Studying Literature vii

ContentsAcknowledgments ix

Permissions x

Introduction xii

1. What Is “Literature”? 1“Visitors” by Brian Moon 2“A Night of Frost and a Morning of Mist” by Janet Frame 5Toward a Definition 7What Are the Features of a Literary Work? 9Beliefs and Values 11Six Poems 14“Weevilly Porridge” by Eva Johnson 16“Yout Scene” by Linton Kwesi Johnson 16Challenging Beliefs 18“To a Butterfly” by William Wordsworth 21“Good-Bye Worn Out Morris 1000” by Pam Ayres 21“Edgar and Emma: A Tale” by Jane Austen 23

2. Reading “Literary” Texts 30Texts as Cultural Artifacts 30“Song: That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes”

by Ben Jonson 31Dominant and Marginalized Ideas 33Reading Practices 34Challenging Tradition 35“The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 36Hard Times by Charles Dickens 38“Phone Call” by Berton Roueche 42Readings 47“School” by Peter Cowan 51Analyzing the Construction of Readings 52

3. Reading in Terms of Gender 57Literature and Power 57The Language of Patriarchy 59This Is Australia? 59“Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same”

by Robert Frost 60“The Aim Was Song” by Robert Frost 60“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne 62

viii Studying Literature

Courtly Love and The Collector by John Fowles 65“Rapunzel” 66Rereading the Text 69The Question of Masculinity 71“The Essence of a Man” by Alan Sullivan 71New Perspectives: “Nice Men” by Dorothy Byrne 78Revisions: “The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter 80

References 91

About the Author 93