An Introduction to Literature

 (15 customer reviews)

I bought this book for my college Literature class, overpaid as usual too. After a semester of use, the cover is falling apart, the pages are thin and rip easily and all of the paper is of a material that is hard to clean pencil marks from.However, it is a great book. It contains a wealth of poems, stories and advice between the poorly-made pages. And, since the pages are thin, it wasn't as heavy to lug around campus. Very good content though, as I said. The stories are multi-national, there is abstract and realistic, old-fashioned and very modern, some ancient and even the lyrics to 1960's folk songs! One of my favorite lines in the book is "Margaret are you weeping over golden grove unleafing?" I also like the old sailors poem Western Wind "Western wind when wilt though blow? The small rain down can rain. Christ that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again."Perhaps it helps that my literature professor is top notch and a noted author as well (Kent...Read more

Okay, it's an anthology but they feature writers, poets, dramatists, and works in their complete pieces. They have a great introduction and explanation of all things literate. The writers included have been awarded Nobel Prizes in Literature, the American National Medal of the Arts, some are well-known and some are not.
The authors, playwrights, poets, writers include;

Chinua Achebe, Sherman Alexie, Gustavo Alfaro, Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldua, Matthew Arnold, Margaret Atwood (awarded the Officer of the Order of Canada and Companion of the Order of Canada), W.H. Auden;

Jimmy Santiago Baca, Toni Cade Bambara, Charles L'Albatros Baudelaire, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Bishop, William Blake, Gwendolyn Brooks (awarded National Medal of the Arts), Robert Browning, Joseph Bruchac, Robert Burns;

Raymond Carver, Willa Cather, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Diana Chang, Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin, Sandra Cisneros, Lucille Clifton, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Samuel Taylor...Read more

There's not really much to say other than it's a pretty good book to use for an English class. A lot of great short stories and poems by brilliant authors including Hemingway, Hughes, Ellison, Frost, etc.