Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama/Includes 1995 Mla Guidlines

For introductory courses in Literature Literature, in the widest sense, is just about anything written. It is even what you receive in the mail if you send for free information about a weight-reducing plan or a motorcycle. In the sense that matters to us in this book, literature is a kind of art, usually written, which offers pleasure and illumination. We say it is usually written, for we have an oral literature, too. Few would deny the name of literature to “Bonny Barbara Allan” and other immortal folk ballads, though they were not set down in writing until centuries after they were originated. Literature—the book in your hands—is really three books sharing one cover. Its opening third contains the whole of the text-anthology An Introduction to Fiction, Sixth Edition; its middle third, the whole of An Introduction to Poetry, Eighth Edition; and its closing third is composed of a text-anthology of drama that includes fifteen plays. All together, the book is an attempt to provide the college student with a reasonably compact introduction to the study and appreciation of stories, poems, and plays.