For composition and introduction to literature courses, The Riverside Anthology of Literature has long been praised for its rich variety of selections, its interwoven commentary, its eloquent editorial prose, its unobtrusive apparatus, and its organizational flexibility. To acquaint students quickly with the specific qualities of a genre, each section now opens with six short selections that focus on a particular theme for easy comparison and contrast.

Table of Contents:
A Mini-Anthology of Initiation Stories Leslie Norris, Blackberries Jayne Anne Phillips, Cheers James Joyce, Araby Barry Yourgrau, By the Creek Jamaica Kincaid, Girl Chronological Collection Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Juniper Tree Randall Jarrell: On the Truth in Fairy Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark Flannery O"Connor: On Pushing Outward Toward Mystery Edgar Allan Poe, A Tell-Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe: On Unity in the Tale Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener Gustave Flaubert, A Simple Heart Flannery O"Connor: On Flaubert"s Use of Setting Henry James, The Middle Years Henry James: On Limiting the Protagonist"s Insight Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace Guy de Maupassant: On the Conflict Between Realism and Art Kate Chopin, Desirees Baby Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman: On Her Own Nervous Prostration Edith Wharton, Roman Fever Edith Wharton: On Crowding Moral Drama into a Short Story James Joyce, The Dead Virginia Woolf, Solid Objects Virginia Woolf: On Her Rejection of Traditional Fiction Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist Flannery O"Connor: On Realism in Fantasy D.H. Lawrence, The Blind Man D.H. Lawrence: On the Truths of the Body Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall Katherine Anne Porter: On Memory Eudora Welty: On Porter"s Break with Surface Realism William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily Ernest Hemingway, Soldier"s Home. Two Comments on Being a Writer John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums Zora Neale Hurston, Spunk Richard Wright, Big Black Good Man Eudora Welty, Livvie Eudora Welty: On the Addition of Meaning to Experience Nadine Gordimer, The Catch Jose Donoso, Paseo James Baldwin, Sonny"s Blues Chinua Achebe: On Baldwin"s Sadness Flannery O"Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find Michael Wickey: The Meaning of the Mesfit"s Final Comment on the Grandmother Yukio Mishima, Swaddling Clothes Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Gabriel GarcIa Marquez: On Matter-of-Factness in the Fantasy Alice Munro, Circle of Prayer Chinua Achebe, Girls of War Chinua Achebe: Fulfillment Rather than Self-Gratification Edna O"Brien, Sister Imelda Raymond Carver, Cathedral Raymond Carver: How Memories Find Their Way into Stories Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson Toni Cade Bambara: Wholesomeness versus Hatred Joseph Buchac III, Turtle Meat Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh Bobbie Ann Mason: On the Way Stories Grow from Nuggets Alice Walker. Everyday Use Houston A. Baker, Jr., and Charlotte Pierce-Baker: The Significance of the Quilt Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest Louise Erdrich, Snares Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek Sandra Cisneros: On Fairy Tales, Myths, and Stories Ethan Canin, The Emperor of the Air David Leavitt, Territory David Leavitt: On the Importance of Seeing Oneself in Stories Poetry Anthology A Mini-Anthology of Poetry Image Matsuo Basho, The voice has wholly Chiyo, Morning glories Kohyo, The stick that strikes at it Issa, A butterfly, a child Ezra Pound, In a Station at the Metro H.D., Evening William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow Comparison Emily Dickinson, The Snow that never drifts Kofi Awoonor, The Weaver Bird May Swenson, How Everything Happens Diction Carolyn Kizer, Bitch Amy Clampitt, Beach Glass Dennis Brutus, Nightsong: City Sound Robert Herrick, Upon Julia"s Clothes Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Come Down, O Maid Wilfred Owen, Arms and the Boy Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays Paula Gunn Allen, Hoop Dancer Tone Edna St. Vincent Millay, Recuerdo Robert Frost, Provide, Provide Wole Soyinka, Telephone Conversation Olga Broumas, Cinderella Chronological Collection Po Ch-i, In Early Summer Lodging in a Temple to Enjoy the Moonlight. Watching the Reapers. An Early Levee. Having Climbed to the Topmost Peak of the Incense-Burner Mountain. Pruning Trees. Rising Late and Playing with A-Ts"ui, Aged Two. On His Baldness. William Carlos Williams: To the Shade of Po Ch-i. James Wright: As I Step Over a Puddle at the End of the Winter, I Think of an Ancient Chinese Governor. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 55: Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments. Sonnet 65: Since Brass, nor Stone, nor Earth. nor Boundless Sea. Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold. Sonet 109: O, Never Say That I Was False of Heart. Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth. O Mistress Mine, Where Are You Roaming? Come Away, Come Away, Death. Fear No More the Heat o" the Sun. A.E. Housman: On the Separation of Poetry and Thought. John Donne, The Relic. The Canonization. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. The Good-Morrow. The Flea. Holy Sonnett 10: Death Be Not Proud, Though Some Have Called Thee. Holy Sonnett 14: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God. Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness. A.E. Housman: On Wit Versus Poetry. T.S. Eliot: On Intellectual versus Reflective Poetry. John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent. On the Late Massacre at Piedmont. Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint. From Paradise Lost, Book IX, Lines 399-548, 994-1189. T.S. Eliot: On Poetry. Andrew Marvell, Eyes and Tears. The Definition of Love. A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body. To His Coy Mistress. Bermudas. Archibald MacLeish: You, Andrew Marvell. William Blake, The Lamb. The Chimney Sweep. The Little Black Boy. The Tyger. The Sick Rose. A Poison Tree. London. Auguries of Innocence. And Did Those Feet. A.E. Housman: Blake"s Revolt Against the Intellect. William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey. She Dwelt Amoung the Untrodden Ways. Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known. There Was a Boy. The World Is Too Much With Us. Composed Upon Westminster Bridge. Resolution and Independence. William Wordsworth: Please Whom? William Wordsworth: The Spontaneous Overflow of Powerful Feelings. John Keats, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be. Ode on Melancholy. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Ode to a Nightingale. Ode on a Grecian Urn. To Autumn. Countee Cullen: To John Keats, Poet, at Springtime. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mariana. The Kraken. Ulysses. Break, Break, Break. Tears, Idle Tears. Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. In Memoriam Sections 2, 7, 11, 20, 39. T.S. Eliot: On Tennyson As an Instinctive Rebel. Robert Browning, My Last Duchess, Meeting at Night. Fra Lippo Lippi. Two in the Campagna. Curry: Browning"s New Literary Form. Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Section 5. The Wound-Dresser. When I Heard the Learn"d Astronomer. A Noiseless, Patient Spider. To a Locomotive in Winter. Allen Ginsburg: A Supermarket in California. Charles Baudelaire, To the Reader. Correspondence. By Association. The King of the Rainy Country. The Little Old Women. Charles Baudelaire: On the Future of the Middle Class. Emily Dickinson, I Like a Look of Agony. Wild Nights--Wild Nights!. Of Bronze--and Blaze--. The Soul Selects Her Own Society--. What Soft--Cherubic Creatures--. I Died for Beauty--But Was Scarce. It Was Not Death, For I Stood Up. The Heart Asks Pleasure--First--. Because I Could Not Stop for Death--. My Life Had Stood--A Loaded Gun--. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass. My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close--. Richard Wilbur: On Dickinson"s Religion. Christina Rossetti, In an Artist"s Studio. Song (When I Am Dead My Dearest). L.E.L.. Good Friday. Life and Death. By the Sea. "They Deserve a Better Country". Passing and Glassing. Jennifer Beckman: On the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover. Pied Beauty. God"s Grandeur. The Sea and the Skylark. Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord. Richard Wilbur: On Poetic Cataloguing. A.E. Housman, Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now. To An Athlete Dying Young. Terence, This is Stupid Stuff. Is My Team Plowing. On Moonlit Heath. Could Man Be Drunk for Ever. When First My Way. Stars, I Have Seen Them Fall. Housman: On the Physical Effect of Poetry. William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. The Folly of Being Comforted. The Wild Swans at Coole. The Scholars. The Cat and the Moon. The Second Coming. Leda and the Swan. Sailing to Byzantium. Among School Children. Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop. William Butler Yeats: On a New Religion. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory. Miniver Cheevy. Eros Turannos. The Mill. Mr. Flood"s Party. The Sheavers. Robert Frost: On Robinson"s Humor. Robert Frost, Home Burial. The Wood-Pile. Nothing Gold Can Stay. Birches. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Acquainted with the Night. Neither Out Far nor in Deep. Departmental. The Gift Outright. Robert Frost: Saying One Thing in Terms of Another. Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning. The Emperor of Ice-Cream. Anecdote of the Jar. Disillusionment of Ten O"Clock. Study of Two Pearls. Page from a Tale. Randall Jarrell: On Steven"s Sense of Wonder. William Carlos Williams, Queen-Ann"s Lace. The Botticellian Trees. This Is Just to Say. A Poor Old Woman. Young Woman at the Window. The Yellow Flower. William Carlos Williams: Three Comments on Poetry. Marianne Moore, Poetry. Silence. The Fish. Peter. Four Quartz Crystal Clocks. Elephants. Elizabeth Bishop: Marianne Moore Visits the Circus. T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Preludes. Journey of the Magi. Animula. The Hollow Men. William Butler Yeats: On Monotony in Eliot. Robert Lowell: On Eliot"s Personality. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Spring. Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink. From a Train Window. Justice Denied in Massachusetts. The Oak-Leaves. Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies. Modern Declaration. An Ancient Gesture. Louise Bogan: On Millay"s Strengths and Weaknesses. E.E. Cummings, All in green went my love riding. the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls. in Just. Buffalo Bill"s, Somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond. i sing of Olaf glad and big. r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r. Louise Bogan: On Cummings"s Breaking of Taboos. Louise Bogan, Medusa. The Engine. To My Brother. Come, Break with Time. The Dream. Evening in the Sanitarium. Zone. The Dragonfly. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Epilogue. Afro-American Fragment. Harlem Sweeties. Theme for English B. Harlem. Same in Blues. Countee Cullen: Hughes"s Overemphasis on Race. Langston Hughes: Race and Poetry. Countee Cullen. Incident. Yet Do I Marvel. Heritage. For a Poet. Black Majesty. Pablo Neruda, Here I Love You. Ritual of My Legs. Horses. Love. Sweetness, Always. Love Sonnet VI. The Danger. Robert Bly: On Neruda"s Imagination. W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts. The Sphinx. The Uncommon Citizen. In Memory of W.B. Yeats. Spain, 1937. Luther. Voltaire at Ferney. The Shield of Achilles. Randall Jarrell: The Old and the New Masters. Theodore Roethke, My Papa"s Waltz. Big Wind. Root Cellar. Child on Top of a Greenhouse. Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze. I Knew a Woman. Theodore Roethke: What Do I Like? Elizabeth Bishop, The Prodigal. Filling Station. The Armadillo. Questions of Travel. In the Waiting Room. Crusoe in England. One Art. Dana Gioia: A Poetry Class with Elizabeth Bishop. Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner. The Snow-Leopard. Nestus Gurley. Field and Forest. In Montecito. Randall Jarrell: Composing a Poem Dylan Thomas, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower. The Hunchback in the Park. Poem in October. Over Sir John"s Hill. Poem on His Birthday. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. William Carlos Williams: On Thomas"s "Drunken Poetry." John Berryman, The Ball Poem. Winter Landscape. Sonnet 25. Dreamsong 1. Dreamsong 4. Dreamsong 14. Henry"s Understanding. John Berryman: The Origins of Winter Landscape. Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville: Southeast Corner. We Real Cool. The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock. The Blackstone Rangers. Riot. The Chicago Picasso. Gwendolyn Brooks: On Her Belated Discovery of Black Identity. Robert Lowell, The Drunken Fisherman. Waking in the Blue. For the Union Dead. Night Sweat. The Neo-Classical Urn. Epilogue. On the Advantages of Prose. Richard Wilbur, Praise in Summer. The Death of a Toad. Still, Citizen Sparrow. Richard Wilbur: Mixed Feelings, Clashing Ideas, and Incongruous Images Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer"s Tigers. Love in the Museum. Orion. Gabriel. Planetarium. Diving into the Wreck. Two Songs. Adrienne Rich: On Writing as a Female Poet. Derek Walcott. A Far Cry From Africa. Tarpon. Crusoe"s Journal. Crusoe"s Island. Homecoming: Anse La Raye. The Sea Is History. Rita Dove: On Walcott"s Struggle with the Postcard Image. Sylvia Plath, Black Rook in Rainy Weather. Medallion. Tulips. The Arrival of the Bee Box. Cut. Daddy. Lady Lazarus. Robert Lowell: On Plath"s Last and First Poems. Lucille Clifton, The Lost Baby and Poem. God"s Mood. She Understands Me. There Is a Girl Inside. For the Mute. For the Lame. To Joan. Perhaps. Lucille Clifton: On Strength Gotten from Others. Jill Oliver: On Connection and Disconnection in Clifton"s Poems. Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break. Digging. The Outlaw. Punishment. Casualty. Robert Hass, Palo Alto: The Marshes. Heroic Simile. Meditation at Lagunitas. Santa Lucia. Old Dominion. Weed. Robert Hass: The World Repeats Itself. Sharon Olds, The Elder Sister. The Victims. Bathing the Newborn. Summer Soltice, New York City. The Chute. The Race. Kevin Kingbeil: The Machinery that Grinds in "Summer Solstice." Louise Gluck, For My Mother. The Apple Trees. Metamorphosis. Horse. A Fantasy. The Widows. Rita Dove, Banneker. Daystar. The Satisfaction Coal Company. Crab Boil. Horse and Tree. Ars Poetica. Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms. My Sleeping Loved Ones. Ash, Snow or Moonlight. Epistle. Arise, Go Down. A Final Thing. Drama Anthology Introduction An Anthology of One-Scene Plays Athol Fugard, The Drummer Jane Martin, Twirler Constance Medley, Waking Women Samuel Beckett, Krapp"s Last Tape Wendy Wasserstein, Tender Offer August Strindberg, The Stronger Susan Glaspell, Trifles Chronological Collection Sophocles, Oedipus the King Aristotle: On Reversal, Recognition, and Calamity in Tragedy William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice Arthur Miller: On Joy in Tragedy Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard Ardita Maluka: On Lopakhin and His Motives Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller: On Personal Dignity and Tragedy Maria Irene Fornes, Fefu and Her Friends Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys Athol Fugard: A Memory that Underlies the Play Sam Shepard, True West August Wilson, Joe Turner"s Come and Gone August Wilson: On His Image of the Black Tragic Hero Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart John Simon: On Henley"s Credibility Walter Kerr: On Henley"s Lack of Credibility Handbook of Literature Writing About Literature Biographical Sketches Index of Literary Terms Author/Title Index Index of First Lines