Why We Read: An Introduction to Studying Literature

Why We Read—Jessica Barnes-Pietruszynski

Fiction
Sonny’s Blues James Baldwin
Barn Burning—report has fee quote William Faulkner
Recitatif Toni Morrison
A Pair of Tickets Amy Tan
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Story of an Hour Kate Chopin
Hills like White Elephants Ernest Hemingway
The Yellow Wall-paper Charlotte Perkins Stetson
A Jury of Her Peers Susan Glaspell
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Ambrose Bierce
The Jewelry Guy de Maupassant and Roger Colet

Poetry
We Real Cool Gwendolyn Brooks
The Changeling Judith Ortiz Cofer
Daystar Rita Dove
The Flea John Donne
Africa Maya Angelou
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers Adrienne Rich
Postcard from Kashmir Agha Shahid Ali
Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden
Do not go Gentle into that Good Night Dylan Thomas
I, Too Lanston Hughes
Daddy Sylvia Plath
On Being brought from Africa to America (1773) Phillis Wheatley
She Dwelt among the untrodden ways William Wordsworth
Song of Myself Walt Whitman
To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell
Easter Wings George Herbert
My Mistress eyes are nothing like the sun William Shakespeare
Artist Studio Christina Rossetti
My Last Duchess Robert Browning
Kubla Khan Samuel Coleridge Taylor
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S Elliot
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost
Ode on a Grecian Urn (1820) Keats
The Raven Edgar Allen Poe
My Papa’s Waltz Theodore Roethke
Because I could not stop for Death Emily Dickinson
To My Dear and Loving Husband Anne Bradstreet

Drama
Angels in America Tony Kushner
The Crucible Arthur Miller
Fences August Wilson
Antigone Sophocles
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
Twelfth Night William Shakespeare
The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde