How to Write About Literature

1. The author(s) and the title(s) of the literary work(s) should be identified in full in the essay’s introduction. Spell the names correctly! Readers are not going to trust

what you have to say about a particular work when you cannot provide the most obvious information correctly. (This also applies to the names of characters and places

within the work itself.)

2. After using the author’s full name once, refer to the author by his or her last name alone. Never use an author’s first name alone. If you find two works by different

authors with the same last name, however, you must use their full names throughout your essay to avoid confusing the readers.

3. First person references (I, me, my, mine) do not appear in essays in this course unless you are quoting from the text or from another source. The same applies to

"you" or "we" references, as well. Repeated references to yourself shift the focus away from the literature and back on little old you. As for using "you" or "we," do not

assume the readers want to be part of your thought process – the readers may not share your opinions at all, and will likely resent it if you act as if they do. I’ll be happy to

explain some quick ways to avoid using these references in your essay, so if you need assistance, please ask. (If an essay or assignment allows first-person

references, I will tell you.)

4. Always write about works of literature in the present tense. Regardless of when a book, poem, or play was written, it exists right now. A reader who picks up a copy

of Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Atwood’s “The Siren’s Song” ten years from now is going to find the same words in the same order as you and I see them today, and also

as readers saw them fifteen (or 250) years ago. Therefore, you should write “Hamlet’s inability to kill Claudius causes the much bloodier climax at the end of the play” --

not “caused.” Here is another example: “Offred’s refusal to provide her real name is an attempt to protect the ones she loves” -- not “was an attempt to protect the ones

she loved.”

5. The same applies when discussing things a writer does within a given work.  “Shakespeare uses Hamlet’s soliloquies” or “Atwood forces the reader” are the correct

forms.  Note: When discussing past events in the author’s life, however, the past tense should apply.

 6. Novel and play titles are either italicized or underlined, as in The Sun Also Rises, Macbeth, or A Prayer for Owen Meany. You can choose to italicize OR underline,

but do not switch back and forth within the same essay. Short stories, poems (except for epic or book-length poems), essays, newspaper or magazine articles are put in

quotation marks, such as “Lust,” “Porphyria’s Lover,” and “Understanding the Difference.” (The name of the publication in which they appear, however, will be underlined

or italicized.)

7. Long plot summaries of a literary work are both unnecessary and dangerous. Your reader (namely, me) already knows the plot of most of the literary work(s) being

discussed. Your essays should reflect your careful, thoughtful consideration of the text itself -- we call this critical thinking. A summary does not reveal critical thinking or

critical reading skills and only raises questions about how carefully you read the work or how seriously you thought about it. Every essay should contain a small amount

of summary (explanations of what happens or when something happens in a work) and a large amount of analysis (your insights into why things happen, what they

mean, and how the author enables us to recognize larger patterns or reasons behind these events).

8. Even though your readers are familiar with the work(s), you must provide direct information from the text in order to establish, clarify, or support your claims. This direct

information is most frequently in the form of quotations from the work itself. Quotations need not be long -- often one sentence, or even a few words, convey the idea with

perfect clarity. Occasionally a longer quotation is necessary, but keep in mind that every quotation in your essay must be accompanied by a clear explanation of why this

quotation is necessary to make your point.

9. All essays in this course require titles that reflect the purpose of your writing. An essay’s title should never be the same as the literary work you are writing about. (This

is because THAT title already belongs to THAT work.) You may use the name of the literary work as part of your title, such as “Fear and Loathing in A Farewell to Arms.”

Unlike the example I just provided, however, your essay’s title is never in quotation marks, italicized or underlined unless it contains the name of a literary work, and then

only THAT PART of your title appears in quotation marks or italics.

10. Essays about literature need to center around one central claim or argument. This is known as your thesis statement or controlling idea. A thesis should be brief,

clearly stated, and reflect serious thought about the work in question. It should state something debatable that is not immediately obvious to anyone who has

read the work. For example, the claims that “Atwood uses flowers as a primary symbol in The Handmaid’s Tale” or “Bad timing leads to the deaths of Romeo and

Juliet” are bad thesis statements, because there is no argument. (These are observations.) On the other hand, “Atwood uses graphic descriptions of growing and

blooming flowers to reinforce her belief that women’s reproductive choices should not be subject to state control” offers a more precise and interesting thesis.

11. The success of your essay is almost always tied to your thesis. A huge, vague, poorly thought-out thesis will weaken the essay’s focus, organization and

development because it won’t provide enough control or direction to keep the essay on any one path. The tighter the focus of your paper, the better.