Introduction to Literature,An (13th Edition) [Paperback]

Sylvan Barnet (Author), William Burto (Author), William E. Cain (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321105702 | ISBN-13: 978-0321105707 | Publication Date: April 6, 2003 | Edition: 13

This best seller-continues to set a high standard for introductory literature texts by maintaining the traditions that have made it a success while adding fresh, new material. Carefully selected classic and contemporary works incorporate a range of diverse voices, and the authors provide integrated coverage of the elements of literature and the writing process.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Caution:  the book you hold in your hands could change your life.

 

For almost fifty years, Introduction to Literature has been stirring up classroom discussion and providing topics for stimulating dinnertime conversation. 

 

Revised and refined over the course of fifteen editions, this ever-new bestselling anthology introduces you to classic and contemporary poems, stories, and plays.  Prepare to meet unforgettable characters, and to explore one of the world’s greatest frontiers — literature.  This book meets Franz Kafka’s standard:  “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.” 

 

Throughout Introduction to Literature, you’ll find plenty of student papers to get you thinking about how you can make the most of your own assignments.  You can easily find help in three sections called “Students Writing about Stories,” “Students Writing about Poems,” and “Students Writing about Plays.”  

 

 

New to This Edition:

 

• More sample student essays and writing prompts to help you with assignments, from start to finish.
• New Chapter One focuses on the “how-to” of writing and gives you a clear and simple snapshot of the overall process.
• Several chapters devoted specifically to your writing skills–broken down by genre (how to write about fiction, how to write about poetry, how to write about drama)
• Strong representation of multicultural authors adds depth and breath to your reading experience--which is to say, to your life. 

 

Visit www.mypearsonstore.com and find your textbook by author, title, or ISBN to see what study aids and supplemental material are available with your textbook.

 

 

 

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1900 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 13 edition (April 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321105702
• ISBN-13: 978-0321105707
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #853,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for my Literature Class. . . BUT, July 3, 2004

By 

Trekkintheplains "Take a sad song and make it... (South Dakota, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introduction to Literature,An (13th Edition) (Paperback)

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 Meyers "The Work of Wolves") but he really made me love this book! There is gold within these pages, a very good choice for teaching college students to truly appreciate the many genres of literature from around the world and through the ages.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, a Great Superb Anthology!, January 10, 2008

By 

Sylviastel - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: An Introduction to Literature (Paperback)

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 Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, Countee Cullen, e.e. cummings;

Alice Elliot Dark, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Rita Dove, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Bob Dylan (Kennedy Center Honors, National Medal of the Arts);

T.S. Eliot (awarded Nobel Prize in Literature and the Order of Merit), Ralph Ellison (National Medal of the Arts), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louise Erdrich, Martin Espada;

William Faulkner (awarded Nobel Prize in Literature), Harvey Fierstein, Jack Forbes, Carolyn Forche, Robert Francis, Robert Frost;

Tess Gallagher, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (awarded Nobel Prize in Literature), Ann Geraghty, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Allen Ginsberg, Nikki Giovanni, Susan Glaspell, Louise Gluck, George Guzman,
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), John Haines, Daniel Halpern, Thomas Hardy, Joy Harjo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Hayden, Seamus Heaney(awarded Nobel Prize in Literature), Anthony Hecht, LIliana Heker, Ernest Hemingway (awarded Nobel Prize in LIterature), Robert Herrick, John Hollander, Gerard Manley Hopkins, A.E. Housman, Julia Ward Howe, Langston Hughes, David Hwang;

Henrik Ibsen;

Shirley Jackson, Randall Jarrell, James Weldon Johnson, Samuel JOhnson, Ben JOnson, James Joyce;

Ruth Katz, John Keats, X.J. Kennedy, Jamaica Kincaid, Galway Kinnell, Yusef Komunyakaa;

Sidney Lanier, D.H. Lawrence, Don L. Lee, Li-Young Lee, Doris Lessing (awarded Nobel Prize in Literature; awarded the Companion of Honour; declined an O.B.E. [Officer of the Order of the British Empire] and Damehood), Luke from the Bible;

Claude McKay, Archibald Macleish, Naguib Mahfouz (awarded Nobel Prizer in Literature), David Mamet, Laureen Mar, Bobbie Ann Mason, Guy de Maupassant, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Arthur Miller(awarded National MEdal of the Arts and Kennedy Center Honors), John Milton, Gabriela Mistral, Pat Mora, Aurora Levins Morales, ALice Munro, DAvid Mura;

Gloria Naylor, Marsha Norman (Pulitzer Winner),

Tim O'Brien, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, Frank O'Connor, Mary Oliver, Wilfred Owen;

Grace Paley, Dorothy Parker, Linda Pastan, Marge Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Ezra Pound;

Craig Raine, Dudley Randall, John Crowe Ransom, Henry Reed, Adrienne Rich (declined the National Medal of the Arts), Edward ARlington RObinson, Theodore Roethke, Wendy Rose, Christina Rossetti;

Edward W. SAid, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Elaine Showalter, Lydia Howard Huntley SIgourney, Leslie Marmon Silko, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel Prizewinner), Gary Snyder, Sophocles, John Steinbeck (awarded Nobel Prize), Wallace Stevens;

Amy Tan, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Anne Tyler;

John Updike (awarded National Medal of the Arts);

Luis Valdez;

Sir Derek Walcott (awarded knighthood and Nobel Prize in literature), Alice Walker, Edmund Waller, Wendy Wasserstein, Phillis Wheatley, John Hall Wheelock, Walt Whitman, Ricahrd Wilbur, Tennessee Williams (Kennedy Center HOnors) August Wilson, Tobiass Wolff, William Wordsworth, James Wright,

Mitsuye Yamada, William Butler Yeats (awarded NObel Prize in LIterature).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good college textbook, April 5, 2008

By 

Brigid O'Shaunessy (NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Introduction to Literature (Paperback)

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.