CHAPTER 2

READING AND ANALYZING SELECTED ENGLISH LITERARY WORKS

LEARNING OUTCOMES
 Read and analyzed selected English poetry and prose;
 Applied literary theories in analyzing literary works; and
 Arranged narrative events according to a story’s plot.

OVERVIEW
Most English literary genres that influence the world are poetry and drama. However,
novelists and authors of short stories were also born in the later part of its literary development,
which showed gradual prose popularity. In this chapter, we will be particular on reading,
studying and analyzing selected literary works of English authors.

CONTENT FRAMING
 Studying literary works requires different approaches on how the students deal with a
literature-related subject. Common OBE assessment methods involve the students’
performance in either creative writing or actual process-based and output-based results.
 Here, we will involve literary analysis as we will undertake a few of the notable works of
English authors and consider the following terms below:
1. Literary theory
 These are a body of ideas and methods used in the practical reading of literature.
 It does not refer to the meaning of the literary work but how it reveals what the work
means.
 It is a tool in describing the underlying principles by which we understand literature.
Here are some of its approaches:
 Reader-Response focuses on each reader’s personal reactions to a text,
assuming meaning is created by a reader’s or interpretive community’s personal
interaction with a text. Assumes no single, correct, universal meaning exists
because meaning resides in the minds of readers.
 Questions involved are: How does the text make you feel? What memories or
experiences come to mind when you read? If you were the central protagonist,
would you have behaved differently? Why? What values or ethics do you believe
are suggested by the story? As your reading of a text progresses, what surprises
you, inspires you?

Other Literary
Focus Criticism Characteristics
Approach
Literary Traditional 1. Tracks influence, literary period, clarifying historical context
biography and Literary Criticism 2. Tracks allusion within the text.
history
Literary form Formalism 1. Placed great importance on the literariness of texts;
and devices (Russian) 2. Distinguishes qualities from other writings;
3. Neither author nor context was essential.
4. A plot device or narrative strategy was examined for how it
functioned and compared to how it had functioned in other
literary works.
Objective New Criticism 1. Viewed literature as an independent object independent of
evaluation of (American) historical context;
text 2. Focused with metaphysical poets and poetry;
3. Confines itself to careful scrutiny of the text alone and the
formal structures of paradox, ambiguity, irony, and metaphor,
among others;
4. In college classrooms, the verbal texture of the poem on the
page remains a primary object of literary study
Concerns to Marxism 1. Representation of class conflict and distinction;
social and 2. Sympathetic to the working classes and authors whose work
political challenges economic equalities found in capitalist societies;
meanings of 3. A Marxist critic typically undertakes to "explain" the literature
literature in any era by revealing the economic, class, and ideological

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 determinants of how an author writes and examines the relation
of the text to the social reality of that time and place.
Focuses on Psychoanalytical 1. It deals with a work of literature primarily as an expression, in
psychological fictional form, of the personality, state of mind, feelings, and
dimensions of desires of its author;
the work 2. psychoanalytic critics assume that a work of literature is
correlated with its author's mental traits.
Focuses on Archetypal 1. Archetypes are identifiable narrative designs, character
identifying the Criticism types, or images that are identifiable in a wide variety of literary
underlying works;
myths in 2. These reflect what the psychologist Carl Jung called the
stories and “collective unconsciousness”.
archetypes 3. Examples are a death-rebirth theme, paradise-Hades image.
Sets objective Structuralism 1. An extension of Formalism;
criteria for 2. Relied upon Saussure’s signifier (words, marks and symbols)
analysis and signified (concept);
3. Meaning is constituted by a system of differences between
units of language;
4. It is a metalanguage, a language of languages used to
decode actual languages or systems of signification.
Focuses that Poststructuralism 1. Along with Structuralism, it views literature as a system of
literature has signs yet rejects the Structuralist view that a critic can identify
no center, no the inherent meaning of a text;
single 2. It is known by the term “deconstruction”;
interpretation 3. Calls into question the possibility of the coherence of
and that discourse, or the capacity for language to communicate;
literary 3. Its areas of inquiry are reader-response (reception theory in
language is America), Semiotic theory (related to structuralism), and
inherently Gender theory;
ambiguous. 4. If signifier and signified are cultural context, reference to
observable reality is no longer guaranteed by language;
5. No fixed or stable meaning is possible;
6. “The reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is
simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the
traces by which the written text is constituted.

Focuses on New Historicism 1. Both "New Historicism" and "Cultural Materialism" seek to
understanding (America) and understand literary texts historically and reject the formalizing
texts by Cultural influence of previous literary studies, including "New Criticism,"
viewing texts Materialism "Structuralism," and "Deconstruction," all of which in varying
in the context (Britain) ways privilege the literary text and place only secondary
of other texts. emphasis on historical and social context.
2. According to “New Historicism,” the circulation of literary and
non-literary texts produces relations of social power within a
culture;
3. Texts are examined with an eye for revealing the economic
and social realities, especially as they produce ideology and
represent power or subversion.
Racial Ethnic Studies 1. Seek an understanding of how that double experience both
oppression (Minority Studies) creates identity and reveals itself in culture.
and Postcolonial 2. Ethnic and minority literary theory emphasizes the
Criticism relationship of cultural identity to individual identity in historical
circumstances of overt racial oppression;
3. “Postcolonial Criticism” pursues not merely the inclusion of
the marginalized literature of colonial peoples into the dominant
canon and discourse;
4. Postcolonial Criticism” offers a fundamental critique of the
ideology of colonial domination and at the same time seeks to
undo the “imaginative geography” of Orientalist (generally
regarded as having inaugurated the field of explicitly
“Postcolonial Criticism” in the West) thought that produced
conceptual as well as economic divides between West and
East, civilized and uncivilized, First and Third Worlds.
Gender Gender Studies 1. Gender theory came to the forefront of the theoretical scene
and Queer Theory first as a feminist theory but has subsequently come to include
the investigation of all gender and sexual categories and
identities;
2. Political feminism of the so-called “second wave” had as its

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 emphasis practical concerns with the rights of women in
contemporary societies, women’s identity, and the
representation of women in media and culture;
3. “Queer theory” questions the fixed categories of sexual
identity and the cognitive paradigms generated by normative
(that is, what is considered “normal”) sexual ideology.

ASSESSMENT (Activity #4)

I. Sequencing Events. Identify the order of the following events according to how it is told in
the story. Write only the number of your answer in the provided space below the title.

A. The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

Answer:
1. A little swallow, who had descended between the feet of the Happy Prince, spend the night there.
2. The swallow plucked out one of the ruby eyes and delivered it to the boy in the garret.
3. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and
grey.
4. The Happy Prince also found out that a girl is getting beaten when she does not bring home
money.
5. The swallow told the happy prince about marvelous things, but the prince insisted on letting the
swallow fly away to find out more misery.
6. There was a statue of a prince who was always happy when he was alive.
7. The Prince became blind.
8. The Prince shared his past life and his happy living and how it differed from the people living in a
miserable life.
9. The leaden heard of the statue snapped when the swallow fell dead at his feet.
10. The swallow decided to stay for one night and was convinced to do the favor of the Prince.

B. The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells

Answer:
1. On trying to follow, the narrator leaps into utter darkness and finds himself back on Regent Street;
Gip is standing close by, with four parcels in his arms.
2. Gib pointed alluring things he saw on the Magic Shop, and his father and he went inside.
3. The narrator decided to buy the box of toy soldiers.
4. Gip was undamaged nor scared when they came out from the shop.
5. The narrator caught up with Gip and the shopman, who was about to perform a final trick.
6. Gib was shown many other wonders, including a magic toy sword that renders the bearer
invincible in battle.
7. The shop was nowhere to be found.
8. The shopman performed a trick on a glass ball and gave it free to Gib.
9. Gip was standing on a small stool, and the assistant covered him with a big drum; when the drum
is removed, Gip has vanished.
10. The father was distracted by another assistant who is idly changing his nose's shape and size.

C. The Signal-man by Charles Dickens

Answer:
1. The reason he was unfriendly when the narrator first appeared, and the reason he thought they’d
met before, is that the narrator’s greeting (“Halloa! Below there!”) yesterday was identical to the
greeting of a ghost who visited the signalman months before.
2. Half a year later, the ghost appeared at the red light again, this time silently covering its face.
Then, the next day, a young woman collapsed and died on a passing train.
3. The narrator wonders why the signalman is so well educated, and the signalman explains that he
was once a natural philosophy student but squandered his professional opportunities.
4. Moments before the crash, the engine-driver, Tom,s had yelled at the signalman, “Below there!”
and “For God’s sake, clear the way!”
5. However, the signalman also seems distracted, twice looking to the red light even when no trains
are there. The signalman tells the narrator that if he comes back the next night, he’ll explain why.
6. The signalman told the narrator that he telegraphed an alarm to other stations but replied that
nothing was wrong. But just six hours after the haunting, there was a fatal rail crash.
7. After leaving the signalman, the narrator decided that he’ll offer to bring him to a doctor the
following evening “for the public safety.”
8. Because he’s newly interested in the railroad industry, the narrator questions the signalman about
his job, but the signalman seems frightened—he believes he’s met the narrator before, which the
narrator denies.

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9. At a rail station, an unnamed narrator cheerfully greets a train signalman by yelling down to him,
“Halloa! Below there!”
10. The signalman isn’t wanted the narrator to help him figure out what the hauntings mean,
particularly because a third accident will surely occur.

D. The New Dress by Virginia Woolf

Answer:
1. Mabel thought of how she came from an unremarkable family.
2. As Mabel Waring arrives at Clarissa Dalloway’s party, she is filled with feelings of inadequacy and
inferiority. These feelings are set off by worries that her new dress is not appropriate for the
occasion.
3. Mabel still thought that what Robert Haydon told her was a lie.
4. Before she goes, she approaches Mrs. Dalloway, assuring the hostess that she enjoyed herself at
the party.
5. She was thinking out loud about her dream marriage.
6. She meant and tried to make herself think that it was the picture that was old-fashioned and not
her dress.
7. She saw herself as a fly.
8. She was planning on where and what she would do the following day.
9. She stood up from where she was sitting alone and waved to Charles and Rose.
10. Rose Shaw, a stylishly dressed fellow partygoer, approaches Mabel and tells her the dress is
perfectly charming, but Mabel is sure she is being mocked.

E. The Dead by James Joyce

Answer:
1. Gabriel steered a drunken Freddy toward the drawing-room to get help from Mr. Browne, who
attempts to sober Freddy up.
2. Just before dinner, Aunt Julia sings a song for the guests. Miss Ivors makes her exit to the
surprise of Mary Jane and Gretta and the relief of Gabriel.
3. Gabriel is enamored with and preoccupied with his wife's mysterious mood and recalls their
courtship as they walk from the house and catch a cab into the hot.
4. The couple Gabriel and Gretta arrived late at the annual dance and dinner party held by Gabriel’s
aunt and cousin.
5. The party continues with a piano performance by Mary Jane. More dancing follows, which finds
Gabriel paired up with Miss Ivors, a fellow university instructor.
6. Gabriel realizes that Gretta stands transfixed by the song that Mr. Bartell D'Arcy sings in the
drawing-room.
7. Gabriel with Gretta and his aunts were having a good talk about galoshes and their children when
Freddie arrived drunk.
8.  Gabriel recounts a story about his grandfather and his horse, which forever walked in circles even
when taken out of the mill where it worked.
9. Gretta recounts this boy's sad story, Michael Furey, who died after waiting outside of her window
in the cold.
10. After much fussing, everyone eats, and finally, Gabriel delivers his speech, in which he praises
Kate, Julia, and Mary Jane for their hospitality.

II. Identify what specific type of poetry is the following poems (to be given online due to their
length).

ASSESSMENT (Activity #5) Literary Analysis

A. Do the task below.
With a group of three members (I will assign who are your groupmates), you are
assigned to analyze one poetry/drama and one short story/novel to apply a specific
theory. You may choose from the selected stories or poetry sent online. Do not forget to
submit the summary of your chosen prose.

Format: (by component)

I. A. Title and Author:
B. Identified Elements: (You mention and describe here the elements of your chosen
literary work)
1. Theme: The main ideas or messages of the work—usually abstract ideas about
people, society, or life in general. A work may have many themes, which may be in tension
with one another.

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 2. Setting: When and where the work takes place. Elements of setting include location,
time period, time of day, weather, social atmosphere, and economic conditions.
3. Characters: The people who act and are acted upon in a literary work. The main
character of a work is known as the protagonist.
4. Plot: All of the events and actions of the work.
5. Conflict: The central tension in work. In most cases, the protagonist wants
something, while opposing forces (antagonists) hinder the protagonist's progress.
C. Identified Style: (These are the “hows” – how the characters speak, how the story is
constructed, and how language is used throughout the work.) If you have chosen poetry
over drama, omit the “Identified Elements” part and proceed to this section already.
Note: It is unnecessary to include element or style that is not found from the literary
work.
1. Structure and organization
How the parts of the work are assembled. Some novels are narrated in a linear,
chronological fashion, while others skip around in time. Some plays follow a traditional
three-or five-act structure, while others are a series of loosely connected scenes. Some
authors deliberately leave gaps in their works, leaving readers to puzzle out the missing
information. A work’s structure and organization can tell you a lot about the kind of
message it wants to convey.
2. Point of view
The perspective from which a story is told. From the first-person point of view, the
narrator involves him or herself in the story. ("I went to the store"; "We watched in horror
as the bird slammed into the window.") A first-person narrator is usually the protagonist
of the work, but not always. From the third-person point of view, the narrator does not
participate in the story. A third-person narrator may closely follow a specific character,
recounting that individual character's thoughts or experiences, or it may be what we call
an omniscient narrator. Omniscient narrators see and know all: they can witness any
event at any time or place and are privy to all characters' inner thoughts and feelings.
Remember that the narrator and the author are not the same things!
3. Diction
Word choice. Whether a character uses dry, clinical language or flowery prose with lots
of exclamation points can tell you a lot about his or her attitude and personality.
4. Syntax
Word order and sentence construction. The syntax is a crucial part of establishing an
author's narrative voice. Ernest Hemingway, for example, is known for writing in very
short, straightforward sentences, while James Joyce characteristically wrote in long,
incredibly complicated lines.
5. Tone
The mood or feeling of the text. Diction and syntax often contribute to the tone of a work.
A novel written in short, clipped sentences that use small, simple words might feel
abrupt, cold, or matter-of-fact.
6. Imagery
A language that appeals to the senses, representing things that can be seen, smelled,
heard, tasted, or touched.
7. Figurative language
The language is not meant to be interpreted literally. The most common types of
figurative language are metaphors and similes, which compare two, unlike things to
suggest a similarity between them— for example, "All the world's a stage," or "The moon
is like a ball of green cheese." (Metaphors say one thing is another thing; similes claim
that one thing is like another thing.)

Title of the analysis

(applies the theory and selects only one aspect either from the element or style
For example, Formalistic analysis of the imagery in the poem “All Things Bright
and Beautiful”)

II. Thesis statement - The thesis statement is clear, and each point in the essay relates to it.
Since literary critiques are arguments, you are expected to state your claim.
 Focus on specific attribute(s)/ element or style mentioned in the previous part.
 Make a specific, arguable point (thesis) about these attributes.
EXAMPLES:

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  "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman is a sad story of the repression that women
face in the days of the late 1800s and being representative of the turmoil that women
face today. [Critique of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Brandi Mahon]

 Gwendolyn Brooks’ 1960 poem "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed" demonstrates how the
poet uses the ballad's conventional poetic form to treat the unconventional poetic subject
of racial intolerance.
 The fate of the main characters in Antigone illustrates the danger of excessive pride.
 The imagery in Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill” reveals the ambiguity of humans‟
relationship with nature.

III. Supporting evidence - The details from the text, including quotes and specific examples,
help prove the thesis. Defend this point with reasons and evidence drawn from the text and
secondary sources. You may also research the opinion of other critics to support your thesis. Of
course, do not forget to cite them. Write this part through the use of CAPITAL LETTERS (5-10
shreds of evidence are required).

IV. Strong conclusion – It restates the thesis and uses parallel structure to give the essay a
sense of importance and finality.

V. References: This part is optional. If there are any, apply APA style.

Web Sources:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-britlit1/chapter/literary-criticism/
https://www.sparknotes.com/writinghelp/how-to-write-literary-analysis/
https://englishkipathshala.wordpress.com/the-revival-of-learning-1400-1550/#:~:text=Schools
%20and%20universities%20were%20established,The%20Revival%20of%20Learning.&text=So
%20the%20mind%20was%20furnished%20with%20ideas%20for%20a%20new%20literature.
https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/arts/english-lit/20th-century-plus/english-
literature/
https://www.supersummary.com/the-new-dress/summary/
https://libguides.uta.edu/literarycriticism/steps
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/example-of-an-insightful-literary-analysis-
essay.html
https://www.sparknotes.com/writinghelp/how-to-write-literary-analysis/

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