copyright © 1980 byW.W.
WI
hmatova, translated by Max Hay­
permission of Darhansoff and
Norton & Co any, Inc.
ULINA "The Bride" by Bella
madulina, translated by Stephen Step­
BELLA AKH
anchev. Co right C 1966 by Harper's Magazine. eprinted by permission of Stephen
Stepanch .
ANNA AX.
TOVA "Requiem" from Poems ofAnna
ward, mted by Stanley Kunitz, May 1997. Reprinted
:!
Verr' Literary Agency.
SHE
ALEXlE "Indian Education" from The Lone Rang and Tonto Fisifight in Heaven
Sherman Alexie. Copyright © 1993 by Sherman Alexie.
printed by permission of
Grovel Atlantic, Inc. "Indian Love Songs I & II" reprinted from e Business of Fancy Danc­
ing © 1992 by Sherman Alexie, by permission of Hanging Loose ess.
IA ALVAREZ "The Kiss" from How the Garcia Girls LAst Their Ac
. Copyright © 1991
by Julia Alvarez. Published by Plume, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a ivision of Penguin
USA and originally in hardcover by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. eprinted ·by per­
mission of Susan Bergholz Literary Services, NewYork. All rights reserve .
YEHUDAAMICHAI . "A Pity.We Were Such a Good Invention" from poems ~rusalem and
·LAve Poems I English and Hebrew by Yehuda Amichai, translated by Assia Gutmann, 1993~ .
"You Can Rely on Him" from The Great Tranquility: QuestionS and Answers by Yehuda
21 7 1