This book gives students an answer to the question, “What does my professor want from this essay?” In lively, direct language, it explains the process of creating “a clearly-written argument, based on evidence, about the meaning, power, or structure of a literary work.” Using a single poem by William Carlos Williams as the basis for the process of writing a paper about a piece of literature, it walks students through the processes of reading, brainstorming, researching secondary sources, gathering evidence, and composing and editing the paper. Writing Essays About Literature is designed to strengthen argumentation skills and deepen understanding of the relationships between the reader, the author, the text, and critical interpretations. Its lessons about clarity, precision, and the importance of providing evidence will have wide relevance for student writers.

Widely used in introductory literature courses as a style guide or as a supplement to anthologies, this book provides valuable guidelines for interpreting literature and writing essays. It includes full-length selections as well as essays.

This outstanding practical guide to writing analytical essays on literature develops interpretive skills through focused exercises and modeled examples. The program is tailored to meet the specific needs of beginning undergraduates. Features unique, detailed guidance on paragraph structure Includes sample essays throughout to model each stage of the essay-writing process Focused exercises develop the techniques outlined in each chapter Dedicated checklists enable quick, accurate assessment by teachers and students Enhanced glossary with advice on usage added to core definitions

"Designed to clearly explain to college and university students how to write essays that analyze and respond to literature. A hands-on approach to writing literary responses, designed to guide students as they develop the more critical, sophisticated style demanded in post-secondary."--

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Essays on politics and literature from one of world literature's most respected voices. 'The bravest and most clear-headed interpreter of the Israeli-Palestinian divide' Observer 'The most honest, soul-searching book yet written by an Israeli - or, for that matter, by a Palestinian - on an agony that neither of them alone can bring to an end' L.A. Times Throughout his career, David Grossman has been a voice for peace and reconciliation between Israel and its Arab citizens and neighbours. In five new essays on politics and literature in Israel today, he addresses the conscience of a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals. This collection includes an already-famous speech that Grossman delivered in the presence of Ehud Olmert, attacking Olmert's policies and his prosecution of Israel's disastrous Lebanon war in 2006, the war that took the life of Grossman's 20-year-old son Uri. Moving, humane, clear-sighted, and courageous, these essays on literature and the Holocaust, and artistic creation as well as politics and philosophy are a cri de coeur from a calm voice of reason at a time of uncertainty and despair.

For a long time now, readers and scholars have strained against the limits of traditional literary criticism, whose precepts--above all, "objectivity"--seem to have so little to do with the highly personal and deeply felt experience of literature. The Intimate Critique marks a movement away from this tradition. With their rich spectrum of personal and passionate voices, these essays challenge and ultimately breach the boundaries between criticism and narrative, experience and expression, literature and life. Grounded in feminism and connected to the race, class, and gender paradigms in cultural studies, the twenty-six contributors to this volume--including Jane Tompkins, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Shirley Nelson Garner, and Shirley Goek-Lin Lim--respond in new, refreshing ways to literary subjects ranging from Homer to Freud, Middlemarch to The Woman Warrior, Shiva Naipaul to Frederick Douglass. Revealing the beliefs and formative life experiences that inform their essays, these writers characteristically recount the process by which their opinions took shape--a process as conducive to self-discovery as it is to critical insight. The result--which has been referred to as "personal writing," "experimental critical writing," or "intellectual autobiography"--maps a dramatic change in the direction of literary criticism. Contributors. Julia Balen, Dana Beckelman, Ellen Brown, Sandra M. Brown, Rosanne Kanhai-Brunton, Suzanne Bunkers, Peter Carlton, Brenda Daly, Victoria Ekanger, Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, Shirley Nelson Garner, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Melody Graulich, Gail Griffin, Dolan Hubbard, Kendall, Susan Koppelman, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Linda Robertson, Carol Taylor, Jane Tompkins, Cheryl Torsney, Trace Yamamoto, Frances Murphy Zauhar