Writing about Literature - Second Edition : A Guide for the Student Critic

W.F. Garrett-Petts’s respected “insider’s guide” to writing like a literary critic now includes a new chapter on writing about poetry.

Writing about Literature introduces students to critical reading and writing through a thorough and engaging discussion of the field, but also through exercises, interviews, exemplary student and scholarly essays, and visual material. It offers students an insider’s guide to the language, issues, approaches, styles, assumptions, and traditions that inform the writing of successful critical essays, and aims to make student writers a part of the world of professional literary criticism.

Much of the discussion is structured around ways to analyze and respond to a single work, Stephen Crane’s story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.” This second edition is updated throughout and includes a new chapter on “Reading and Writing About Poetry”; the chapter uses Robert Kroetsch’s poem “This Part of the Country” as the unit of analysis and includes an interview with the poet about his process.

Praise for the first edition:

“For every student who has stared hopelessly at a blank screen, waiting for a literary essay miraculously to appear; and for every instructor who has looked upon a set of just-graded student essays with a sense of failure verging on despair—this book offers immediate help.” — Andrea Lunsford, Stanford University