Writing Essays About Literature

A Brief Guide for University and College Students

Katherine O. Acheson

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781460402184
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Escritura creativa

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.

Section Two
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

CHAPTER TWO
Research Within the Text

IF THE DISCIPLINE OF LITERARY STUDIES IS EVIDENCE BASED, WHERE DO we find the evidence? How do we know it when we see it? How do we keep track of it? This chapter will outline how to collect evidence from the first and most important source you have for your essay: the work you are writing about. (You could be writing an essay about more than one work, but, for this chapter, we’ll just say “work.”) All literary criticism, however far afield it ranges, starts and finishes with the literary text about which it is concerned.

For the purposes of this and the next three chapters, I’m pretending I’ve been assigned a four- to six-page essay (1200–1800 words) on a poem of my choice from the works I’ve studied in my pretend literature course. I’ve chosen a short poem by William Carlos Williams. It’s quite commonly anthologized, and you might have read it before. But reading it again won’t take long. (One of the things to get used to in literary studies is not just reading but rereading. We always reread, and short works such as this can be reread many times.)

This Is Just To Say
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which 5
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious 10
so sweet
and so cold.

(By William Carlos Williams from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939, copyright (c)1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.)

TAKING NOTES ABOUT LITERATURE

In this chapter, we will discuss how to guide your reading of works of literature so as to help you produce evidence on which to base an essay. I recommend that you make careful notes about your responses and make a record of the parts of the text that inspired your response. I know that this will take time, but, I promise you, it will be time well spent. Date your notes, give headings such as the questions we will use below, and copy out quotations from the text (making sure to note the pages and line numbers accurately). This material—the combination of your responses and the basis for them—will be the foundation of your essay.

It takes time to write essays. If you don’t keep track of the evidence you collect now, you’ll have to go back and find it later. There are few things more frustrating than searching for a line or a sentence you know you’ve read but can’t remember where. It’s like looking for your keys or your glasses; you know they’re in the house or your room, you know you saw them somewhere, but, for the life of you, you can’t remember where. Taking the time to keep good notes from your reading will save you time later. Actually, writing things down helps fix them in your mind and makes your subsequent consideration of the evidence more fruitful. So take notes, either by hand or using your computer, and keep them handy. Careful attention, close reading, and detailed notes will pay off when it comes time to write your essay.

You can take notes however you like. It helps to have them in a form that lets you easily find something and that you can easily rearrange. I tend to keep my notes in files on the computer. When I take notes, I make sure that the heading of the file includes all the bibliographic information I’ll need if I use the notes in an essay. I am careful to take down as much of the quotation as could possibly be useful, knowing that I am not certain, as yet, how I will use it or how much of it will be useful. And I make sure to include the page or line number in parentheses after every quotation, even if there are a few in sequence from the same page. That way, if I cut or copy notes to somewhere else, I will retain the information that I need to document them. Finally, and I think most importantly, I label notes with key words that will help me locate them and organize them again.

RECORDING YOUR RESPONSES TO THE TEXT

Do I Like the Work?

Your first impressions of a work of literature are valuable starting points for your analysis of the work. Let’s begin with a simple question: “Do you like it?” You probably do like “This Is Just To Say”; it’s so short and sweet, delicious even. It’s easier to write an essay about a work that you like, not just because the work will be more pleasant but also because the critical task is immediately clear: you can analyse why you like it. That analysis could well create the basis for your essay. If you don’t like the work… well, you can try to read it again, knowing that lots of people have liked it for quite a while. If that fails, you can figure out what you don’t like about it. Whatever your level of affection for the work, this first feeling can really help you get started on collecting evidence. So make a quick note about your very first feelings about the work, and label it with the date or a title such as “first impressions” to remind you that these could be your opening thoughts towards an essay, a presentation, or an exam or test question.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions can help you organize your response to a work of literature. Keeping track of these responses will give you valuable evidence to use in your essay.

• Do I like the work?

• What words stand out?

• What feelings does it give me?

• Do I identify with any of the people represented?

• Is there anything about how it’s written that stands out?

• What is the work about?

• What else is the work about?

What Words Stand Out?

Our next question is about the vocabulary of the poem. Literature is built with words. When you read literature, you should be conscious of the fact that the author chose each word carefully, just as a painter chooses a colour. For most of the works you will study, you can assume that the author has chosen words successfully: each word, and no other, best conveys his or her meaning exactly; works best with the other words in the text; and has associations or connections to other words that add to the meaning, power, or construction of the work.

When Hamlet asks whether it is “nobler” to suffer through life’s pains and troubles than to commit suicide, he means “nobler,” not better or higher or braver or smarter. If you look up “noble” in a dictionary, you’ll see why Shakespeare chose that word and what the consequences are to the sense of the passage and to our understanding of Hamlet’s character. “Noble” suggests he is talking not just about what’s best for a human to do but what’s most fitting to his station as a prince, what’s most praiseworthy in the eyes of secular and spiritual powers higher than he is. These meanings remind us that he is a very elevated person with special responsibilities in his society and that he answers to authorities that are both earthly and heavenly. The other words that might fit in the line don’t convey those additional meanings.

At this point in your reading, you just want to make note of the words that strike you as especially important to the work you are studying. You don’t need to think too much right now about why you select the words that you do—that’s for a later phase of our work. In fact, you want to make note of words whether you think there’s any reason for taking note of them or not—trust your instincts. Think of yourself as a detective or scientist: you need to open your mind, suspend your preconceptions, and collect anything and everything that’s of interest. If you decide before hand what you’re looking for, you are guaranteed to miss some important pieces of evidence.

In “This Is Just To Say,” you might have noticed “plums,” “delicious,” “sweet,” and “cold.” What a great set of words; if they were foods (and they aren’t, even “plums”—they are words), we’d say they have terrific flavour, powerful scent, and fantastic mouth-feel (a great phrase that chefs use to describe the combination of texture and flavour that can make the experience of eating all the more enjoyable). You might also have noticed the word “icebox,” which may be unfamiliar to you and gives a sense of when the poem was written and its setting. Another key word is “forgive,” which is suggestive of the emotional tenor of the poem and the nature of its communication. Flag these words in the text and any others that you think are interesting. For example, “I” and “you” are very common words and unlikely to reward a dictionary search, but they are key words in this poem because they contribute distinctively to the way the poem works. They emphasize that the poem is an act of communication between two people, so they are key to how the poem works and what it is about. List the words and their line numbers in your notes.

USE A DICTIONARY

Words are the building blocks of literature. Use an online or paperback dictionary to look up words that you haven’t heard before or can’t define for yourself. In the next chapter, we’ll talk about how to use larger dictionaries as research resources.

What Feelings Does It Give Me?

The next question we are going to ask ourselves is what kind of feelings the work invokes in us. For me, there are four kinds of feelings that I have in response to “This Is Just To Say.” One is sensual pleasure because of how evocative the poem is about eating plums, especially ones that come right out of the fridge. The poem vividly reminds me of that experience, which I have also had: the blueness or redness of the plums (though in my mind they are blue), the slight dusting of silver on their surface, the resistance of the skin as I bite through the plum, the too-cold feeling of its flesh, the sweetness of the juice, the hardness of the pit, and my manipulation of the fruit as I eat around it. The memory is sensual, in that it involves my senses, and pleasant; it may stimulate my appetite and have me moving toward the fridge. It’s that strong!

The second is the feeling that is conveyed by the speaker’s apology and his or her request for forgiveness: it’s an awareness of the potential for moral or psychological reflection. The exact nature of this feeling will depend on the reader. Whatever your reaction, because the feelings associated with transgression and remorse are associated so closely with the rich sensual experience of eating the plums, both are intensified. Myself, I feel more naughty than bad, and I’m confident that forgiveness will be forthcoming for the speaker, so I don’t feel much remorse or grief—a little, but not a lot. But that’s me—you may have a more fully developed conscience!

Third, I have a feeling of witnessing an act of intimate communication between two people who love each other: I feel a little as if I am eavesdropping. This sensation is quite like the feeling that eating the plum is naughty; both feelings result from doing something that is irresistible yet perhaps wrong, something for which I feel remorse but not quite enough to stop me doing it again. The words that make me feel like an eavesdropper include “icebox” and “breakfast”; it’s as if I’m looking into someone’s kitchen at a time of day when guests are unusual or usually unwelcome. You may have different feelings—perhaps you feel part of the relationship, as if the note is written to you, because that accords with your experience and memories the best.

The fourth feeling is one that I often have when I read poetry. I don’t know if you’ll have this feeling. It might be the result of my training, experience, and profession. I’d be interested to know what feelings you have that are related to your own history! What I often feel when I read great works of literature—especially a poem such as this one, which is so short yet so moving and interesting—is awe and wonder: I’m amazed that anyone can take words and craft them into such a vivid, affective, beautiful, provocative expression. It’s like making stained glass out of sand, growing a tree from a seed, or building a sonata from the keys of a piano: it’s an amazing permutation of everyday things into something unique, beautiful, and powerful. This feeling isn’t based on a set of words I can extract from the poem but rather on the whole, on how it has made me feel the other feelings I have had and on my vision of the imaginary world of the poem and of the people who inhabit it—all this accomplished in the space of 28 words!

In my notes, I’ll write down a few sentences or phrases about each of these, and I’ll try to attach the feelings to parts of the poem. My notes might say “sensual experience” and quote the lines that have given me that feeling; “remorse?” and the words that relate to that feeling; “intimate communication” and the evidence for that from the poem; and “beautiful” and a summary of my reasons for feeling that way. As you can see, the notes you take will help you reflect on why you have the feelings you do, and they will provide you with support for your analysis of those feelings. Those notes, that is, are the bridge between your reading and your essay, so I’ll repeat: take the time to make them.

LITERATURE AND FEELINGS

Your feelings are personal, and you don’t have to share them. But thinking about the feelings that literature provokes can lead to insights about the literature. Feelings can lead to thoughts, and thoughts are what essays are about.

Do I Identify With Any
of the People Represented?

How many people are represented in this poem? Let’s start with two: the speaker and the person to whom he or she is speaking. These are conventions of poetry; a poem is considered to have a “speaker” and that speaker is speaking to someone, if only to him or herself. The speaker in this poem is the one who has eaten the plums, enjoyed them, and is, in the present of the poem, asking for forgiveness from the other person. Do you identify with the speaker? The second person in the poem is the person to whom the speaker’s words are addressed. This person is the spouse or housemate of the speaker. Can you imagine yourself in his or her position? It’s an interesting exercise: Do you feel that person is long-suffering or part of the fun? Do you think she or he really cares about the plums? Is he or she touched by the note, amused by it, or annoyed by the actions it describes?

Your identification with one or the other person in this poem depends partly on who you are and partly on how the writer has created each person. Examining the poem for the reasons that you identify with one or the other of the poem’s characters will show you more about how the poem works. One of the great mysteries studied by literary scholars is how authors create believable characters out of words, people who appear to have thoughts, feelings, interactions, ideas, impulses, and conflicts—just like real people. Yet, more so than real people, they encourage us to learn about ourselves, our lives, and human beings and their worlds.

There are more people implied by the poem than just the characters it represents. There is for example, the person we imagine to have written the poem. The speaker is a spontaneous, loving, mischievous, or even naughty person who, when scribbling the note that begins “This Is Just To Say,” probably had plum juice dribbling down his or her chin. William Carlos Williams, I am quite certain, was not dribbling plum juice when he wrote this poem; he produced the poem after some reflection, and he may have edited it later for publication, even if he experience...