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Creating Literary Analysis

Table of Contents

• About the Authors

• Acknowledgments

• Dedications

• Preface

• Chapter 1: Introduction: What Is Literary Theory and Why Should I Care?

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • What Is Literary Theory?
  • Why Study Literary Theory?
  • What Is the Writing Process?
  • Why Commit to the Writing Process?
  • What Is Academic Argument?
  • Introducing an Academic Argument
  • Student Writer at Work: Monica Platten’s “‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’: An Allegory for a Young America”
  • Understanding the Body of Monica’s Argument
  • Conclusion to the Introduction
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment

• Chapter 2: Writing about Form: Developing the Foundations of Close Reading

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Through the Looking-Glass
  • The Foundations of New Criticism: An Overview
  • Close Reading Strategies: A Process Approach
  • Student Writer at Work: Kelly Ann Wolslegel’s Close Reading of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love Is Not All”
  • Student Sample Papers: Todd Goodwin’s “Poe’s ‘Usher’: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity” and Amy Chisnell’s “Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’”
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 3: Writing about Character and Motivation: Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
  • Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: An Overview
  • Focus on Sigmund Freud (1856–1939): Unconscious Repressed Desire
  • Focus on Jacques Lacan (1901–81): Repressed Desire and the Limits of Language
  • Focus on Carl Jung (1875–1961): The Archetypal Collective Unconsciousness
  • Reading Keats’s “Urn” through the Psychoanalytic Lens
  • Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: A Process Approach
  • Student Writers at Work: Jenn Nemec’s Jungian Psychoanalytic Reading of “The Birthmark,” Susan Moore’s Freudian Reading of “The Birthmark,” and Sarah David’s Lacanian Reading of “The Birthmark”
  • Student Sample Paper: Susan Moore’s “The Desire for Perfection in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’”
  • Student Sample Paper: Sarah David’s “A Lacanian Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’”
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 4: Writing about Gender and Sexuality: Applying Feminist and Gender Criticism

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Feminist Theory: An Overview
  • Gender Criticism and Queer Theory
  • Gender Criticism: Masculinity Studies
  • Feminist and Gender Criticism: A Process Approach
  • Student Writer at Work: Gretchen Panzer’s Feminist Response to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
  • Student Sample Paper: Carrie Obry’s “Homoerotic Impulses in Willa Cather’s ‘Paul’s Case’”
  • Student Sample Paper: Duncan Raunio’s “The Tragedy of Performing Gender in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening”
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 5: Writing about Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Postcolonial, Racial, and Ethnic Theory: An Overview
  • Writing about Race, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity: A Process Approach
  • Student Writer at Work: Ashley Eckhardt’s Postcolonial Paper in Action
  • Student Writer at Work: Stefanie Jochman’s African American Studies Paper in Action
  • Student Writer at Work: Hannah Schmitt’s Ethnic Studies Paper in Action
  • Student Sample Student Paper: Alyce Hockers’s “The Slavery Metaphor of Moby-Dick”
  • Strategies for Starting Your Cultural Identity Paper
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 6: Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Reader-Response Theory: An Overview
  • Focus on Reader-Response Strategies
  • Reader Response: A Process Approach
  • Student Writer at Work: Amy Ferdinandt’s Reader Response to James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
  • Student Sample Paper: Hannah Schmitt’s “The Death of Intellectualism in Grahame-Smith and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”
  • Student Sample Paper: Erin Huebner Gloege’s “Identity Themes in Dickinson: Four Students Reading”
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 7: Writing about History and Culture from a New Historical Perspective

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • New Historical Criticism: An Overview
  • Finding a Historical Topic: Paige Caulum’s Melville’s “Benito Cereno”
  • Finding Historical Evidence: Melville’s “Benito Cereno”
  • Testing and Refining Your Historical Claim
  • Student Sample Paper: Paige Caulum’s “Herman Melville’s ‘Benito Cereno’: A Political Commentary on Manifest Destiny”
  • Writing about History and Culture: A Process Approach
  • Student Sample Paper: Stefanie Jochman’s “’Words of Lead’: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Grief of the Civil War”
  • Strategies for Starting Your New Historical Paper
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 8: Writing about the Natural World

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Through the Looking-Glass
  • Ecocriticism: An Overview
  • Focus on Ecocritical Approaches: Ecofeminism and Darwinian Literary Criticism
  • Writing about the Natural World: A Process Approach
  • Student Writer at Work: Jens Paasen’s Ecocritical Paper in Development
  • Student Sample Paper: Jens Paasen’s “If You Want to Belong, You Have to Buy: Disney’s Pocahontas and Consumerism in a Natural Disguise”
  • Student Sample Paper: Allison Shakelton’s “Separation from Nature in ’The Light Princess’”
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 9: Reading and Writing in the Digital Age

  • Chapter Introduction
  • Literary Snapshot: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Digital Literary Studies: An Overview
  • Writing for the Web: A Process Approach
  • Creating a Thematic Research Collection
  • Creating a Digital Timeline
  • Mapping a Text
  • Student Sample Paper: Maria Slusarek’s “’Mapping Melville’ Reflection”
  • Student Sample Digital Project: Maria Dzurik’s St. Augustine’s Confessions
  • End-of-Chapter Assessment
  • Suggestions for Further Reading

• Chapter 10: Appendix A: Peer Review Sheets

  • Chapter 2: Close Reading
  • Chapter 3: Psychoanalysis
  • Chapter 4: Feminist and Gender
  • Chapter 5: Race and Ethnicity
  • Chapter 6: Reader Response
  • Chapter 7: New Historical
  • Chapter 8: Ecocritical
  • Chapter 9: Digital Project