Customer Reviews

Introduction to Literature,An (13th Edition)

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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.

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).

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.

In this book, there are Shakesperean plays, poetry, drama and more. From Susan Glaspell to Shirley Jackson to Alice Walker and everything in between. Hawthorne is wonderful, I plan to read more of him. James Joyce was a bit difficult for me. Even though this book was a requirement for my school class, I am grateful for the insights and breadth of literature covered within.

book condition is good and i liked it. i will look forward to buy other stuff too...

This book was in better shape than I expected. Would definately use this seller again

I love this book! It is a text book, but it is so full of fabulous literature and tips on how to view it that it makes for a wonderful read simply for pleasure.

This book was very useful for my Introduction to Literature class. (Naturally) Contains works from many of the great authors.

I am VERY,VERY disapointed in the overall quality of the book. DON'T BUY THE PAPER BACK EDITION. Get it in hard back if you can. With my copy of this book, as well as, the copies that belonged to several other members of my Lit. class, the binding broke and the book fell apart. Now I can't resell it.

This is awful. I ordered the book at August 5th. But still I HAVEN'T GOTTEN THE BOOK YET!!!!! It has been about a month since I ordered the book. I can't believe it took so many time.
This is absurd.

This seller was very misleading I was under the impression I was getting the students edition version of "An Introduction to Literature" but I got an "Examination version" which come to find out is the copy that instructors use and is NOT to be re-sold (clearly says so on the spine). While I was slightly upset by this, it turns out it has the same material as the normal book and was in good condition.