Unit One Fiction 1
1.1 understanding Fiction 2
1.2 Plot 7
David Herbert Lawrence and “Tickets，Please” 10
1.3 Character 23
Sherwood Anderson and “The Egg” 26
1.4 Point of View and Tone 38
Margaret Atwood and “Rape Fantasies” 40
1.5 Theme 51
James Joyce and “The Dead” 54
1.6 Style 92
Ernest Hemingway and “In Another Country” 94
1.7 Selected Commentaries 102
Mark Savin：“Coming Full Circle：Sherwood Anderson’s‘The Egg’” 102
L.J.Morrissery：“Inner and Outer Perceptions in Joyce’s ‘The Dead’” 106
1.8 Further Reading 114
Luigi Pirandello and “War” 114
Student Paper：“Defining ‘War’” 117
Unit Two Poetry 119
2.1 Understanding Poetry 120
2.2 Voice：Speaker and Tone 125
Robert Browning and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” 127
2.3 Diction 136
William Blake and “London” 138
2.4 Imagery 144
William Shakespeare and Sonnet 130 146
2.5 Figures of Speech 153
Emily Dickinson and “I like to see it lap the Miles” 156
2.6 Sound and Rhythm 162
E.E.Cummings and “anyone lived in a pretty how town” 165
2.7 Selected Commentaries 171
Heather Glen： “The Stance of Observation in William Blake’s‘London’” 171
William Freedman：“Dickinson’s‘I like to see it lap the Miles’” 174
2.8 Further Reading 176
Robert Frost and “Design” 176
Student Paper：“An Unfolding of Robert Frost’s ‘Design’” 177
Unit Three Drama 181
3.1 Understanding Drama 182
3.2 Shakespearean Comedy 188
William Shakespeare andA Midsummer Night’s Dream 190
3.3 The Problem Play 210
George Bernard Shaw and Widowers’ Houses 212
3.4 The Feminist Theater 232
Susan Glaspell and Trifles 234
3.5 The Theater of the Absurd 249
Samuel Beckett and “Krapp’s Last Tape” 252
3.6 Selected Commentaries 263
Kate Kellaway：“Shaw-ly Some Mistake” 263
Robert Brustein：“Krapp’s Last Tape” 265
3.7 Further Reading 267
Sophocles and Antigon？ 267
Student Paper：“Antigon？：A Struggle between Human and Divine Powers” 300
Unit Four Literary Criticism 303
4.1 understanding Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism 304
4.2 Marxist Criticism 311
Raymond Williams and “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” 314
4.3 Psychoanalytical Criticism 317
Sigmund Freud and “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming” 320
4.4 Feminist Criticism 323
Sandra M.Gilbert，Susan Gubar and “The Madwoman in the Attic：The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination” 327
4.5 Postcolonial Criticism 330
Edward Said and “‘Introduction’ to Orientalism” 333
4.6 Selected Commentaries 336
Maggie Humm：“Feminist Futures” 336
Leela Gandhi：“The Limits of Postcolonial Theory” 338
4.7 Further Reading 341
Margaret Atwood and “Spelling” 341
Student Paper：“A Feminist Critique of Margaret Atwood’s ‘Spell-ing’” 343
Appendixes 345
1. Glossary of Literary Terms 345
2. Literary Background Information 350
3. Sample Papers 369
4. Websites for Further Studies 375
References 376