Understanding literature : an introduction to reading and writing created by Walter Kalaidjian, Judith Roof and Stephen Watt.

Includes index

Fiction: Form and content, Featured writer James Baldwin; Image, style, structure, Featured writer Virginia Woolf, Featured writer William Faulkner; Reading and interpreting, Featured writer Salman Rushdie
Poetry: Understanding poetic form, Featured writer John Keats; Poetry and history; Understanding poetic representation, Featured writer Gwendolyn Brooks, Featured writer Anne Sexton
Drama: Form and content, Featured writer William Shakespeare; Reading and interpreting an anthology of contemporary plays
Writing: Writing about literature
Glossary

In creating [this book], [the editors'] aim has been twofold--to better address the ways instructors want to teach literature today and to better inspire in students the desire and skills to engage literature critically ... [The authors] focus students on the necessary skills to perform close readings and to think critically about literary works. Each genre section starts with discussions of the basic, formal elements students need to understand and analyze literature. You will find discussions of reading fiction and drama for plot construction, narrative point of view, characterization, setting, tone, style, symbolism, and irony. Students will benefit from our discussions of understanding poetry in terms of its formal presentation of word choice, imagery, figurative language, sound sense, irony, paradox, rhyme and rhythm, and stanza form. These formalist practices continue to be essential skills that introductory students must master as requisites to understanding and enjoying literature ... [This book] encourages and supports students to explore ways in which literature engages with critical understandings of nationalism, race, gender, sexuality, global multiculturalism, and other cultural and political frames.-Pref