With privileged glimpses into the human heart figurative language

Responding to Literary Experiences

“I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following: • Develop a framework for responding to what you read. • Describe how the use of persona affects your response to literature. • Analyze the themes and concepts presented in this chapter's literary selections. • Discuss what literature contributes to your life. • Recognize figures of speech, including similes and metaphors.

Writing About What You Read Chapter 2

2.1 Writing About What You Read In our opening chapter, we observed that enjoying literature begins with the depth of connection you make with the imaginary world that a piece of literature creates. The purpose of this chapter is to look at a range of literary experiences and to describe what is involved in responding to them in meaningful ways. Responding is a personal activity that allows you to reflect on your experi- ences and to gain valuable insights about the human condition; responding can also be a struc- tured analytical process that requires use of literary tools and techniques. Responding requires active mental engagement: exploring ideas, forming conclusions, and, ultimately, critiquing what you have read as objectively as possible.

Because this book is an introduction to literature, it offers a broad range of reading experiences. Some selections may be familiar, some will introduce you to surprising insights, and others will engage you in human encounters and life complexities that don’t have obvious solutions. The readings will pull you beyond the scope of popular literature, beyond conventional romances with happy endings, and beyond detective stories where impossible cases are always solved at the last moment, allowing the forces of good to succeed. Does exploring more challenging literature mean that you should never read popular literature, sometimes called “commercial literature”? No, this approach readily acknowledges the pleasure and delightful escape that such reading offers, but it also takes you beyond the popular literature horizon, where broader ventures and more challenging explorations await.

The level of intellectual demands on the reader will vary because writers have very different purposes when they write. When the events in a story are presented simply and developed in a straightforward manner without extensive detail, the writer’s intentions are likely to be obvi- ous and easy to understand. But when a writer’s primary purpose is hidden or buried in sym- bols—when, for example, the author sets out to interpret a puzzling phenomenon or human condition—the reader will likely need to make careful intellectual inquiry to understand the author’s intent.

Framework for Responding to What You Read

As stated previously, reading creates imaginative experiences. It connects you to new experiences that become meaningful when you allow them to influence your thoughts and feelings. To make your responses active and engaging, you should ask: Is my reading experience echoing things that have happened in my life? Is it connecting me to things I’ve never considered before? Am I surprised by (or content with) the way it makes me feel? Does it make me think about a concept or issue that is important to me or to humanity at large?

Also as you read, consider how the writer develops the situations, characters, and emotions that stand out for you. Analyze them. Then, draw conclusions about what you have read; develop your interpretation, focusing on how your reading experience relates to your life, ideas, and values— not just your values, but others’ also. Your responses can be organized into three steps: connect- ing, considering, and concluding. These steps provide a simple but effective response framework that you will use throughout this book. See Table 2.1 for explanations of each step.

At first glance, this matrix may suggest that reading should produce neat linear responses in an intellectual inquiry process that is orderly, almost mechanical. But certainly that is not what

Writing About What You Read Chapter 2

happens when you read literature. Life itself is not that way! When you read a piece of literature imaginatively and with mental vigor, you are stepping inside it, projecting your perspective across its landscape. Although the author may provide signposts to follow as you discover what the literary piece intends, you make your own path. Often, it’s a winding one; progress can be slow. Maybe you miss important details that explain the behavior of an important character, or you limit the capabilities of a character to the boundaries of your own experience. Or, you might miss important connections between what is happening and why it’s happening, requir- ing you to do some rereading. Stop-and-go reading like this can be frustrating, but it also cre- ates learning opportunities. Expect to do this kind of reading in an introduction to literature course—because the truest satisfaction in reading comes from exploring, moving from insight to insight.

Table 2.1 Reader’s response framework: Connecting, considering, and concluding

Connecting (Imaginative reading)

Involves allowing feelings, curiosity, aspirations, desire to escape, and associations with past or present experiences to motivate you to read.

Individual link and imaginative “entry” into a piece of literature.

Considering (Analysis)

Involves focusing on basic literary elements, artistic skills, aesthetic features, ideas, observations, contexts, and dilemmas that you discover as you read and want to explore in some depth.

Personal inquiry, as you analyze and think about the content and unique structure of the literary work.

Concluding (Interpretation)

Involves finding your own explanations, making sense of what you are reading, and determining the value of its implications.

The matrix in Table 2.1 provides a starting point in the exploratory process. It will help you dis- cover insights, appreciate literary techniques, and find significance in your reading. Throughout this book, many reading selections include a follow-up Response and Reflection section contain- ing questions based on the matrix. These questions—asking you to connect, consider, and con- clude—are designed to call attention to details and ideas that will deepen your response.

A Sample Response

Knowing that you will be expected to write about what you read introduces an obligation. It requires you to read not just for pleasure, but also with specific purpose. When reading for plea- sure, you can allow yourself to be caught up in experiencing a story, poem, or play—simply enjoy- ing the suspenseful moments and identifying with imagined settings. But reading literature with a purpose requires you to have something to say about what you’ve read. It can’t be just a sweep- ing general statement, such as “That was a great story; it really held my attention.” Your written statement needs to include specific and thoughtful observations that can be supported by details in the piece of literature you have read. The framework of connecting, considering, and concluding can be used in developing your written responses, as illustrated in Responding to Reading: Sample Short-Answer Written Response.

How Use of Persona Affects Your Response to Literature Chapter 2

R E S P O N D I N G T O R E A D I N G

Sample Short-Answer Written Response

Question: Is Sammy presented in the story “A & P” as a person whose actions are solidly established, or as one “coming of age,” searching for answers about how to act in the adult world?

Published in 1961, early in a decade of counterculture and social revolution in America, Updike’s story presents a glimpse into different generational responses to these significant movements. The story is set north of Boston where people are proud of their Puritan heritage, which dates back to colonial days and remains firmly established in their culture. Lengel, the store manager, feels compelled to uphold this Puritan ethic when he sees the girls in swimming suits shopping in his store. He is offended, both by what they are wearing and also by their casual atti- tude when pushing social norms. He confronts them, pointing out that store policy does not permit shoppers to be dressed in swimwear. Sammy, a 19-year-old, is part of the younger generation that supports social change. He sees the situation differently, demonstrating how adamantly he opposes Lengel’s approach by quit- ting his job on the spot. He takes a gallant stand not only to impress the girls, but also to advance the spirit of freedom, excitement, and change introduced by their presence. Unfortunately, rather than producing heroic, dramatic results, his protest brings only embarrassing personal consequences.

Sammy quit his job in a voice loud enough for the girls to hear, hoping they would see him “as their unsuspected hero” (as cited in Clugston, 2014). However, they did not acknowledge him as they left, and when he got to the store parking lot they were gone. Consequently, he experiences no external affirmation of his action, no applause for being a hero. But, Sammy gains new insight: he realizes “how hard the world was going to be” (as cited in Clugston, 2014). That is, he begins to understand that his quest for change—stimulated not just by the girls’ entrance but by stifling routines in his work environment—would be an arduous struggle requiring commitment and persistence over time; achievement of social change is not driven by spur-of-the moment actions. He shows the strength of this awareness later when he disagrees with the idea that the A & P incident was a sad one. Sammy disagrees because he learned a lot from the experience. He may not have found answers to all the questions he has about becoming a man, but his self-knowledge and outlook are more realistically grounded than ever before.

Connecting: Writer briefly sum- marizes important

factors that contrib- ute to the incident in the A & P store

and the actions that occur.

Note: The last sen- tence is not part

of the summary; it is the thesis state- ment—identifying the purpose of the written response.

Considering: Writer selects

details and spe- cific examples as

evidence of the rationale and

understanding that underlie Sammy’s

actions.

Concluding: Writer repeats the

“point” of the thesis statement—namely,

that Sammy’s self-knowledge is

increased.

2.2 How Use of Persona Affects Your Response to Literature

If there’s a nameplate on your desk at work, it’s possible for someone who passes by to get a sense of who you are just by looking at your desk, noticing how things are arranged, glancing at the design of your coffee cup, and so on. If these items could speak, the observer could learn a lot more about you, of course. A piece of literature is somewhat like that desk: The author’s name is on it, and you can discover things about the author when you read. But there’s a difference. Unlike inboxes and coffee cups, the characters in stories and poems and plays can speak. As they do, they may represent what the author thinks, or they may be “speaking for themselves”—representing views that are different from the author’s. In other words, it’s important to understand an author’s use of persona.

How Use of Persona Affects Your Response to Literature Chapter 2

Persona in “The Road Not Taken”

In Latin, persona means “mask.” When it is used in literature, persona refers to the person who is the narrator in a story or the speaker in a poem. In other words, the main voice in a work of fiction or poetry is usually not the author’s voice, although it may reflect the author’s views. The main voice comes from the person the author created to narrate or speak. In most cases, this speaker is a character in the story or the poem, but sometimes a persona can be an outside voice, a speaker who is looking at the action but is not part of it.

Look carefully at the student’s analysis in the box following Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken.” The analysis identifies the persona (speaker) as a person who is approaching decision making thoughtfully, but this person is not necessarily Robert Frost.

Also note Frost’s use of symbol in the poem. A symbol is an object, person, or action that conveys two meanings: its literal meaning and something it stands for. In “The Road Not Taken,” Frost presents the literal image of two roads. But he suggests that they stand for something other than what their literal meaning conveys: They represent (symbolize) life’s pathways on which our day- by-day experiences unfold.

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. At age 11, he moved with his fam- ily to New England. He attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard but did not graduate. After an unsuccessful attempt at farming, he and his wife moved to England in 1912. There, with encouragement from poet Ezra Pound, he published his first two collections of poems, A Boy’s Will and North of Boston. He returned to the United States in 1915 as a popu- lar poet and was even more celebrated in the years that followed, winning the Pulitzer Prize for his works four times. He was sought after as an artist in residence at universities in New England and wrote candidly about the poetic process. His lyrical style and masterful use of ordinary language and rural settings made his poetry delightful. Building on delight, he engaged in ironic inquiry to give expression to complex ideas and questions that define the human spirit.

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The Road Not Taken Robert Frost (1916)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same.

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And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

“The Road Not Taken” from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost.

Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

S A M P L E R E S P O N S E A N D R E F L E C T I O N Q U E S T I O N S

The following questions are reflective of those you will encounter throughout the remainder of this textbook. The sample answers provided are examples of how you might respond to these questions.

Connecting (Imaginative reading)

Q. What allowed you to connect to the poem?

A. I was able to connect to this poem immediately because I’d often heard the title quoted in public speeches. Then, I became interested in seeing if I could figure out why the idea of “the road not taken” is so often mentioned in speeches.

Considering (Analysis)

Q. What do you know about the speaker in this poem?

A. The speaker is a serious, thoughtful person, and could be either a woman or a man. There is no precise indication of the speaker’s age, but the last line of the poem suggests that the person is reflective, thinking not just about a present decision but about future consequences as well. Even though stanza 2 suggests the choice could have gone either way—both roads were a lot alike—the speaker chose the one “less traveled by” and is willing to accept whatever the choice will bring, knowing that choosing the other road for future travel is not possible. It is clear, also, that the speaker is reflecting on a choice related to a significant life decision that involves commitment and integrity, and is not merely selecting a road in the woods.

Concluding (Interpretation)

Q. What do the comments “telling this with a sigh” (line 16) and “that has made all the difference” (line 20) reveal about life choices?

A. I’ve concluded that the poem emphasizes the ambiguity associated with life choices. From what I already knew about the poem, I thought it dealt simply with making a challenging (“less traveled by”) choice. However, I now see that it reflects not just on the motive for choosing, but also on the nature of choice making. There appears to be delight, at least satisfaction, on the part of the speaker at the beginning of the poem, but the “sigh” mentioned at the end suggests that the choice was more complex than it appeared: It may have even resulted in personal regret. Consequently, the poem reveals the nature of decision making, implying that, at best, it’s a fuzzy process with ambigu- ous aspects—both at the moment a choice is made and afterwards. In this way, the poem makes a wise observation and explores important life knowledge.

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Your Turn

Try using the literary response framework connecting, considering, concluding to explore mean- ing in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” In this brief narrative, there is not a lot of action, but you can gain important insights about the action—and the story’s outcome—by paying close attention to what the main character, Mrs. Mallard, is thinking.

Kate Chopin (1850–1904)

Chopin was born in St. Louis (her birth name was Katherine O’Flaherty), one of five children—the only one to live beyond age 25. After attending Catholic schools, she married Oscar Chopin, a cotton broker, and moved to New Orleans. When he died 12 years later, she was left to raise their six chil- dren. Various journals, including Atlantic Monthly and Vogue, published her short stories. One of her novels, The Awakening, was controversial because it acknowledged a woman’s strength in spite of her adulterous life. Chopin’s writings expressed her personal quest for freedom and contributed to the rise of feminism.

Missouri History Museum, St. Louis

The Story of an Hour Kate Chopin (1894)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less ten- der friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy arm- chair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was

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How Use of Persona Affects Your Response to Literature Chapter 2

singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twitter- ing in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repres- sion and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bend- ing hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow- creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in

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the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly rec- ognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”

“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importu- nities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sis- ter’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know that there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen himself from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease— of joy that kills.

This selection is in the public domain.

R E S P O N S E A N D R E F L E C T I O N Q U E S T I O N S

Connecting (Imaginative reading)

How is your interest in this story immediately established? How does Chopin create suspense?

Considering (Analysis)

Locate details in the story that give you a sense of what Mrs. Mallard’s relationship with her hus- band was like. In paragraphs five and six, how does the author’s mention of new spring life, twitter- ing sparrows, and patches of blue sky help you understand Mrs. Mallard’s feelings—and her hopes?

Concluding (Interpretation)

Mrs. Mallard (in paragraphs eight and nine) is experiencing change. She feels that something is “approaching” her, seeking to “possess her.” What do you think she is struggling with? Had she ever loved her husband?

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What Literature Contributes to Our Lives Chapter 2

2.3 What Literature Contributes to Our Lives Through literature, we can explore human experiences deeply and search for meaning. It opens new worlds, presents new ideas, and stimulates personal change. In these ways, literature influ- ences each individual differently. Nevertheless, its conventional contributions fall into widely rec- ognized categories. Here are six of these notable contributions, with a literary example selected to illustrate each one.

Literature Restores the Past

In many ways, literature reflects historical issues and conditions. Long before stories were written down, they were passed along through oral traditions. At least eight periods in literary history can be roughly identified in the development of Western civilization (Wheeler, 2010).

Classical period (8th century BCE to middle of 5th century CE) Medieval period (about 1,000 years, ending in 15th century) Renaissance and Reformation period (roughly, 16th to mid-17th century) Enlightenment or Neoclassical period (mid-17th century through 18th century) Romantic period (roughly, first half of 19th century) Victorian period (1832–1901) Modern period (roughly, first half of the 20th century) Postmodern period (roughly, since end of World War II, 1945)

In all these periods, social, economic, political, and religious traditions greatly influenced writers. Century after century, their works reflected wars, natural disasters, common events, and human achievements in cultures they personally knew. So, although we often gain insights about perma- nent things from writers, we also get a glimpse of conditions that existed in the passing moment in which they were writing. Some writers develop works that openly celebrate ideas and the spirit of their age, describing them in detail and making it easy for readers to visualize past events and customs. Other writers take an indirect approach with much less description, requiring readers to read more deeply, to examine behaviors and values in order to get a sense of life in earlier peri- ods. Either way, works of literature help to restore the past.

For example, Langston Hughes’s “Dream Boogie” (1951) lifts up the civil rights quest as a dream with human significance, “a dream deferred” that would be a long time in coming. In the 1950s, when Hughes published the poem, most black Americans were not experiencing the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams that Emancipation (nearly 100 years earlier) had promised. Looking back, we know that it would be more than a decade before significant change would come, as a result of non-violent protests under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the passage of civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

You might say, then, that this piece of literature functions both as Hughes’s portrait of an impor- tant human ideal that has not yet been achieved (racial reconciliation), and as a photograph—a snapshot of the state of that idealistic dream in the United States in the early 1950s. In an earlier essay, Hughes acknowledged,

Most of my poems are racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know. In many of them I try to grasp and hold some of the meanings and rhythms of jazz. . . . [J]azz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world. (Hughes, 1926, p. 694)

What Literature Contributes to Our Lives Chapter 2

Dream Boogie Langston Hughes (1951)

Good morning, daddy! Ain’t you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred?

Listen closely: You’ll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a —

You think It’s a happy beat?

Listen to it closely: Ain’t you heard something underneath like a —

What did I say?

Sure, I’m happy! Take it away!

Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop!

Y-e-a-h! "Dream Boogie" from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold

Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes.

Literature Stimulates the Imagination

Those who create literature may make some use of literal definitions and factual descriptions, but the appeal and magic in their works are fashioned by the word pictures, feelings, and exqui- site detail they create, revealing how particular things look in their minds. Writers enable us to see things clearly, often in new ways that alter previous perceptions. They often use figures of speech such as similes and metaphors to stimulate our imaginations. Each will be illustrated more fully in later chapters:

Simile—A direct comparison of two things that are ordinarily not thought to be similar, using like or as to connect them. In these lines from an 18th-century love song by Robert Burns, a per- son’s lover is compared to a rose (visual imagery) and to a melody (auditory imagery):

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve’s like the melodie That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

Metaphor—An imaginative comparison of two unlike things, suggesting how each resembles the other. In the following poem, poet Carl Sandburg compares changing fog patterns to the silent, subtle movements of a cat:

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The Fog Carl Sandburg (1916)

The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

This selection is in the public domain.

Figures of speech such as similes and metaphors are tools of figurative language, any language used in a non-literal way to convey images and ideas. For example, Langston Hughes begins the poem “A Dream Deferred” with the literal question “What happens to a dream deferred?” Then, he uses explosive figurative language to describe the dream. He asks:

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? (from Hughes, 1994)

In doing so, Hughes enables us to see things as he imagines them. First, he uses a simile to com- pare a deferred dream to a raisin lying in the sun, suggesting that dreams can deteriorate and ultimately fail; next, he introduces another simile to compare a dream to a festering sore, suggest- ing that dreams can aggravate and become destructive.

In “Dream Boogie,” Hughes asks readers to imagine the quest for civil rights as a dance (meta- phor): a be-bop, not an elegant waltz. He arranges the flow of words to help us imagine move- ment, rhythm, and sounds. He creates fragmentary conversation to allow us to grasp dimensions of “dream” and “reality.” As he explains in his prefatory note in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” his writing must reflect change, because he is part of a changing community. It is a community

marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of the jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and distortions of the music of a community in transition. (Hughes, 1926)

Literature Glorifies the Commonplace

Even though literature often interprets lofty concepts and presents high society with irresistible glamour, much of its appeal is achieved through faithful treatment of ordinary life experiences. By dealing with common human interests and basic emotions, literature becomes relevant. For example, in “I Hear America Singing,” Walt Whitman celebrates the diversity of the working classes in 19th-century America, using familiar images of home and youthful vigor. Individually, these images reveal an ordinary slice of life, but when combined, they represent America’s demo- cratic spirit—a defining melody inextricably connected to things that are commonplace rather than esoteric.

What Literature Contributes to Our Lives Chapter 2

I Hear America Singing Walt Whitman (1860)

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and

strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves

off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the

deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing

as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the

morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,

or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young

fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

This selection is in the public domain.

Literature Evokes Emotions and Links Feeling to Thinking

There is an intimate and mysterious relationship between human emotions and human thought. Both what we feel (our affective responses) and what we think (our cognitive judgments) influ- ence our literary experiences, but there is no fixed formula for how to use these separate domains as we read. So, our literary responses vary, revealing a lot about how each of us sees the world. Feeling usually comes first as we read. Especially when we experience plays or poetry, our imme- diate responses are stimulated by feelings. By purposely arranging word sounds and visual images, poets fire up feelings and create a powerful emotional awareness that encourages thought; dra- matists choose unique clothing and stage sets to create a captivating perspective on an idea or concern; every writer develops a particular tone in each work that conveys a specific attitude toward the subject presented, further deepening emotional responses. All of these techniques contribute to creating our initial, emotional response to literature.

The feelings and spirit of Jane Kenyon’s poem, for example, are conveyed through carefully crafted auditory and visual imagery: the sand and gravel falling “with a hiss and a thud” and the cat’s “long red fur, the white feathers/between his toes, and his/long, not to say aquiline, nose.” Also, the “blue bowl” is a visual image that creates emotional depth. It suggests the special relationship that the owners had with their cat. They did more than just provide for the cat; they fed the cat from a special bowl, “his bowl”—something they considered to be the cat’s own property, some- thing appropriate to bury with the cat. Listen and look for the images that evoke a sense of loss and strength as well.