READING LITERATURE

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing poetry—

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll—

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul.

—Emily Dickinson (ca. 1873)

WHY WE READ LITERATURE

The epigraph from poet Emily Dickinson promotes reading as an escape, a

way for us to take a vacation from our lives. If we think about our
experiences with literature—and with other forms of entertainment, such as
movies and TV shows—that probably sounds about right. Most of us have
enjoyed forgetting about the cares of the world with a page-turning thriller
or a tear-jerking melodrama. But literature can also help us get closer to
life, to understand it in a new way when we get back from our literary
journey. We understand what Dickinson means because we can connect to it
—we think about our experiences as readers and that helps us understand
the poem while, at the same time, the poem clarifies something about how
reading makes us feel. The best literature helps us to understand ourselves,
one another, and our world in new ways and to make connections that had
never occurred to us or that we might have sensed but were unable to
express.

One way literature can help us better understand our world is by showing us
lives and experiences that we haven’t seen or experienced. As the literary
canon has expanded for North American readers—as the work of writers
who are members of groups historically underrepresented in literature, such
as that by women and racial and ethnic minorities—these lives have been
brought to life for those who have not lived them. At the same time, for
people from these groups—from the more than half of the population that is
not male to the many people in the United States and Canada whose family
roots don’t stretch back to Europe—the experience of seeing their own lives
represented is a powerful one indeed. So, for example, although American
literary history is replete with women writers, they have often been
undervalued by the literary canon’s guardians. But a century of political
struggle—which led, first, to enfranchising women as voters and, later, to a
feminist movement that demanded equality for women and their works—
has allowed some women authors to gain entry to the canon, forever
changing it. Writers like Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are
now routinely included in university courses, and women writers are
broadly represented in this anthology. Further, the political struggles of
Native American, African American, Latino/a, and Asian American citizens
have drawn considerable attention to a large and diverse body of writing
that was often overlooked by critics who prized European authors. Skillful
literary artists from these groups are also represented here.

The stories, poems, plays, and essays in this textbook have been selected
from a diverse array of important authors, some of them very popular,
others often most appreciated by scholars and critics. Some of these writers
have been read and studied in schools and colleges for centuries while
others, especially from historically underrepresented groups, may be
entirely new to you. We hope that you enjoy reading the works by the
authors and thinkers in this book. We also hope that you find surprising
commonalities among these very different writers and between them and
you. The units are organized around universal themes and are designed to
help you connect your own life and the things you are reading to the many
literary traditions that join us to each other, to our collective history, and to
the world at large. The literature in this volume will take you out of your
comfort zone to “lands away” while giving you new tools for understanding
yourself and your immediate world. The only “toll” required is an open
mind and an attentive eye.
READING ACTIVELY AND CRITICALLY

In a well-ordered universe, you would enjoy all your reading—and your

delight would derive from your complete absorption in and understanding of
what you read. But just as sports require physical conditioning in order for
you to perform at your best, you may need to build up your stamina as an
effective reader.

Reading Actively

First of all, pay attention to how you read. Can you read fifty pages in one
sitting, or do you find your mind wandering after a page or two? If you fall
into the latter category, don’t worry—we all succumb to the allure of
distractions once in a while. But it is up to you to train yourself not to let it
diminish your reading experience. If you feel your attention beginning to
wander, stop and look back to the place in the text where you began to drift.
When you come back to your reading, commit yourself to reading another
portion of the passage that’s longer than the last one you read. You can hold
yourself accountable by writing a short summary—from memory—of what
you’ve read every few sentences, paragraphs, or pages. When you
deliberately “train” your mind in this way, your ability to focus and
concentrate—and think—will be enhanced, and you will be a better reader
for your efforts.

Equally important to reading actively is paying attention to what you read. It

can be easy to get bogged down by the sheer volume of words on a page, but
you can help make sense of them by keeping a pencil in hand and interacting
with the page. Mark words you don’t recognize and look them up in the
dictionary. Note when you feel a protest rising in your throat. Jot down
places where the text reminds you of something in your own life or in
another work of art—any kind of connection. Active reading takes you
beyond the role of an observer, removed and separate from the things you
read, and makes you a participant in a conversation with the author or even
with the characters. So don’t be shy—speak up!

Reading Critically
Beyond being an active reader of literature, you must also become a critical
reader. Beyond simply perceiving the words on the page, critical reading
invites you to question those words in profound, meaningful ways. When we
ask you to read critically, we ask that you use the complex set of experiences
that define you as a human being—as well as a sense of the cultural
imperatives among which you live—to analyze the work you encounter. As a
critical reader, you learn to address your biases, enlarge your universe, and
test your comfortable convictions. Thus, when you adopt a critical position
toward a piece of literature, you need to test and question that position. Ask
the following:

What perspective does the author have that led her to write this work?
What social, cultural, or historical conditions influenced the production
of the work?
What other ways might the author have presented the ideas or subjects
of the work?
Are the author’s values different from my own?
How do my views and experiences affect whether I like or dislike the
work?

Such questions are stepping stones toward being able to write about
literature meaningfully and compellingly.

Annotating

As an active and critical reader, you must attempt to ask questions as you
read—and note your responses as you do. Later in this chapter, we discuss
specific questions you can raise for each literary genre. For now, we invite
you to look at the considerations we raise for readers of poetry (pp. 16–22).
We asked some students to apply this questioning and annotating technique
to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, a moderately difficult poem. Here is a
composite of what they produced:
The poem reads: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone
beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich
in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this
man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet
in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then
my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings
hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. In line 1 a callout pointing
to the word disgrace reads: hated by others. A callout pointing to the word
fortune reads: fortune equals luck? unlucky? In line 2 a callout pointing to
the words beweep and outcast reads: sorry for self, isolated. In line 3 the
words deaf heaven are underlined, and a callout pointing to the word
bootless reads: Shoeless? As in poor? Booty like treasure? Bootless equals
useless? A callout pointing to lines 5, 6, and 7 reads: wants to be more like
someone else – hopeful/ attractive/talented. In line 5 the word one is circled.
In line 6 the words Featured, him, and him are circled, with a question mark
over the word Featured. In line 7 the words this man’s and that man’s are
circled. In line 8 a callout pointing to the words contended least reads:
nothing pleases him. In line 9 a callout pointing to the word Yet reads: tone
changes here. In line 10 a callout pointing to the word Haply reads: happily?
Happenstance? Both?; and a callout pointing to the word thee reads:
girlfriend! In line 11 a callout pointing to the word lark reads: free as a bird.
In line 12 the words from sullen earth and at heaven’s gate are underlined; an
arrow connects the phrase from sullen earth with at heaven’s gate; and a
callout pointing to the end of the line reads: escape from dark, anger,
sadness. In line 13 a callout pointing to the word wealth reads: no longer
feels poor. In the final line a callout pointing to the words scorn to change
my state reads: rather be self than anyone – he’s got the girl!

All in all, the annotations to this sonnet are quite good. The students grasped
the poet’s design, largely overcame the difficulties created by somewhat
archaic language, and recognized the poet’s aim to both flatter his love and
express the saving grace that love provides.

But one of the wonderful things about literature is the fact that different
readers will interpret the same text in vastly different ways. For example,
some readers, at the crucial moment when the poet remarks, “Haply I think
on thee” (l. 10), might interpret the pronoun not as an allusion to a friend or
lover but as an allusion to God. In this interpretation the sonnet resolves, not
with the saving grace of a love that sets all things right, but with the
ineffable saving grace of God that, with the promise of heaven, makes
human pain and misery insignificant. Other readers might disagree, noting
that none of Shakespeare’s sonnets celebrate God, or that the sonnets just
before and after Sonnet 29 lament that the poet suffers from the separation
from his “friend.” And though that friend is quite possibly a man, not the
girlfriend our first group of students found in the text, the sonnet will be read
by many readers as celebrating love’s triumph over despair.
Here is a dramatic monologue by the British novelist and poet Thomas
Hardy (1840–1928). Try annotating it. You will discover that your first
notions may have to be modified as you read through the poem. No problem
—if this happens, just go back and rewrite your initial responses. Then
compare your annotations to the composite annotations on page 7.

The Man He Killed

“Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because—

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was:

That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,

Off-hand-like—just as I—,

Was out of work—had sold his traps—

No other reason why.

 “Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat, if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.”

The Man He Killed

The poem reads:

Line 1: “Had he and I but met

Line 2: By some old ancient inn,

Line 3: We should have sat us down to wet

Line 4: Right many a nipperkin!

Line 5: “But ranged as infantry,

Line 6: And staring face to face,

Line 7: I shot at him as he at me,

Line 8: And killed him in his place.

Line 9: “I shot him dead because –

Line 10: Because he was my foe,

Line 11: Just so: my foe of course he was:

Line 12: That’s clear enough; although

Line 13: “He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,

Line 14: Off-hand-like–just as I–,

Line 15: Was out of work–had sold his traps–

Line 16: No other reason why.

Line 17: “Yes; quaint and curious war is!

Line 18: You shoot a fellow down

Line 19: You’d treat, if met where any bar is,

Line 20: Or help to half-a-crown.”

In line 2 a callout pointing to the words ancient inn reads: Instead of on the
battlefield? A callout pointing to lines 3 and 4 reads: We should have shared
a meal instead of shooting at each other. In line 4 a callout pointing to the
word nipperkin reads: napkin? In line 6, a callout pointing to the words face
to face reads: Repeated words connect the two soldiers. Line 7 is underlined
and a callout reads: They are at odds but doing the same thing. In line 8 a
callout pointing to the words And killed reads: Missing pronoun I – did a
little bit of the speaker get killed, too? A callout pointing to the end of line 9
reads: He’s hesitating. Why did he kill him? A callout pointing to the phrase
of course in line 11 and the phrase that’s clear in line 12, reads: Is he trying
to convince himself? A callout pointing to the word although in line 12
reads: Is it really that clear? A callout pointing to the word list in line 13
reads, enlist (in the military). A callout pointing to the word traps in line 15
reads, Hunting? A callout pointing to the phrase was out of work in line 15
reads, Which one was out of work? Both soldiers joined because they were
poor. Were they more similar than different? A callout pointing to the phrase
quaint and curious in line 17 reads, Strange words to describe war–is he
taking this soldier’s death seriously? A callout pointing to the phrase war is
in line 17 and the phrase bar is in line 19 reads, These don’t quite rhyme–is
Hardy being careless? Or is he signaling that there is something off with his
speaker’s neat conclusion? A callout pointing to the word you in line 18 and
you in line 19 reads, He’s using second person–you. Would I have done the
same thing in his position? Why or why not?

Observe how these composite annotations engage with the poem and ask
questions of Hardy’s poetic structure and language. How do your own
annotations compare to these composite annotations? Was there a certain
point that you interpreted differently than the composite showed? Can you
see how something might be read differently by different people? One of the
qualities of literature that makes it so engaging is its openness to
interpretation, discussion, and argumentation. Only by asking questions of a
piece of literature will it be able to answer you—and the answers it provides
are where the process of writing about literature begins. Later in this chapter,
we include lists of “Questions for Exploring” each genre—fiction (p. 15),
poetry (p. 21), drama (p. 29), and nonfiction (p. 35)—that you can use to
prompt responses to different kinds of literature.
Freewriting

Another way to ask questions of a piece of writing is to read it and then write
a spontaneous response separately from the piece. Imagine this scenario.
Your teacher asks you to write an essay about one of the works you’ve read,
and you don’t have a clue about where to start. Consider the following very
short poem, “The Span of Life” (1936), by Robert Frost:

The old dog barks backward without getting up.

I can remember when he was a pup.

ACTIVITY

Set yourself a limit of five minutes to write a response to the poem. Don’t
worry about style or grammatical correctness, or even whether your
observations necessarily make logical sense—just start writing anything that
comes to mind.

The purpose of this practice—called freewriting—is to force yourself to

respond to a piece of writing, even when you think you might not have
anything to say. By writing spontaneously and continuously for a certain
amount of time, even when writing about a two-line poem, you have to look
very closely at the piece—and in doing so, hitherto-unrealized connections
can often work their way to the surface of your mind.

If we look again closely at “The Span of Life,” we may observe more than
we did on an initial reading. First, the title seems awfully grand for this tiny
poem. Somehow, these two lines and sixteen words are to make a poetic
statement about the nature of life itself. Perhaps we had better look at the
lines and words carefully. As a first step, let’s scan the poem:

The lines with each syllable identified by symbols as either stressed or

unstressed reads as follows: The (unstressed) old (stressed) dog (stressed)
barks (stressed) backward (back stressed, ward unstressed) without (with
unstressed, out stressed) getting (get stressed, ting unstressed) up (stressed).
I (stressed) can (unstressed) remember (re unstressed, mem stressed, ber
unstressed) when (unstressed) he (stressed) was (unstressed) a (unstressed)
pup (stressed).

Now, speak the poem aloud. Note that the first half of line 1 seems to move
slowly, while line 2 seems to prance. That series of four stressed syllables in
line 1 “slows” the line. Further, it seems that the words are hard to say
quickly—perhaps because the last letter of each stressed syllable has to be
finished before you can speak the first letter of the following word: “old dog
barks backward without.” The meter and the sound patterns that describe the
dog, old and tired as he is, contribute to the lethargy described in line 1. But
is this poem about a mere dog’s life or, perhaps, life in general?

In the second line, the lilting anapestic meter dances across the page. (An
anapest is a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by
an accented syllable. See Meter in the “Glossary of Literary Terms.”) The
final n of “can” slides easily into the initial r of “remember”; the easy
movements between words and in the sound sequences that follow all
contribute to the quickness of the line. Thus, the joyful playfulness of a
puppy, suggested by the bounding anapestic meter, is reinforced by the
sound patterns embodied in the words chosen to evoke the old dog’s youth.
Since the title of the poem invites the reader to generalize, we could assume
that human life spans, like the old dog’s, move from the energetic
exuberance of youth to the fatigued immobility of advanced age.

Now the title makes sense—and the poetic quality of the sixteen-word
couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines) emerges from the rhythm and the
sounds that reinforce the meaning of the words.

Reread your five-minute freewrite. Did you note any of these matters? Did
you wonder about the poem’s title? Do you have an alternative reading to
suggest? After this discussion, could you now write a short essay on Frost’s
poem? These first jottings do not require that you bring any special
knowledge to this poem, just that you attend to what’s there on the page—a
puzzling title, an unusual variation of metrical patterns, and the sounds that
embody the poem.
Writing about literature challenges you to teach yourself. Every element in a
literary work has been deliberately put there by the author—the description
of the setting, the events that form the plot, the dialogue, the imagery. E. M.
Forster, a literary critic and novelist, had one of his characters say, “only
connect.” This notion is a good one to follow when trying to write an essay
that analyzes literature. Does what you are reading remind you of anything
in your own life? Of anything else you have read? When you slow down and
read even more carefully, you will notice connections between words and
images that can help you find the key to interpreting the work of literature at
hand. Readers experience a mysterious intellectual and emotional event as a
result of the writer’s purposeful manipulation of language. When you write
about what you’ve read, you confront not only your response to a work but
also the elements within the work that cause your response.

ACTIVITY

Think about a short story or novel that you have read or a movie you have
seen recently. Did you like or dislike the story? Try to list the reasons for
your general reaction and evaluation: the characters were interesting or dull
and lifeless; the ending satisfied expectations or, perhaps, was surprising; the
story was easy to understand; it offered new insights about people, or places,
or a different society; you couldn’t wait to see what would happen next (or
found the story so boring that you had trouble finishing it). Your personal
impressions, as you jot them down, represent your response to the work.

When you write about literature, you begin with your response to the work.
Then you need to consider the writer’s purpose. This is not easy; in fact,
some critics argue that the reader can never fully recover the writer’s
purpose. But you can explore the text, try to discover how the plot, setting,
characterizations—the very words (sometimes symbolic)—all conspire to
generate the theme, and, finally, work on your feelings so that you have
some response.

To write about literature is, in one way or another, an attempt to discover and
describe how the writer’s art created the reader’s response. In other words,
whatever your assignment, the fundamental task is to answer two questions:
How do I respond to this piece? How has the author brought about my
response?
Keeping a Journal

Your instructor may require you to keep a journal—a day-by-day account of

your reactions to and reflections on your reading. Even if a journal is not
required, you might want to keep one for a variety of reasons. From a purely
practical perspective, writing in a journal regularly is excellent practice at
conquering the blank page and generating ideas. You need not construct
grammatical sentences, write cohesive paragraphs, develop your ideas, or
even make sense. In a journal you are free to comment on only one aspect of
a work or on a personal recollection that something in the work triggered.
You are recording your reactions, ideas, feelings, questions. Jotting down
personal connections—for example, if a character reminds you of a friend or
teacher—can be helpful even if they don’t make it into your essay. If you are
conscientious about keeping your journal, you may come to find writing in it
a pleasant activity.

A journal’s helpfulness extends beyond its use as a place for reflection.

When the time comes to write a full-length essay for your class, the journal
can provide many possible topics:

Use your journal to express in writing the pleasure (or pain) of each
reading assignment.
Jot down unfamiliar words (which you should then, of course, look up
in your dictionary).
Note your reactions to characters—that some are nasty, others too
saintly, some realistically rendered, still others unbelievable.

Some of your journal entries may be confessions of confusion, posing open-

ended questions about a reading. Others may be a record of personal feelings
and recollections triggered by a work; thinking critically about such
reactions might generate an essay that examines the conflict between your
own moral values and those embodied in a particular work.

Finally, remember that—unless your instructor has specific guidelines for

journal keeping—your journal will be the one place where you can write as
much or as little as you please, as often or infrequently as you wish, with
care and deliberation or careless speed. Its only purpose is to serve your
needs. But if you write fairly regularly, you will probably be surprised not
only at how much easier the act of writing becomes but also at how many
ideas suddenly pop into your head in the act of writing. Henry Adams was
surely right when he observed, “The habit of expression leads to the search
for something to express.”