Sylvan BarnetCritiques

A superb collection of tragedies with selected commentaries that augment the texts. While there are specific editions that offer superior texts for reading and analyzing individual plays, this is helpful for reading and debating a range of tragedies.

4/17/22

Genius might be a bit...strong...for a number of these plays. They are standard issue morality plays from the early English theatre, and many of them are rather tedious. There are some truly great works in here, such as MacBeth and Marlowe's Faust. Jonson's Volpone completes the trifecta of worthy plays. I'm afraid Milton's Samson Agonistes left me cold. It probably reads better as poetry than as a play, but even then, it was too repetitive, and way too much logorrhea.½

A drama text book so the essays were a little dry, but a good broad collection of plays spanning the centuries.

I read this textbook for a sophomore level composition class. It's main focus is on teaching students to write argumentative essays. It contains several good essays on controversial topics that are worth reading. Highlights include essays by Jonathan Swift, Plato, Rush Limbaugh, and Thomas More (to name a few); and poetry by Robert Frost, Andrew Marvell, and Kate Chopin. The essays were thought provoking and well written.

good ideas for Comp II in here.

At 400 hundred pages "short" is not a great descriptive word. :) But it was to the point on the subjects it covered and a good book for covering the proper way to write about art.

Many of the plays in this collection seem dated, but they are still interesting reading. There are several I would enjoy seeing performed, though they tend a bit toward talky and at times pretentious. In places they are rendered slightly difficult to read by the extreme dialect, and the use of Irish words for ordinary things, though the editors do take pity on the non-Irish reader and explain Irish phrases in footnotes. Particularly good works include Synge's Dierdre of the Sorrows (though it is extremely difficult to suspend disbelief in this piece) and O'Connor's In the Train, a short piece that presents a fascinating character study. The English are gleefully lampooned as oblivious aristocrats; the Irish are poor, but plucky and with a worldly wisdom. The collection includes a great deal of nationalism and pride of lineage, and in places poverty is a bit romanticized. Still, an enjoyable collection.

Although I don't recall which college class I had to buy this book for, I remember it being one of the most helpful aids in writing, particularly in the numerous history and theory classes I took. Now on its 11th edition (and nearly twice as long), Barnet's boom is an excellent primer on asking the right questions, all toward appreciating, understanding, and critiquing art, be it paintings, sculptures, photographs, or architecture. A couple decades later, the architecture advice is pretty conservative, focused solely on formal analysis, but perhaps the scope has broadened in subsequent editions to encompass broader, contemporary concerns. That said, the book best serves students by giving them a foundation of how to look at art and then how to tackle writing about it.½

Includes tragedies by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Pirandello, Williams; comedies by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Moliere, Shaw, Wilder.

Couldn't stand Aristophanes.
Macchievelli is predictably amoral.
At this point, I am beginning to think that perhaps, comedy does not stand the test of time the way tregedy does.
Bad things are pretty universal.
But things that society finds funny change so wildly. "The Mandragora" is a play basically about a guy who wants to rape someone. I wasn't amused.

Just like the masks of drama feature the mask of comedy, so does it feature the mask of tragedy. Barnet et al. returns with another collection of eight plays, this time they're not all about happy endings. In fact, they aren't about that at all. They're tragedies.

These plays are accompanied by critical essays, much like in Eight Great Comedies, and it allows for a deeper appreciation of the work at hand.

Sure to be appreciated by fans of classic drama, as well as those looking for something new in something old.

Featuring a collection of eight comedies across the ages and from different countries, Sylvan Barnet et al manage to give a broad overview of the dramatic category, whetting the appetite, making the reader want more.

From Aristophanes to Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, this collection of classical comedies will not always make you laugh, but the will most certainly make you appreciate the dramatic craft just a bit more.

With essays by noted experts preceding the works, this book is as much entertainment as it is critical analysis. Sure to please both fans of drama as well as drama critique.

The book contains many classic bits of short fiction, like "A Rose for Emily", "The Cask of Amontillado"; lyric and narrative poetry, "My Last Duchess", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"; and so much more content. They're arranged in groups that display some common characteristic; there is a group of poems that deal with metaphor, another with personification and simile. Many of these works are those I remember from school and still love. (Yes, I'm a word nerd, and proud of it!) I forsee many hours of perusal and enjoyment from this found treasure.

While some of the other plays are better known, I rated this 5
stars for Lady Gregory's The Canavans, one of the funniest plays I have ever read; it is especially funny if the reader has prepared by reading Edmund Spenser and other Elizabethans
in their glorification of Gloriana's conquest of Ireland.

A Short Guide to Writing about Literature provides students with a thorough reference of how to read, ask questions of, and write about literary texts which they will read in higher education courses. This critical approach to reading and thinking about literature enables them to interpret and analyze literature using current critical approaches, and it then provides them with suggestions on how to write about literature.

The book is divided into four parts and concludes with several appendixes. Please note that some of the chapters have changed since the previous edition; they have been updated to reflect the changing landscape of writing about literature; for example, Chapter 15 now contains an entirely new section on finding, using, and citing electronic resources. Here, then, is an overview of what to expect of the ninth edition of Short Guide to Writing about Literature:

Part I, "The Writer as Reader: Reading and Responding," emphasizes the connection between reading and writing. Chapter 1 focuses on reading a text and responding to it while Chapter 2 covers the process of writing from brainstorming to drafting, revising, and editing. Chapter 3 examines two commonly assigned types of writing—explication and analysis—with an emphasis on evaluating which type is used in a text. Concluding this part, Chapter 4 concentrates on various ways to write about literature, such as summary, paraphrase, parody, and review.

Part II, "Standing Back," looks at definitions of literature and how we, as scholars of literature, interpret these definitions. Chapter 5 explores how our culture defines and categorizes "literature." Chapter 6 considers interpretation and the sources of meaning in a particular work. Chapter 7 focuses on the critical standards we use to analyze literature, and Chapter 8 provides an overview of the critical approaches scholars employ when evaluating literature.

Part III, "Up Close: Thinking Critically about Literary Forms," introduces students to various genres of literature and suggests how to approach writing about them. Chapters 9 through 12 provide students with suggestions for responding to essays, fiction, drama, and poetry. This section includes several sample essays that illustrate effective examples of genre-specific writing.

Part IV, "Inside: Style, Format, and Special Assignments," examines structural elements of writing. Chapter 13 introduces the main principles of style, such as writing accurately, coherently, and emphatically. Chapter 14 demonstrates the crucial steps necessary in writing a research paper, and Chapter 15 presents new approaches to the research paper, including literature, history, and the Web.

The two appendixes include two short stories which served as the subjects of student essays, and a guide to print and electronic resources. Also, there are two indexes: one of authors, titles, and first lines of poems; and the other of literary terms.

This text will enrich students’ perspectives on literature and, ultimately, the way they approach writing about literature.

(Ideal as a supplement to any course where writing about literature or literary studies is emphasized.)

Features

Provides the apparatus, background, and critical help needed when writing about literature.
Part 1 contains 4 chapters emphasizing the close connection between reading and writing.
Part 2 contain four chapters on thinking critically about literature.
Part 3 contains four chapters about fiction, drama, and poetry.
TECHNOLOGY ADVANTAGE: Part 4 covers Style and Format, the research paper, and electronic sources.
Three appendixes include two stories that are the subject of student essays in the book, additional information on print and electronic resources, and a glossary of literary terms.
Throughout the book are numerous examples of preliminary notes, drafts, and revisions of drafts.
Lists of questions students can ask themselves about a given literary work.
Checklists to assist in evaluating drafts.