WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Preface xxxi
ries, poems, and plays worth the time of busy students and busy instructors.Again, no editor and no instructor need apologize for asking students to study and take pleasure in these authors and to see how they often return us to the authors of the past, the au- thors whose place in the canon is established and secure.
• In-depth representation and critical perspectives. Among the fiction writers, we represent two in some depth—Kate Chopin (four stories) and Flannery O’Connor (three stories and observations on literature). Among the poets, we represent in depth Emily Dickinson (poems and letters), Robert Frost (poems and comments on poetry), and Langston Hughes (poems and com- ments on poetry). Of the dramatists, we give two plays by Sophocles and two by Shakespeare; we also include relevant com- ments by playwrights on their work—for instance, Arthur Miller on tragedy.We think these features of the book are especially valu- able and that the kinds of writing assignments we have devel- oped—assignments that have emerged from our experiences in the classroom—will interest students and be productive for them.
• Plays in contexts. Several of the plays are accompanied by stim- ulating comments by their authors, giving students a look behind the scenes.
WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Instructors know that one of the best ways to become an active reader is to read with a pencil in hand—that is, to annotate a text, to make jottings in a journal, and ultimately to draft and revise essays.We think that stu- dents, too,will find themselves saying of their experiences with literature what the philosopher Arthur C. Danto said about his experience with works of art:
I get a lot more out of art, now that I am writing about it, than I ever did before. I think what is true of me must be true of every- one, that until one tries to write about it, the work of art remains a sort of aesthetic blur. . . . I think in a way everyone might bene- fit from becoming a critic in his or her own right. After seeing the work, write about it.You cannot be satisfied for very long in simply putting down what you felt.You have to go further.
—EMBODIED MEANINGS (1994)
To this end, we have included the following:
