Dr. Prinsky's English 1102 Pamphlet, Ch. 5: Special Problems in Writing About Literary Works

5. Special problems in writing about literary works.

5.1. Twiceovers and vocabulary. (5.1a) Twiceover Read the literary work at least twice. The second time through a work a reader can always understand more about the writer's ideas and artistry. For example, the very early description of Matilde in Guy De Maupassant's "The Necklace" (R&J, Ch. 1) as "without the money to dress well, but as unhappy as if she had gone through bankruptcy"(par. 2) has irony and foreshadowing of events in Matilde's life that can only be known after having read the story once. (5.1b) Read with pen or pencil in hand Each time you read the work, be active in your reading and jot some notes and questions for yourself (either in the margins of the book or on your own paper). In five years of assigning Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case," I have never had one student ask me (or apparently even wonder about) the logical question that should be evoked by the end of par. 23 of the story:

On this last Sunday of November, Paul sat all the afternoon on the lowest step of his "stoop," staring into the street, while his sisters in their rockers, were talking to the minister's daughters next door about how many shirtwaists they had made in the last week, and how many waffles someone had eaten at the last church supper. When the weather was warm, and his father was in a particularly jovial frame of mind, the girls made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher, ornamented with forget-me-nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought very fine, and the neighbors joked about the suspicious color of the pitcher.

(Willa Cather, "Paul's Case," par. 23)

What question should the active, inquisitive reader inevitably ask? The question is what the neighbors can mean when they joke about "the suspicious color of the pitcher." In what way or ways can the color referred to of the object referred to be "suspicious"? (5.2a) Vocabulary and allusions, the second time through The second time through a work, be sure to look up all vocabulary words and allusions. Without understanding words and names (of people, places, and events) used in the literary work, good comprehension and retention will not be possible. Furthermore, vocabulary building will also enhance not only reading ability but also writing skills. (5.2b) Kinds of vocabulary words Attend not only to obvious polysyllabic vocabulary words like "sagacity" and "proclivities" but also short words (e.g., "stead," "togs") that may be just as "hard" or unfamiliar as polysyllabic ones, or common words (e.g., "peculiarly," "started") used in a way that seems unfamiliar or unusual. (All these examples are culled from Cather's "Paul's Case.") The more common the word, the more meanings it usually has, many of which are very probably unknown to less than expert readers; for instance, the word "run" has about 150 meanings, as noun, verb, and even adjective in a collegiate dictionary--and some are bound to be unknown to anyone who looks up this entry. (5.2c) Examples from Cather's "Paul's Case" (R&J, 3rd ed., 144-57) An example of the bearing of vocabulary on reading is the following list culled from Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case" (words marked with asterisks are common words used for meanings not likely to first occur to the average or less than expert reader); numbers in parentheses refer to the paragraph number in which the word occurs: misdemeanors* (P1), called* (P1), perplexity (P1), suave (P1), trifle (adj) (P1), dandy (noun)* (P1), opal (P1), four-in-hand (P1) contrite (P1), befitting (P1), peculiarly* (P2), belladonna (P2), friction* (P3), respective (P3), rancor (P3), aggrievedness (P3), evinced (P3), impertinence (P3; P5), synopsis (P3), started* (P3), involuntary (P3), aversion (P3), recitation (P3), flippantly (P4), contemptuous (P4), mirthfulness (P4), insolence (P4, P8), inquisition (P5), animation (P9; P14), vindictive (P10), cutting* (P10), gruesome (P10), intemperate (P10, reproach (P10), at bay (P10), Soldiers' Chorus (P11), Faust (P11), lightheartedness (P11), Carnegie Hall (P11), Rafelli (P12), studies* (P12), Venetian (P12), exhilarated (P12), Rico (P12), start* (P12), Augustus Caesar (P12), cast-room (P12), Venus of Milo (P12), becoming (adj.) (P13), flourishes (P13), vivacious (P14), hauteur (P14), togs (P14), Genius* (P15), Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman (P15), zest (P15), splendor (P15), soprano (P15), personages (P15), (tiara (P15), auf widersehen (P18), cordial (P18), alighted (P18), tropical (P18), basking (P18), the Sunday supplement (P18), vehemence (P18), tangibly (P18), pantomime (P18), improvised (P19), John Calvin (P19), motto* (P19), worsted (P19), begot (P20), catechism (P20), of a piece (P20), loathing (P20), nerveless (P20), debauch (P20), permeated (P20), repulsion (P20), morbid (P20), unequal* (P21), sleeping chamber (P21), spiggots (P21), accosted (P21) singularly* (P22), supposition (P22), sodden (P23), seasonable (P23), burghers (P23), stoops* (P23), placidly (P23), protruding (P23), anecdotes (P23), sagacity (P23), nasal (P23), proclivities (P23), interspersed (P23), shirtwaists (P23), jovial (P23), forget-me-nots (P23), enamel (P23), ruddy (P24), magnates (P24), dissipated (P24), entailed (P24), oft (P24), reiterated (P24), angular* (P24), stenographer (P25), apprehension (P25), Cairo (P25), Venice (P25), Meditteranean (P25), Monte Carlo (P25), violet water (P27), conspicuously (P27; P57), lethargy (P27), stock company (P28;P30), dresser* (P28), akin (P28), vocation* (P28), allurement (P29), Martha (P29), Rigoletto (P29), guise (P30; P57), smartly* (P30), clad (P30), perennially (P30), limelight (P30), portal (P30), Romance* (P30), subterranean (P30), disenchanting (P30), -palled (P30), garish (P32), league* (P32), repulsive (P33), prosy (P33), frock coats (P33), prepositions (P33), govern* (P33), dative (P33), soloist (P33), listless (P33), Naples (P33), defer* (P33), theorems (P34), bravado (P34), perplexed (P34), upshot (P35), stead (P35), remorsefully (P35), indolent (P36), fervid (P36), florid (P36), inventions* (P36), Newark (P37), started* (P37), eddies (P37), bottomlands (P37), drifts* (P37), protruded (P37), day coach (P38), Pullman (P38), slatternly (P38), oblivion (P38), crumby* (P38), Jersey City (P39), manifestly (P39), furnishing* (P39), hatter's (P39), Tiffany's (P39), Waladorf (P40), plausibly (P40), sitting-room (P40), linen* (P42), resplendent (P42), jonquils (P42), taboret (P42), Roman blanket (P42), retrospection (P42), meshes* (P43), gauntlet (P44), sulking (P45), traces* (P45), pretext (P45), start* (P47), toilet* (P47), abated (P48), piece* (P48), intersected (P49), score* (P49), livery (P49), livery (P49), glaring* (P49), affirmation ()49), omnipotence (P49), faggot* (P50), tempest (P50), thronged (P51), bewildering (P51), medley (P51), chambers (P51), toilettes (P52), undulating (P52), roseate (P52), tinge (P52), reflected* (P52), fagged- * (P52), pensively (P52), abashed (P53), conjecture (P53), contended (P53), loge (P53), imperative (P53), the purple (P53), turret window (P54), timidity (P54), wretched (P54), fell in* (P55), confiding (P55), excited* (P56), spoils (P56), divan (P56), low ebb (P57), tepid (P59), elastic* (P59), potency (P59), game* (P59), accompaniment (P59), gilded (P60), loathed (P62), singularly* (P64), deftly (P64), cut* (P64), homilies (P65), insensible (P65), started* (P66), Adriatic (P66), Algerian (P66).

Students' constant building of vocabulary should take place throughout both English 1101 and 1102. Such vocabulary improvement will enhance both reading and writing skills in those courses, the Humanities courses, and on the Regents' Examination (RTP). Vocabulary questions on the RTP are asked in context; that is, a word or phrase is underlined in a passage, and then multiple-choice synonyms are given (the student is asked for the word closest in meaning). Words asked about include both common words used in less familiar senses, as well as harder college-level words and polysyllabic words whose roots will give clues to meaning. Refer above to the list of words given for Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"; note that fairly common words used in unfamiliar senses have been marked with asterisks (I call them "asterisk words" because of this linguistic phenomenon of students' mistaking a word's usual meaning for one of its less common senses). An example of a question that asks about a common word used in a less frequent or familiar sense could be about the word started used in the short story's third paragraph. The word started would be underlined in the sentence "Paul had started back with a shudder and thrust his hands violently behind him." Then the question would read something like "The underlined word [in the sentence marked] means: (a) jerked (b) began moving (c) delayed moving (d) glided." The correct answer would be a, though a careless student might put b, a more common or usual sense of the word start as "begin" but not the relevant one in the reading passage. The meaning of start here, which can be found in a good collegiate dictionary, is "to make an involuntary, startled movement, as from fear or surprise; to move suddenly, as with a spring, leap, or bound; jump." (Note how the words shudder and back provide context clues for this meaning in the sentence from the short story.) A student caused me much mirthfulness (the latter word occurs in Cather's "Paul's Case," P4) when he assumed that the title character in Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" had a homosexual orientation because of the words faggot (P50) and fagged- (P52). In the first instance ("He burnt like a faggot in a tempest"), the word means (we discover in our collegiate desk dictionaries) "a bundle of sticks, twigs, or branches, used for fuel." In the second instance ("Had he ever known a place called Cordelia Street, a place where fagged-looking business men boarded the early car?"), the word means (we discover in our collegiate desk dictionaries) "exhausted by working hard." Many college level words, some hints of whose meaning can be derived from the context of the sentence can be found throughout Cather's "Paul's Case," as well as most other readings in the literature textbook-anthology. Take another look at the list of vocabulary items above, culled from Cather's "Paul's Case." Note that college-level words can be short, even monosyllabic, like clad (P30) or stead (P35), as well as polysyllabic, like rancor (P3), evinced (P3), hauteur (P14), or proclivities (P23). Any of these words might be singled out, and four multiple-choice synonyms or synonym phrases given, with one answer being correct for the word's meaning, as used in the sentence.

5.3. Titles of literary analysis writing. (5.3a) Always provide a precise title. Always give both out-of-class papers and in-class essays a precise title (see the composition handbook about the format, placement, punctuation, and capitalization of titles of papers and essays). Writing your title first, at least a provisional one, will help keep you from straying from the topic. (5.3b) Checking the precision of your title A check on the precision of your title is to ask if a student not in our class could determine from your title what exactly the assigned topic was, as well as your main idea(s) about it. The four things that belong in the title are the literary work's author, title, genre, and what you're up to. (5.3c) Include author and title but never just the work's title; never just the work's author and title While you definitely should include author, title, and genre in your title, do not use the title of the work by itself as your title; see the various tex entries in Appendix A:Essay Correction Symbols and Abbreviations of this pamphlet, including the direction to use phrase or subordinate clause, not main clause or sentence (that is, no newspaper headline titles). Indicate in your title not only the author(s) and literary work(s) involved, but also, specifically, what the particular assigned topic is (plus, if you wish, a hint of your main thesis). Your title may be a bit long, but it will also make quite clear exactly what you are up to in the paper or essay. One test to apply to your title is asking yourself if a college friend not in our class could understand from your title what the assigned topic was. (5.3d) Omit reference to the literature text-anthology in your title Do not put the title of the literature anthology or its editor-compiler in your title. For out-of-class papers, your Works Cited entry will provide this information; for in-class essays, writing out this information will subtract from valuable limited time. Also, do not include other external class circumstances about the assignment (e.g., "In Class Essay on," "Out of Class Essay on," "Assigned Essay on").

NOT: "Paul's Case"

NOT: "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather

NOT: In-class Essay

NOT: In-class Essay on Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"

RATHER: The Theme of Escape in Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"

RATHER: An Analysis of the Themes of Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"

5.4 Phrasing, punctuation, and pronoun reference of thesis or topic sentences in literary analysis writing. (5.4a) Author and title of the work Always identify the author and title of the literary work as early as possible in the first paragraph of your homework answer, paper, or essay. (5.4b) Use the apostrophe More economical than the phrasing "such-and-such a title by such-and-such an author" is the use of the author's name, in the possessive form (plus appropriate apostrophe), preceding the work's name (example: in Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"). Be sure to use the apostrophe where necessary and to review the material in the composition handbook on the use of the apostrophe. (5.4c) Use appropriate typography for titles of literary works Carefully study the material in the composition handbook and R&J on when to use quotation marks and when to use italics or underlining to identify the title of a literary work. Do not use both at the same time. (5.4d) No comma for restrictive material (one item pointed out of a group) when referring to titles of written works Is a comma needed between the author's name and the title of the literary work? Sometimes yes; often no. Should a first sentence in a homework answer, in-class essay, or out- of-class paper read a or b, below?

[a] The main character in Sherwood Anderson's, "I'm a Fool," needs to learn the lesson of self knowledge.

[b] The main character in Sherwood Anderson's "I'm a Fool" needs to learn the lesson of self knowledge.

The answer is b! Study material in the composition handbook (and the "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar" chapter in "Prinsky's English 1101 Pamphlet") about restrictive or essential material versus nonrestrictive or nonessential material, relative to comma usage. This explanatory material will indicate when to use a comma (or commas) and when not to. Basically, the question deals with the fourth main use of the comma: restrictive vs. nonrestrictive material. The five main uses of the comma, which all students should learn by heart, are (a) items in a series; (b) main clauses joined by the coordinate conjunctions (the seven coordinate conjunctions are FANBOYS: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So); (c) introductory material (prepositional phrases, verbal phrases, and adverb clauses); (d) nonrestrictive material; (e) miscellaneous, such as between city and state, or after the thousands' place in arabic numberals. Two tests for restrictive material (no comma, or no commas) are: (a) is one item pointed out of a group of two or more items? (b) does the action in the first clause happen if and only if the action happens in the second clause? Usually test "a" applies to whether or not to use the comma with regard to author and title of a literary work. Did the author publish only one short story, poem, or play during his or her whole writing career? If he or she didn't, then a comma must be pushed away from the title in order to point a finger to that particular title among several. Thus, if a generalization is to be made about Ernest Hemingway's "Soldier's Home," we push a potential comma out of the way to point to that short story and not his stories such as "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Hills Like White Elephants," or "The Killers."

NOT: In his short story, "Soldier's Home," Hemingway uses a prose style that suggests the fragmentation of the main character's view of the world.

RATHER: In his short story "Soldier's Home," Hemingway uses a prose style that suggests the fragmentation of the main character's view of the world.

NOT: Katherine Mansfield's short story, "Miss Brill," depicts the aged as isolated and alienated.

RATHER: Katherine Mansfield's short story "Miss Brill" depicts the aged as isolated and alienated.

The problem of whether or not to use a comma when referring to written works is general, not confined to the opening or topic sentence of an essay. Either of the sentences above in the NOT and RATHER example could easily occur in an essay later than the first sentence or first paragraph. The same punctuation rule about restrictive or nonrestrictive applies. (5.4e) How a restrictive comma could be necessary when referring to the title of a literary work If you were referring to the very first novel Melville wrote, then commas for nonrestrictive usage might be proper because Melville wrote only one first novel. Thus, this sentence would be correct:

Melville's first novel, Typee, has like some of his other works, a South Seas setting.

(5.4f) Necessary comma for introductory material On the other hand, a comma is often needed in first sentences of paragraphs for introductory prepositional phrases, a use of the comma that should be looked up in the composition handbook and "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar":

[example:] In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death,"

(5.4g) Comma and period inside the quotation marks Note, in the example above, that the comma goes inside the quotation marks. Likewise, for the period (study your composition handbook on this matter):

[example:] There is much irony in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour."

[example:] John Donne deals with the exaltation of love in "The Good Morrow," "The Sun Rising," and "The Canonization."

This material about punctuation marks relative to quotation marks applies generally, not just to the opening or topic sentence. Either of the example sentences above could easily occur in a sentence or paragraph later than the topic sentence or first paragraph of an essay. (5.4h) Carefully avoid the unnecessary comma when there is no prepositional phrase requiring it

NOT: Margaret Atwood's short story "Rape Fantasies," has much to say about women's responses to their social environment.

RATHER: Margaret Atwood's short story "Rape Fantasies" has much to say about women's responses to their social environment.

The basic concept is to avoid using a comma that would separate parts of a single grammatical unit (explained in the material about the unnecessary comma in the composition handbook and "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar"). In the example above, in this section, 5.4h, the comma in the NOT example would be separating the subject from the predicate (or verb). A simplified example would be the following: "The student, opened her book." No comma should come between the subject ("student") and the predicate ("opened her book"). This material about the unnecessary comma applies generally, not only to the topic or first sentence of an essay. The NOT and RATHER sentences above, could easily occur in a sentence later than the topic sentence or a paragraph after the first one.

(5.4i) Avoid faulty pronoun reference in the literary analysis topic sentence An error in pronoun reference (look this up in your composition handbook and "Norm's Notes on the Reading-Response Essay" in my Engl. 1101 online materials) likewise often occurs in such (early) identifying sentences in literary analysis writing as the following:

[NOT:] In James Joyce's "Araby," he deals with a young man's awakening feelings of love.

In this example sentence about Joyce's "Araby," the pronoun he has no legal noun it can refer back to except the literary work's title; the problem occurs because the author's name has become adjectival (a kind of adjective) through the possessive use of the apostrophe. The opening of the sentence of this form, as in the following example of what to avoid, thus has an error in pronoun reference:

[example, NOT:]

In [author name + apostrophe + s] "work title," he

The error can be avoided in a manner such as the following (here, using the possessive pronoun first, and letting the noun it refers to, James Joyce, come second and not be used as an adjective):

[example, RATHER:] In his short story "Araby," James Joyce deals with a young man's awakening feelings of love.

NOT: In Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," she portrays how mindless rituals and conventions can dominate society.

RATHER: In her short story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson portrays how mindless rituals and conventions can dominate society.

This problem of pronoun reference, in regard to author's name and title of the work, is general and can very easily occur later in an essay, after the first sentence and first paragraph.

(5.4j) Avoid the shifted or mixed construction in your topic sentence and elsewhere If you begin your sentence with a preposition, remember that after the prepositional phrase is completed you will need a true subject of the sentence to go with the predicate or verb.

NOT: In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" deals with the seamier, Gothic aspects of the South.

RATHER: In her short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor deals with the seamier, Gothic aspects of the South.

RATHER: Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" deals with the seamier, Gothic aspects of the South.

Look up the material about the shifted, mixed, or inconsistent grammatical construction in the composition handbook.

(5.4k) The multi-error literary analysis topic sentence See if you can spot all eight errors in the following literary analysis topic sentence:

NOT: In Sylvia Plaths poem, Mirror she suggests how terrible may be the fear of aging, analogous to an idea in Jonathan Swifts "Gullivers Travels".

RATHER: <You make all the corrections necessary:>

(5.5) Avoid the elliptical first sentence Do not merely allude in the first sentence or first paragraph of your essay to either the title of your own essay or to the title (and author) of the literary work being analyzed. Explicitly include (if need be, by restating) this information in your first sentence and paragraph. (See the box listing what to avoid in introductions in the section on introductory paragraphs in the chapter on paragraphs in The Little, Brown Handbook, as well as in the chapter on introductory paragraphs in this English 1102 pamphlet.)

[NOT:]

Frye 1

Northrop Frye

English 1102C

The Portrayal of Violence in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

It is described as the result of a disturbed psychological state and an inherently weird world.

[RATHER:]

Frye 1

Northrop Frye

English 1102C

The Portrayal of Violence in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," violence is shown to be the result of a disturbed psychological state and an inherently weird world.

5.6 Further notes on the topic or thesis sentence of literary analysis essays. (5.6a) Main thesis and indication of assigned topic Besides author and literary work title, the paper's or essay's thesis or main point should be made as early as possible in the first paragraph (plus an indication of the assigned topic, if any). See the ts and intro entries in my Appendix:Essay Comment Symbols of this pamphlet. (5.6b) No circumlocutory announcement of what you're going to do Avoid wdy-an, which you should look up in my Appendix A: Essay Comment Symbols of this pamphlet. See "Opening paragraphs to avoid" in The Little, Brown Handbook and in the chapter on introductory paragraphs in this English 1102 pamphlet, ("Opening paragraphs or introductions; topic sentences"). Don't stall by announcing intentions; get into the thesis and support immediately.

5.7 Verb tense in literary analysis essays. Stick to present tense when discussing written works; however, refer to events in your life or real life in past tense or the verb tense that applies. See the comments on this in one of the boxes about writing matters in the first chapter of R&J.

5.8 Special forms of wordiness to avoid in literary analysis essays. (5.8a) Avoid wordy reference to the literary writer (remember the remarks above about using the apostrophe), the writer of the essay about the literary work, the writer's reading process, the treasure-hunt analogy, and "the reader" Avoid wdy-I in papers or essays about literature; look this up in my Appendix:Essay Comment Symbols of this pamphlet. Also to be shunned are the related circumlocutions of (a) the number of times the literary work has been read (avoid: The second time I read such-and-such I realized such-and-such) or (b) "upon closer examination" or (c) surface events vs. deeper meaning (NOT: Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl" seems on the surface to be a story of such-and-such, but a second reading reveals a deeper meaning of such-and-such; RATHER: One main theme that emerges from Cynthia Ozick's story of such-and-such in "The Shawl" is the idea of such-and-such). (d) A similar wordiness to be avoided is reference to "the reader." (NOT: In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," the reader finds much symbolism. RATHER: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" has much symbolism. ) (5.8b) Avoid laudatory padding Likewise, avoid sentimental, gratuitous, favor-currying, or flatulently padding praise of the author or literary work; you come to analyze Caesar/the literary work, not to praise him/it. (Look up the actual quotation in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.) (5.8b) After the first reference, use only the author's last name The first time an author's name is mentioned in your homework or paper or essay, refer to both first and surnames (no Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., etc.); thereafter, just use the surname. See the box "Using the Names of Authors" in the first chapter of R&J. (5.8c) Combine sentences and use subordination where possible; avoid vague pronoun reference (avoid: "This . . . ") Wordiness and vague pronoun reference should be avoided by using proper sentence combining and subordination (see all sentence exercises in the composition handbook that require combining of clauses or phrases, adding of clauses or phrases, as well as subordination), and avoiding the vague use of the vague pronoun this, particularly at the beginning of a sentence. (5.8d) Vague pronoun examples NOT: Nilson and Tandram definitely belong to the upper class. This can be illustrated by their apparent wealth and their mannerisms. RATHER: Nilson and Tandram belong to the upper class, as shown by their wealth, habits, and behavior. NOT: A clue that their neighborhood may be upper class is the tree, the Japanese Quince, being labeled. This implies professional landscaping, which only the rich could justify. RATHER: The upper class categorization of their neighborhood is suggested by the labels on the Japanese Quince and other flora in the square garden, obviously done by an expensive professional landscaping service. (5.8e) Avoid the "This is ---," "This means ---" pattern The sentence pattern "This is ---," "This implies ---," "This means ---," as in the preceding "NOT examples" in 4a should be avoided as wordy, not properly subordinated in mature, longer sentence structure, and faulty in pronoun reference. Study the material on faulty pronoun reference in your composition handbook. Also study the material about composing compound or complex sentences, as well as subordination, in your composition handbook, which will show how to avoid the vague pronoun reference problem and sentence pattern.

5.9 Organization of literary analysis writing and essays. Use logical organization and avoid mere summary. (5.9a) By main ideas or themes, not by plot, or paragraph by paragraph, scene by scene, or line by line Organize papers about literary works logically (topic by topic, idea by idea) rather than chronologically (word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, incident by incident, or episode by episode of the literary work) or by stylistic devices (one paragraph for imagery, one paragraph for similes, etc.); that is, organize your paper by ideas, not by the order of the plot or by stylistic devices. What most counts in a literary work, and in language generally, is meaning--ideas and observations about life and people. (5.9b) Essays about more than one literary work In papers or essays about more than one literary work, organize logically (theme by theme, connection by connection) not chronologically or serially (work by work). (5.9c) Don't simply summarize the plot or retell the story or poem Do not simply retell the story or poem or play, which is simply narrative summary, not analysis and thoughtful use of the literary work. Each paragraph or section of your composition should be headed by a topic sentence making some sort of analytical generalization or observation; all following material in the paragraph should be supporting examples (accompanied by simultaneous explanation, in the same sentence they are cited, if possible, of how they indeed support the topic sentence) and explanation of the topic sentence's analytical generalization or observation. (See Roberts, "Keeping to the Point," in Chapter 1.)

5.10: Use of examples, details, support. (5.10a) Illustrate from throughout the literary work, and not necessarily in order of plot, line by line, or paragraph by paragraph Cite examples from throughout the work, not necessarily in plot order (short story, drama) or line-by-line order (poem). (5.10b) Concurrent explanation with citation As the example is cited, in the same sentence, if possible, explain as fully as possible how any illustration, example, or detail you cite shows what you claim it does, or why it belongs as support or explanation in your paragraph.

EXAMPLE (about Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"):

NOT: The stranger Young Goodman Brown meets carries a serpentine-shaped walking stick.

RATHER: The serpentine shape of his walking stick and its apparent supernatural animation help suggest symbolically that the stranger Young Goodman Brown meets is diabolical, if not the devil himself.

(5.10c) Subordinate illustrations to analysis Subordinate all details, illustrations, and quotations to interpretation and analysis; don't just retell the story or episode; don't just cite some detail or event because it is necessary for what happens next in the plot or action; ask not "what happens next? what is this detail?" but rather "what is the meaning or significance of what happens next? what is the meaning or significance of this detail? what things about the world and human nature are revealed through this? how does this square with my own experience in life?". (5.10d) Don't overquote Don't overquote; rather, cite or summarize or paraphrase illustrative details, where possible.

MODEL EXAMPLE (about Sherwood Anderson's "I'm A Fool"):

The narrator's failure to gain self-knowledge through his recent unhappy experience is shown by how he is still rationalizing and indulging in self pity at the end of his story, blaming others or other things for his misfortunes or childishly hoping for physical violence (done to others or himself.)

(5.10e) Don't string quotes together Do not just string together a series of long or short quotations with a meager sentence or two of your own for paltry connecting links; if you do need a long quotation, balance it with an equally lengthy analysis and interpretation, which will validate the need for the lengthiness of the quotation. (5.10f) Embed quotation in your analytical sentence (and use proper punctuation of comma or colon); don't begin sentences in your essay with quotations from the literary work; don't leave a quotation detached by itself as a separate sentence Either embed a short quotation in an explanatory and analytical sentence of yours or introduce a longer quotation with a clause or sentence of yours that helps explain what is in the quotation, the general context from which it has been drawn in the literary work, and how it helps support or illustrate your particular observation or thesis. Study material on the colon in LBH5 or SMH for how this punctuation mark is to be used for such longer quotations. (5.10g) Use grammatical subordination to work in explanatory illustrative material With reference to items 3 and 4 in this section, try to work in details and necessary plot or character summary in subordinate structures of the sentence (appositives, long phrases, subordinate clauses, parenthetical interrupters: look these up in the material on grammar and sentences in your composition handbook), saving the rest of the sentence for interpretation, analysis, relating of the material to the main or assigned topic.

NOT: The narrator digresses several times in Sherwood Anderson's "I'm a Fool."

RATHER: The several digressions of the narrator in Sherwood Anderson's "I'm a Fool," signalled by his own words in the form "but that isn't what I wanted to talk about" (pars. 4, 15, 17, 24, 46), help convey his failure in life to clearly set a goal and work toward it, just as he continually gets off the track in telling his story.

Study carefully the material on participial phrases, adjective or adverb phrases (modifiers), appositives, and subordinate clauses in LBH5 or SMH. Look all these up in both the index and table of contents of the composition handbook. (5.10h) Refer in words in your sentence to the context and significance of an illustration or quotation, NOT to page, paragraph, scene, or line number Make incidents of plot, details, context in the literary work, approximate place in the literary work (toward the beginning, the middle, toward the end, etc.), and so on what you refer to in your own sentences, not page numbers, or line numbers in a poem, when you want to refer to a supporting illustration, example, or detail. Relegate paragraph numbers (for prose fiction), act-scene-and- speech numbers (for prose dramas), or line numbers (for poetry or poetic dramas) to parenthetical references, coming after the providing of explanation, plot detail, and context.

[NOT]: In paragraph 1, Paul shows his disturbed state of mind by his flamboyant, defiant clothing.

[RATHER]: In the very beginning of the story, when Paul appears for his disciplinary hearing at school (paragraph 1), Paul shows his disturbed state of mind by his flamboyant, defiant clothing.

(5.10i) Provide parenthetical reference to the literary work, but not with page number Do provide supporting numerical citations in parentheses; however, do not use page numbers. Rather, as explained in the immediately preceding section, V-H.7a, and shown in the sample essays in Roberts-Jacobs, use paragraph numbers for prose fiction, speech numbers (plus act and scene, if appropriate) for prose dramas, and line numbers for poems. Study the sample essays in Roberts-Jacobs for how these parenthetical references are handled.

EXAMPLE (about Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"):

NOT: In paragraph 26, the narrator says "What happened to 'Dee'?"

RATHER: Just after her daughter's arrival and surprising revelation she has taken a new name, the narrator asks "-----------------?"(par. 26), which helps show -------------------.

NOT: On page 83, the narrator's daughter shows chic insensitivity.

RATHER: When she first arrives at the farm, the narrator's daughter shows chic insensitivity when she reveals to her mother that she has changed her name from Dee to Wangero,
in accord with ------------ (pars. 24-32).

EXAMPLE (about Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"):

NOT: In lines 1-2, the Duke of Ferrara apprently refers to the lifelikeness of the painting of his wife.

RATHER: At the very beginning of the poem, the Duke of Ferrara apparently refers to the lifelikeness of the painting of his wife (1-2).

(5.10j) Use multiple illustrations in one sentence, avoiding comma splices or faulty parallelism Where possible, include multiple examples or illustrations from the work or the works in one sentence, two sentences, or a paragraph. One form that inclusion of multiple examples in a single sentence might take would be as follows: _________ is shown by __________ [doing] ___________ in ---'s "xxxx," ________ [doing] ________ in ---------'s "xxxx," ________ [doing] ________ in ---'s xxxx [a title requiring italics], and _______ [doing] _______ in ---'s "xxxx." Be careful to preserve correct parallelism (look this up in LBH5 or SMH), as well as not to create comma splices by a series of main clauses with only commas (look up the comma splice in LBH5 or SMH).

(5.10k) Further problems of referring to examples in literary works: the grammar and punctuation of quotations; when to use ellipses and when not to (V-H.9a) The quoted material must accord with the grammar (including pronoun reference) and punctuation of your sentence Sometimes students cause material embedded in their sentences to create grammatical or punctuation mistakes. For example, a student wrote the following (about J.F. Nims' poem "Love Poem"):

[NOT #1:]

While realizing his lover's lack of social graces, he accepts her, for "no cunning with any soft thing," she is good at handling people of all types (lines 5-8).

[EXPLANATION #1:] The problems with the foregoing sentence are that (a) a word or phrase necessary for grammatical completeness is missing between the word for and the quotation, and (b) a comma splice is created between the end of the quotation and the resumption of the writer's sentence. To correct these problems, material must be added after the word for, and the punctuation must be corrected between the end of the quotation and the resumption of the writer's sentence:

[RATHER #1; note the use of the virgule for quoting poetry:]

While realizing his lover's lack of social graces, he accepts her for having "no cunning with any soft thing/ Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people"(lines 4-5); that is, she is clumsy with objects but good at handling people of all types (lines 4-8).

[NOT #2 (about John Galsworthy's short story "The Japanese Quince":]

Mr. Nilson has servants, "Half an hour to breakfast"(par. 4).

[RATHER #2:]

Mr. Nilson has servants--a cook and a butler--as suggested when he thinks to himself "half an hour to breakfast"(par. 4), clearly depending on others to prepare and serve it to him.

[NOT #3 (about Galsworthy's "The Japanese Quince"):]

He is also experiencing some emotions that he cannot identify, instead linking them to his health, . . . feeling of emptiness just under his fifth rib (par. 1).

[RATHER #3; note the incorrect use of ellipses and absence of quotation marks in the foregoing NOT]:

He is also experiencing some emotions that he cannot identify, instead linking the sensations to his health in the "feeling of emptiness just under his fifth rib"(par. 1).

[NOT #4 (about John Updike's short story "A & P"):]

In the same way, Sammy had categorized customers who shopped in the store where he worked, by saying, "The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle"(par. 5).

[RATHER #4; note the need to stick to present tense in NOT #4:]

In the same way, Sammy categorizes customers shopping in the store where he works as "the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle"(par. 5).

[NOT #5 (about Updike's "A & P"; note the faulty pronoun reference of it in the present sentence:]

He even ridicules Queenie by wondering if "it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar"(par. 2).

[RATHER #5:]

He even ridicules Queenie by wondering, with reference to her (and girls' minds in general), if "it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar"(par. 2).

(5.10l) Pronouns or other elliptical references in the quotation should be explained in your lead-in, embedding sentence In the following NOT example (about Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess"), the person addressed, the situation, and the relevance of the quotation are left obscure in the lead-in or embedding sentence:

[NOT:] His superficial affability and apparent disregard of status are illustrated when the Duke says "Nay, we'll go/ Together down, sir"(lines 53-54).

[RATHER:] His superficial affability and apparent disregard of status are illustrated when the Duke says to the lower-ranking envoy of the Count, after the Duke's apparently rambling chat mostly about the picture of the last duchess, "Nay, we'll go/ Together down, sir"(lines 53-54).

(5.10m) Punctuation of quotations: your lead-in, embedding sentence (no punctuation, comma, or colon, depending on the sentence (5.10m1) No punctuation when you cut into a quotation and the quotation has a major grammatical function as part of your sentence Study the required English composition handbook as well as "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar" (in my Engl. 1101 materials on my Engl. 1101 webpage) on when not to use commas, to provide no punctuation, for quoted material in your own sentence. [EXAMPLE, of no punctuation, for Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use":] Dee's (or Wangero's) selfish rudeness is suggested by the verbal rifling (par. 55) that the narrator uses to describe how Dee goes through the trunk at the foot of the narrator's bed. [EXAMPLE, of no punctuation, that is no lead-in comma or off-setting commas for quoted material: see the quotation in the second paragraph of the Sample Essay in Roberts 131 on Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path," the second paragraph of the Sample Essay in Roberts 192 on Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers," the fourth paragraph of Roberts 1041 on O'Neill's Before Breakfast, and the fifth paragraph in Roberts 539 of the Sample Essay on Hardy's "The Man He Killed."] (5.10m2) When to use a lead-in comma for a quotation introduced by your sentence A comma should ordinarily be used when using the verb says or some similar verb of expressing or thinking in your own sentence, when referring to something a character (or speaker, in poetry) says or thinks in a literary work, if the quotation is short (only a sentence or two, or three lines or less in poetry, and run-on in the body of your essay because it is five lines or less when typed out). Study the required English composition handbook as well as "Dr. Prinsky's Snake-Oil Grammar" about handling commas relative to quotations and quotation marks. (5.10m3) Be careful to avoid creating a comma splice when introducing the quotation; if a comma splice would be created, use the colon instead (see the next subsection, 5.10m4)

NOT (about Marge Piercy's poem "Wellfleet Sabbath"): Here, the bay and a dove are being compared, "The breast of the bay is softly feathered/ dove grey"(lines 2-3).

[Since the essay writer's lead-in sentence is a main clause, and the quotation is a main clause, a comma between them, without a verb referring to the speaker's saying or thinking something, creates a comma splice. Look up the comma splice in your composition handbook.]

RATHER: Here, thebay and a dove are being compared: "The breast of the bay is softly feathered/ dove grey"(lines 2-3).

(5.10m4) When to use the lead-in colon for a quotation introduced by your sentence Use the colon for longer, offset quotations that should either be three or more sentences (from the literary text), five or more lines (when typed out), or three or more lines of poetry. Study LBH5 25.a (colon), SMH2 34.d (colon), SMH 32.d (colon), or WR2 pp. 161-62, 168-69. Also, peruse several of the sample essays in Roberts-Jacobs for examples of this use of the colon to introduce quotations.

(5.10m5) Punctuation of quotations: run-in quotation versus offset or block quotation On run-in (that is, continued within your own sentence, with no special spacing) or offset or block (that is, placed in its own special position, by spacing) quotation, study in the material on quotation in LBH 24.c, SMH2 33.a, SMH 31.a, WR2 pp. 166-67, 217-20. Basically, offset a prose quotation of five or more lines when typed or a poetry quotation of four or more lines. Otherwise, run the quotation in with your own sentence (remembering to use the virgule for poetry). Besides examples in your composition handbook, find examples of run-in or offset quotations in the sample essays in Roberts-Jacobs.

[EXAMPLE OF RUN-IN PROSE:] An example of Stephen Crane's effective contrast of a long sentence with a short one in his short story "The Blue Hotel" occurs in the description of the literal and figurative foreshadowing from a small lamp that surprisingly and eerily illuminates Scully, who suddenly appears while the Swede is unpacking his suitcase: "This yellow effulgence, streaming upward, coloured only his prominent features, and left his eyes, for instance, in mysterious shadow. He resembled a murderer"(par. 33).

[EXAMPLE OF RUN-IN POETRY; note the use of the virgule or slash mark:] Dickinson's peculiar, idiosyncratic, but significant capitalization is demonstrated in her poem "I Cannot Live with You" by what she does with her pronouns, as when the speaker says, "I could not die--with You--/ For One must wait/ To shut the Other's Gaze down--"(lines 13-15).

(5.10m6) Using the virgule or slash when quoting two or three lines of verse (in poetry, or poetic drama) run on in your own sentence See subsections 9b and 9d, preceding, as well as numerous examples in the sample essays on poetry in Roberts-Jacobs. Also, look up this issue in the index of the required English composition handbook. (5.10m7) Punctuation inside or outside quotation marks or parentheses of parenthetical documentation Look up in the table of contents and index in the required English composition handbook the issue of quotation marks with other marks or quotation marks with other punctuation. However, if parenthetical citation to paragraph (for prose fiction), speech (for drama), or line number (for poetry) is used, the punctuation comes outside the parentheses.

[EXAMPLE FOR PROSE FICTION, about Updike's "A & P":] Sammy's immature, insecure need to achieve status by belittling the customers is suggested by his disparaging terms for them as "sheep"(pars. 4, 20, 32), "houseslaves"(par. 5), "bums"(par. 12), and "scared pigs in a chute"(par. 30).

[EXAMPLE FOR POETRY, for Shakespeare's Sonnet 55, "Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments":] The speaker claims the immortalizing power of his poetry when he concludes, "You live in this"(line 14); the proof is that nearly four centuries later the beloved is revived every time the sonnet is read and discussed, though the "marble" and "gilded monuments/ Of princes"(lines 1-2) has in many instances fallen into disrepair or even disappeared.

Study many further examples in the sample essays in Roberts-Jacobs. (H- 9.g1) When to use ellipses and when not to Study LBH5 25.e, SMH2 34.f, SMH 32.f, or WR2 pp. 175-76, 218. Basically, ellipses (three or four spaced periods [. . .] [. . . .]) are now only used when material is omitted from within the quoted matter. If a quotation is cut into, either at the beginning or end, ellipses are not used. Study the numerous examples in section 9, above, of quotations cut into that do not require and should not have ellipses. Study, also, the numerous sample papers in Roberts-Jacobs. Examples of quotations with material omitted within them, thus requiring ellipses, are the following:

[EXAMPLE, about Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death":] The narrator explains that when the weird clock "sounded" midnight, "then the music ceased . . . and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted"(par. 8).

(5.10m9) A special problem when using ellipses (. . . ) with WordStar Note that a special problem occurs when writing about the written word when using WordStar. You will have occasion to use ellipses (three spaced periods . . . ) to indicate omission of material from the middle of a short quotation. Sometimes WordStar will "word wrap" one of the periods to the first column of your word-processed text; if this happens, WordStar treats the whole line as some gigantic "dot command" and won't print the line. It has happened to me several times in my own writing, and sometimes even in pamphlets like this! When this situation occurs, put your cursor under the period that is at column 1 (C01, as indicated at the top of your screen) and tap the space bar once to move the period to column 2 (C02). This solves the problem temporarily. A longer lasting, though cumbersome, solution, or preventative measure, is to precede each spaced period with the code for boldfacing, ^B, accomplished either by the command ^PB, or by a function-key sequence. It is important for the last period in a three-period ellipsis to be preceded by two ^B codes (that is, ^B^B); otherwise, the rest of your essay will print out in bold face. (In a rare four-period ellipsis, the four ^B codes will cancel each other out because of the two pairs.) The print control code prevents a period from ever truly residing in column 01 and thus being interpreted by WordStar as a dot command.

(5.10m10) When, rarely, to use square brackets, but NOT ordinary parentheses Once in a great while you may have to insert a word or phrase into a quotation for the sake of clarity. To indicate such an insertion and to differentiate your word or phrase from the quoted writer's, square brackets should be used, not ordinary parentheses. See LBH5 25.d (other marks: brackets), SMH2 34.b (other punctuation: brackets), SMH 32.b (other punctuation: brackets), or WR2 pp. 175, 219-20.

(5.10m11) Reference to titles of literary works Be sure to use the appropriate punctuation, underlining (or italics) OR quotation marks (NOT BOTH, TOGETHER), for the title of the literary work, depending on its genre. Study the material in your composition handbook on when to use italics and when to use quotation marks for titles. (Cf. section V- C.3, above.)

(5.10m12) Appropriate comma or appropriate absence of comma when referring to the title of a literary work See section V-C.4, above, about when not to use a comma when referring to the title of the literary work: the basic question is, is one item pointed out of a group? Did this author write more than just this one work? If he or she did compose more than the one work, you will probably be pointing out one work from a group of potential works, and consequently omit the comma: (a) In her poem "homage to my hips," Lucille Clifton's speaker --------------- [no comma between the word poem and the title, since Clifton wrote many poems, including two others in Roberts-Jacobs. (b) In the poem "homage to my hips," by Lucille Clifton, -------- [here commas bracket by Lucille Clifton, since the odds are very probable that there is only one poem with the title "homage to my hips," and only one such poem by Lucille Clifton, so the phrase by Lucille Clifton is nonrestrictive and consequently requires commas; look up restrictive and nonrestrictive relative to commas, in your composition handbook].

(5.11) Avoid in interpretive writing the vague phrase and concept "for emphasis" Do not just stop short in literary analysis by asserting that some literary component or element is used "for emphasis." The key question is "to emphasize or convey or express what, exactly?"

[NOT, about Mark Twain's short story "Luck":] The narrator's use of chiasmus or antimetabole when discussing the drilling of Arthur Scoresby, "so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him"(par. 8), helps create emphasis.

[RATHER:] The narrator's use of chiasmus or antimetabole when discussing the drilling of Arthur Scoresby, "so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him"(par. 8), helps express both the repetition and endless backwards and forewards

motion of the tutoring necessary for a blockhead.

[NOT, about Shakespeare's Sonnet 73: "That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold":] The spondee and piling up of stresses in "Bare ruined choirs"(line 4) helps create emphasis.

[RATHER:] The spondee and piling up of stresses in "Bare ruined choirs"(line 4) helps convey how this metaphor of loneliness and desertion is climactic in its quatrain and how these emotions have forcefully affected--had an impact on--the speaker because of his advancing age and prospect of losing his loved one.

(5.12) Using literary terminology; using your collegiate dictionary. (5.12a) Use the right literary term; avoid redundancy Be precise about your use of literary terminology when referring to the genre or components of a literary work. (Study the Glossary of Literary Terms in the literature anthology-textbook, especially prior to and just after writing any kind of analysis.) Do not call essays "stories"; do not call short stories "essays"; do not call dramas "poems." Do not lapse into the redundancy (look this up in the treatment of wordiness in LBH5 or SMH) of such expressions as "fiction novels" (by definition, a novel is fiction). Become accustomed to using the terminology for analysis you are shown in your textbooks and in class concerning short stories, poems, and plays. (5.12b) Don't parrot definitions of terms While you should use and apply the terminology as often as possible, accurately, do not reiterate definitions of terms. Your job is to apply them in analysis, not to repeat the definitions. Avoid any whole sentence (or part of a sentence) that simply states a definition of a literary term:

[About Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Eagle":]

NOT: According to the textbook, a simile is . . . .

NOT: Tennyson uses a simile, a figure of comparison using "like" or "as," to compare the bird's flight to a thunderbolt.

RATHER: In the simile describing the eagle's dive on his prey as "like a thunderbolt"(6), the bird's speed, destructive power, and majesty are suggested through . . . .

(5.13) Special problems to avoid when citing your collegiate dictionary (5.13a) Give specific credit Give brief phrasal credit to your dictionary when you need to cite definitions of words (but do not define ordinary words or senses that are common knowledge). Do not merely cite "Webster," since collegiate dictionaries differ in their coverage of words and in their definitions, while, moreover, four collegiate dictionaries (Random House Webster's College Dictionary, Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, and Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary) all have the name Webster in their title. (5.13b) Don't suggest the dictionary is analyzing a particular literary work Be wary, when citing your dictionary, to phrase your answer so as not to give the impression that this particular dictionary is analyzing a particular title, word, sentence, or passage in the literary work. (NOT: According to the American College Dictionary, the title of Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" refers to ---------------. RATHER: Relevant meanings of the word case, as found in the American College Dictionary, which apply in the title of Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case" are ---------------.) (5.13c) Subordinate and apply dictionary definitions; don't let them stand alone as separate sentences Don't use a sentence by itself such as "According to the American College Dictionary the word xxxxxxxx means "------------- ----." RATHER, subordinate the definition (and dictionary credit) in a subordinate part of the sentence applying the definition to analysis. Example: The meaning of the word case as "-------" (according to the American College Dictionary) applies to Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case" in ---------------------- [provide an explanatory application here]. (5.13d) Avoid quoting definitions of ordinary or common words when there is no special need See your English composition handbook on this point.

NOT (about Marge Piercy's poem "Wellfleet Sabbath"): The setting of the poem is first indicated in the title, Wellfleet being the name of a seaside town, and "sabbath," according to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Ninth Edition, being "the seventh day of the week observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening as a day of rest and worship by Jews and some Christians."

RATHER: The setting of the poem is immediately indicated in the title: Sabbath in the seaside town of Wellfleet.

(5.14) Example of taking notes on, organizing an essay, and composing the beginning of a literary analytical essay; part of a sample essay on Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Eagle" (look the poem up in the literature text-aanthology).

What follows is an application of preceding subsections of this general section on gathering data and observations for a literary analysis, organizing it, titling it, and formulating the topic or thesis sentence. Remember that while you read and write notes on the literary work line by line (for a poem), or sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph (for a short story), that your paper will have a different organization than the literary work. Literary works are organized by chronology and organic unity (the same or overlapping different themes are suggested or manifested repeatedly, from line to line or paragraph to paragraph), neither of which principles is appropriate for expository writing, the main kind of essay writing (along with argumentative) required in college and beyond (look up exposition and expository in your composition handbook). This latter kind of writing, in the essay, should be organized logically: main idea by main idea; main topic by main topic. So, while the literary work spins its topics out simultaneously, like multicolored skeins of yarn, all mixed up in one ball (this would be one visual equivalent of the "organic unity" of a literary work), an essay that tried to repeat this pattern would look and read all mixed up, like the multicolored ball of mixed up skeins of yarn. The job of the analyst is to disentangle the various colors, each color representing a main theme, and then to organize and discuss these themes (skeins of yarn) one theme (one strand of yarn) at a time, organizing them in some logical fashion.

In the following analysis, points are observed line by line; but quickly a few main themes emerge. Thus, the topic or thesis sentence will be formulated to cover the main themes, while the paper will be organized into paragraphs, one (or more) per main theme or one paragraph per related main themes. The same process can and should be applied to fiction and drama; for an example of a general analysis of a short story, see Ch. 10 of Roberts (look over the other chapters on fiction as well for their sample analytical essays, which should be worked into the format of Ch. 10); and for a sample general analysis of a poem, see Ch. 22 of Roberts (look over the other chapters on poetry as well for their sample analytical essays, which should be worked into the format of Ch. 22). At this point, find Tennyson's poem "The Eagle" in the literature text-anthology, and read the poem.

Notes

--the alliteration on the k sound in clasps (1), crag (1), crooked (1), and close (2) helps suggest, through its harshness, the power or strength of the bird, as well as its harsh environment

--the image in crag, as well as the word's denotation and connotation, suggests a harsh, sharp environment, which suggests the bird's power and strength in living there, as well as a lonely majesty

--the personification in "crooked hands"(1) helps make the bird more sympathetic by equating it to humanity, while also suggesting strength or power because of the kinesthetic muscular tension evoked in the reader (hands are difficult to hold in that position); the personification also suggests old age

--the hyperbole in line 2 (the sun is 93 million miles from earth, and the tallest mountains are only about 4 miles high, so "close to the sun" is an exaggeration) helps suggest the bird's (a) power (since the sun is one of the most powerful forces in nature; indeed the source of life on earth, since all plant and animal life are "solar powered" through the energy captured in photosynthesis) and (b) extreme elevation, which suggests the bird's majesty or dignity

--the denotation of the word "lonely"(2) again helps suggest the bird's power (the bird needs no help to survive) and majesty (it is all alone at the top)

--the hyperbole in "ringed with the azure world" (3) (the first time the curvature of the earth on the horizon was actually observed was from unmanned rockets which photographed it from space) suggests the bird's extreme elevation, along with the imagery of the deep blue of "azure," which suggest the bird's power (to get that high) and majesty (elevation of status, like actual physical elevation)

--the inverted word order (see the composition handbook on normal word order in a sentence vs. inverted word order) of line 3 (normal order would be "he stands, ringed with the azure world") emphasizes the verb, which is the most active, potent, and powerful of the parts of speech (and thus suggesting the bird's powerfulness); further, the verb "stands" connotes the erect bearing of a powerful and majestically proud creature

--the personification of "wrinkled sea" (4) suggests (a) the bird's elevation, since the waves appear from that height or altitutde to be mere wrinkles on a person's skin, and (b) old age; the old age of the sea now connects with "crooked hands" in the first line to suggest the theme of the venerable dignity and majesty of nature and its creatures (which according to either the Biblical or evolutionary accounts predated humanity)

--the personification of "crawls" (4) suggests (a) the bird's power, since one of the most powerful forces in nature, the ocean or sea, appears to crawl before the bird, and (b) the bird's elevation, since from the bird's height, the sea's motion appears to be a mere crawling

--the metaphor of "mountain walls" (5) (buildings have walls; mountains have inclines or declivities) suggests the bird's powerfulness through the imagery of hardness; it also connotes a fortress, which would suggest the bird's power (fortresses were for warriors and armies), as well as majesty (since the bird is watching from the walls, he's a kingly figure, the owner of the fortress)

--the simile of "like a thunderbolt" (6) suggests the bird's power, manifested in the extreme swiftness, powerfulness, destruction, and downward motion of a thunderbolt (this last, the common conception of lightning, which turns out to be not necessarily scientifically accurate); "thunderbolt" also might connote the king of the Greek gods, Zeus or Jupiter, who wielded the thunderbolt

--the inverted word order of line 6 emphasizes the verb, with the same effect as in line 3; many students have erred in misreading falls, which does not mean lose one's balance or collapse in weakness, but rather its older sense of "fall upon" (as in the King James Version translation of the Bible) or "attack"; basically, in the first stanza (a tercet, since it's three lines; and more specifically, a triplet, since all three lines have the same rhyming sound) the bird surveys his domain, including looking for food; while in the second triplet, having spotted his prey, like the powerful and elevated predator he is, he swoops down in an attack

--the use of triplets in the two stanzas, with the rhyming sounds a-a-a and b-b-b, suggests an undeviating pattern, that also relates to the bird's powerfulness, since the eagle, also, does not deviate in its lifestyle or attack

--the symmetry of the poem's pattern in two triplets, with each ending on a verb, and each portraying a main aspect of the bird's pattern of life, helps suggest the symmetry or beauty of nature (which might be connected with dignity or majesty, beauty being awesome--as worshipers of entertainment celebrities constantly attest)

In the foregoing notes, the main themes that have emerged are the bird's (and by extension, nature's) power and majesty, with majesty incorporating two subsidiary ideas or themes of venerable old age and beauty. Consequently, a formal outline of the essay (formal outlines for out-of-class essays; rough outlines for in-class essays) might look like the following:

I. The eagle's (and nature's) majesty

A. the eagle's literal elevation

B. the eagle's isolation

C. the eagle's and sea's (and nature's) venerability

D. nature's beauty

II. The eagle's (and nature's) power

Literary analysis essays often require citing the same detail, word, image, figure of speech, etc., more than once, in connection with different themes. Therefore, such repetition in the use of a detail is normal: the same word, like the same line in a poem, or sentence in a story, may have all intertwined, several themes or colored strands of yarn. (Again, this intertwining is why essays about a literary work have to be organized differently from the literary work's organization.)

The thesis sentence for an essay on this poem might look like the following:

Calderwood 1

James Calderwood

English 1102E

An Analysis of Tennyson's Poem "The Eagle"

Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Eagle" portrays the bird and nature as majestic and powerful, worthy of humanity's respect and reverence. <The rest of this paragraph would discuss the first main theme or idea-- here, majesty--perhaps continued in a subsequent paragraph or set of paragraphs.>

Calderwood 1

James Calderwood

English 1102E

The Themes of Tennyson's Poem "The Eagle"

In Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Eagle," the bird and nature are portrayed as majestic and powerful, worthy of humanity's respect and reverence. <The rest of this paragraph would discuss the first main theme or idea--here, majesty--perhaps continued in a subsequent paragraph or set of paragraphs.>

(5.15) Special problems in analyzing poetry (though most of these also apply to all analytical reading of any written material)

Further Introductory Material About Poetry, Beyond the Textbook

A. Overview of Reading Comprehension Problems

B. Scansion (Determining Rhythm and Meter)

A1a. An Overview of Problems in Reading Comprehension Generally and with Reference to Poetry

Problems in reading poetry, and indeed in all reading, are almost always traceable to one of three sources, with a small number of problems occasionally deriving from an error unique to poetry:

A1. The meanings of words and allusions (general reading problem)

A2. Problems in grammar (general reading problem)

A3. Elucidation of figurative language (general reading problem)

A1. Words and allusions: a lexical problem--that is, not knowing the meanings of some words, either because they are drawn from more highly literate reading, or because common words are being used in an usual or archaic sense. Consult a good collegiate dictionary, or an unabridged dictionary. For example, in Billy Collins' "Schoolsville" (Ch. 13, R&J), the meanings of alderman, haberdashery, Hawthorne (and The Scarlet Letter), lute, Yeats, and reprimanding must all be known. For allusions to people, places, history, literature, etc., as in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Yeats, there is a historical or literary reference that the reader is assumed to recognize: consult a collegiate dictionary first, then a general encyclopedia , or Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, or Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. Once a literary writer's nationality is discovered (as it usually can be by reference to a collegiate dictionary), reference books specialized for certain national literatures, such as the Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford Companion to American Literature, Oxford Companion to French Literature, and so on, can be consulted for material about an author or a synopsis of the author's important literary works. (If you don't have easy access to an encyclopedia on CD-Rom such as Encarta, Compton's Interactive, or Encyclopedia Britannica, or if you don't have easy access to a good multi-volume hardcover encyclopedia such as the Britannica, Funk and Wagnalls, or Groliers', this addition to every college-educated person's library is enabled through some hardcover inexpensive one-volume encyclopedias that are available on the sale tables at large local bookstores, and a one-volume paperback, The New American Desk Encyclopedia, from Signet Books, which is a best buy.)

An example of how a common word may be used for an unusual or archaic sense is the word small as it is used in "Western Wind," the first poem given in Ch. 14 of R&J: "Western Wind, when wilt thou blow,/ The small rain down can rain?" (lines 1-2). In twentieth century English, the expressions "light rain," "gentle rain," or "small amount of rain" would be used, rather than "small rain." So the question then becomes what small means in the phrase "small rain," in the opening lines of "Western Wind."

A2. Grammar

A2a. Structure of a clause or sentence: In the last line of stanza 8 of the ballad "Sir Patrick Spens" (Ch. 13, R&J), does the last line mean that the Scots Nobles swam above their hats (on the surface of the water, while the hats sank to the ocean bottom), or that the hats swam above the Scots Nobles (on the surface of the water, while the nobles sank to the ocean bottom)? This problem in reading comprehension can occur in any reading matter, including poetry, which sets up a clause as follows:

N₁ + N₂ (+ N₃, etc.) + V

When two more nouns or noun-substitutes (N) precede the verb (V), a problem may arise in determining which noun is the subject of the clause and which noun is the direct object (or predicate noun). Thus the problem in the line from "Sir Patrick Spens" is as follows:

Their hats they swam aboon

N₁ + N₂ + V

("hats" = N1; "they" = N2; "swam" = V)

It turns out, both in logic and with reference to the concluding three stanzas of the poem, that the meaning of the line is that the hats swam above the Scots nobles.

A2b. reference or antecedents of pronouns: In the preceding example from "Sir Patrick Spens" ("Their hats they swam aboon"), the pronoun they is troublesome, and pronoun reference can always derail reading, whether in poetry or any other kind of reading material. The problem is determining what word the pronoun refers to, or what, in grammar is termed "the antecedent" of the pronoun (review this matter in your composition handbook).

A2c. words elliptically omitted: Ellipsis and parallelism (which should be looked up in your composition handbook) appear in the problem of what pronoun goes in the blank of the following sentence: "My girlfriend is smarter than _____ (I, me)." Because than is a particular kind of conjunction, it must join two clauses: (a) girlfriend (subject), (b) is (linking verb), (c) smarter (predicate adjective); (d) than (conjunction), (a1) I (subject), [(b1) am (linking verb), (c1) smart (predicate adjective)]. This problem of elliptical grammatical constructions occurs in the first two lines of the poem "Western Wind" (first poem in Ch. 14 of RJ5): "Western wind, when wilt thou blow?/ The small rain down can rain?" (lines 1-2). These lines are likely to be troublesome to apprentice literary analysts because of word meaning ("small," as noted in section 1 of this pamphlet, above) and the grammatical and logical connection between the two lines. Since there is a grammatical and logical connection, we eventually infer or deduce that the conjunction indicating this logical connection is elliptically implied; that the speaker hopes for "small" (that is, gentle) rain as a result of a western wind blowing; and that the lines thus have the following grammatical structure: "Western wind, when wilt thou blow,/ [So] the small rain down can rain?"

The conjunction (relative pronoun) who is elliptically omitted, more than once, in "Sir Patrick Spens": "Up and spoke an eldern knight/ Sat at the king's right knee" (lines 5-6); "And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,/ Was walking on the sand"(lines 11-12). Like word meaning and allusion problems, as outlined in section 1, above, grammatical problems can lead to vaguely uneasy feelings of or actual incomprehension of reading material, including poetry.

A2d. Sing-Song oral or silent reading (special to poetry)

Finally, poetry does have one unique problem, differentiating it from other reading material. All readers should be careful not to slide (electric or otherwise) into reading a poem with such a sing-song emphasis that all they hear aloud or in their minds is "ta TA ta TA ta TA ta TA ta TA," which no one will be able to figure out the meaning of. Don't read Thomas Hardy's "The Man He Killed" (Ch. 13 of R&J) as follows:

Had HE and I but MET

By SOME old ANCIENT inn,

We SHOULD have SAT us DOWN to WET

Right MANY a NIPPERkin . . . (lines 1-4)

When a poem is read this way, soon the grammar and word meanings will be obscured by hearing in your mind not the prose sense of the lines but just the percussive dance beat of "ta TA ta TA ta TA," etc. The booming of the bass drum in a dance beat (sometimes all that can be heard from a distant stereo) is fine to dance to, but not very productive to try to analyze the meaning of.

Apprentice literary analysts should also not pause at the ends of lines with no marks of punctuation (technically, as explained in Ch. 19 of R&J, such lines are called "run-on" or "enjambed" lines). A student who pauses at the end of 1 or the end of line 3 of Hardy's "The Man He Killed" will be more likely to not understand the simple prose sentence and grammar of lines 1-4, which is "we would have sat down together to have drinks." In other words, the two fellows would "Wet" (drink) what? They would "wet" (drink) several glasses together.

A3a. Elucidation of figurative language: When figurative language is used, in any kind of reading material, including poetry, the reader may have to ascertain: (a) what the figure of speech means (e.g., what in the world do the first two lines of Randal Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" [Ch. 13 of R&J] mean?), or (b) the tenor (explained in chapter 17 of R&J), the literal meaning of a figure of speech (e.g., when the sailors tell Sir Patrick Spens, in stanza 7 of that poem "Late late yestere'en I saw the new moon/ With the old moon in her arm" [lines 25-26], what do they mean that they literally saw?). A figure of speech is divided into two parts (see Ch. 17 of R&J): tenor (literal part, what's being spoken about) and vehicle (comparison part, what the subject is being compared to).

When Randall Jarrell's speaker in "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" says "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State" (line 1), he uses figurative language in both "sleep" and "fell." We infer or deduce that the mother's sleep referred to, in the process of birth, would be the anesthetic in the operating room (possibly the sleepy, lulling existence both the mother and speaker had in the speaker's early childhood), while the speaker's falling into the State, suggests the helpless feeling of an infant in the first seconds of its life (possibly the helpless feeling of a youngster being drafted and taken away from the sleepy idyll of his earlier happy childhood with his mother and subjected to the new rigors of military life). The speaker's falling also initiates animal imagery (animals, like cows and horses, are said to drop their young), which with vertical imagery (up-down) and the imagery of sleep/dream/nightmare vs. wakefulness/reality, continues throughout the poem and interconnects many of its details and lines. An ultimate theme conveyed is that war and social systems geared to it dehumanize the young, moving from animal-herding to, finally, inanimate remains in death.

When the sailors complain to Sir Patrick Spens in "Sir Patrick Spens" that they don't want to sail because "Late late yestere'en I saw the new moon/ With the old moon in her arm" (lines 25-26), we eventually infer or deduce that the tenor of their figurative language is the crescent moon: the bright sliver (new moon) is wrapped up with the rest of the dark sphere (old moon) so closely, it's as if these are two friends or lovers with arms interlinked or in an embrace. So what the sailors saw last night was the crescent moon, one of the bad signs for taking a sea voyage at this time. Furthermore, the vehicle part of this figurative language--a pair of friends or lovers with arms interlinked or in an embrace--implies the idea of love, or of love and hate, which is a crucial concept that runs throughout the entire poem. How are love and hate manifested in virtually every stanza and every line of "Sir Patrick Spens"?

A3b. The three-step process in elucidating figurative language (see Ch. 17 of R&J): The elucidation of figurative language is a three-step process: (a) division of the figure of speech into the tenor* (what is being spoken about) and vehicle* (what it is compared to); (b) contemplation about how the vehicle in some way physically applies to or resembles the tenor; (c) further contemplation about the implications of the vehicle and the asserted resemblance of the vehicle to the tenor. (See chapter 17 in R&J on tenor and vehicle.) Figures of speech may have one of four forms, depending on whether the tenor (abbreviated T in the diagrams below) is explicit or implicit, and whether the vehicle (abbreviated V in diagrams below) is explicit or implicit:

First form: T = V - Both tenor and vehicle explicit

Example from Robert Burns' "A Red, Red Rose" (Ch. 17 of R&J):

" O my Luve's like a red, red, rose"

� � � �

tenor vehicle

Second form: T = (V) - Tenor explicit; vehicle implicit

Example from Robert Frost's poem "Bereft" (speaking about the effects of wind):

Out in the porch's sagging floor

Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,

Blindly struck at my knee and missed. (lines 8-10)

(The explicit tenor is leaves; the implicit vehicle is snake.)

Third form: (T) = V - Tenor implicit; vehicle explicit

Example from Keats' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer":

"Much <have I travell'd> in <the realms of gold>"

|| � �

vehicle vehicle

(The implicit tenors are have read and literary works.)

Fourth form: (T) = (V) Both tenor and vehicle implicit

Example from Emily Dickinson's "It Sifts from Leaden Sieves":

It sifts from leaden sieves,

It powders all the wood. (lines 1-2)

(The implicit tenor is snow; the implicit vehicle is flour.)

Summarizing the four divisions of figures of speech:

First form: T = V

Second form: T = (V)

Third form: (T) = V

Fourth form: (T) = (V)

Finally, figures of speech may be simple -- T = V; (T) = V; T = (V); (T) = (V) -- or compound (the tenor and vehicle have more than one part; each part may have explicit or implicit elements):

T₁ V₁

------ = -------- (compound figure; all elements explicit)

T₂V₂

( T₁ ) V₁

   _{-------------
=
-----------
(compound figure; two elements explicit; two elements implicit)}

T₂ ( V₂ )

An example of the more complicated compound figure of speech diagrammed to the right, with implicit elements on both the tenor and vehicle sides, occurs in the Romantic poem by Robert Burns "The Red, Red Rose" (Ch. 17 of R&J): "While the sands o' life shall run" (line 12).

(T_{1
)} V1 (= sands)

-------- = --------

T2 (= life ) V₂

Our job with this compound figure of speech with some implicit components is to ascertain what the numerator is on the tenor side, and what the denominator is on the vehicle side. We realize that the line is saying that something is to life as sands (i.e., grains of sand) are to something. We then ask what is to life, as sands are to what? (There is a resemblance here to analogies questions on tests like the SAT.)

B. A Three-Step Process for Poetry Scansion

1. Find any two-syllable (or above) words, and then determine from ordinary pronunciation, the stressed or unstressed syllables. If you are unsure, check the pronunciation guide in a collegiate (or unabridged) dictionary, which will indicate stressed and unstressed syllables.

2. Next, find any function-word (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, infinitive markers) and content-word (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives) combinations. Almost always in these combinations, function words are unstressed (because they carry no real content) while content words are stressed.

3. Finally, for the remaining un-scanned syllables, determine the relative stress of syllables. That is, for the as-yet unscanned syllable, determine whether it receives less stress (which would be scanned as unstressed) than the immediately-preceding or immediately-following syllable, or more stress (which would be scanned as stressed) than the immediately-preceding or immediately-following syllable.

4. Lastly, ask how rhythmical or metrical effects help depict any of the poem's subjects or convey any of the poem's meanings.