The Sweet Sting of Love

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or What You Will is a comical story full of love, foolery, and pain all at the same time. It ends with three weddings; a happy note for most characters. However, for some the end is not so joyous. Malvolio, a character who has been unlawfully deceived, swears his revenge at the end of the story. Why do you think Shakespeare made this comedy end so badly for this character? Twelfth Night demonstrates that love can cause pain and suffering. Malvolio's unhappy ending demonstrates this as well as Antonio's situation in the end. Orsino mopes around for most of the play longing for the woman he loves, causing him to realize in the end that he is a fool. How else does Shakespeare demonstrate through this play the idea that love can not only cause happiness, but also pain and suffering? Why else might Shakespeare have ended this play on a happy note for some and an unhappy note for others? What other themes can you find in Twelfth Night and where do they apply in the story?

"If Music be the Food of Love, Play on"

Reflecting on our latest English project, I wanted to use this blog to discuss the role music has in literature, our culture, and the world. In class, we put music to act 2 in Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night and What You Will to gain a deeper understanding of what was occurring in the scene. The music we chose was able to influence the emotions each person felt. The scene could be perceived differently depending on the genre that was chosen. The same goes for music with movies, plays, television shows, and even novels. Music surrounds our lives and I want to know why you think it is so influential in everyday lives. People link memories to certain songs and choose songs that are special to them. Is music a way to express what a person is feeling when they do not have the words? Why does music compliment literature so well? Why does Shakespeare reference music to love?

Credit Or No Credit

Different situations and events influence the stories that authors write. Our lives play the most influence on the way we act and what we do. Movies are often based on real events and stories. We often say that many of our stories are derived from Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare based his plays on the outside world just like other authors. Do you think that Shakespeare deserves the credit for these great stories considering they were derived from other stories and myths? What did Shakespeare do to gain the amount of fame he has today? What sets Shakespeare apart? Should any one person be responsible for so many of these great works such as Romeo & Juliet and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar?

Shakespeare

He is one of the most revered authors of all time. He has written many, many plays and poems. Other than the fact of his vocabulary, why do we keep his plays in Elizabethan English? Why are the plays not translated for easier reading? Wouldn't his words still be as impressive, or even more so, if they were easily understandable? I enjoy Shakespeare's works now, after having several years to get acquainted with this language. But as a senior in high school, I still struggle with the rhythm and beat of the words. His extensive vocabulary causes my brain to run circles around it’s self, and his puns and other subtle jokes still remain elusive to me. It is only with very careful reading that I gain even a fraction of his meaning. Of course with Shakespeare, you could analyze his plays forever and make new finds each time. So my real question is why is Shakespeare not translated so we can better understand his impressive plays and poems? Other than the preservation of the great works, what reason is there that his plays still remain on a difficult level with high school and college students?

Rebellion and Revolution

There will always be rebels in society, no matter how perfect it seems. There will always be a few individuals that want to create chaos or disobey the rules of society. Ofglen and her organization, for example. Or the Commander and his deliberate disobedience of the rules of Gilead by having Offred with him, creating a relationship with her, and by keeping forbidden objects. Ofglen and her organization want to overthrow Gilead, to create a good life for everyone. The Commander only does it for personal gain. Do you think the Commander does it for only his gain, or for the Handmaids that he sees as well? He does get them almost anything they want, and he gives them presents, usually things forbidden to them such as magazines and lotion, in Offred's case. Do you think that he would care if Offred was shipped to another house, or do you think he would do the same with the next Handmaid? Do you think that he genuinely cares for Offred? Ofglen's organization is very underground. Do you think that there are participants in all occupations in Gilead? Also, if you were a part of the society, and you were indoctrinated just as the rest of the country, would you rebel, or would you follow all of the rules?

Pressures of Life

Pressure. There is so much pressure people live under throughout their lives. Pressure of appearance, pressure of peers, pressure of family, pressure to succeed. How can one work under such compression? Does it push them to work harder? Or does it simply create a mind trick that makes it near impossible to accomplish the tasks at hand? In The Handmaid's Tale, the handmaids have a constant pressure to conceive. That is their one job and if they are unable to accomplish this, they have the threat of becoming Unwomen. Does the stress from the pressure make it more difficult for them to conceive? On the other hand, if they did not have the threat would the job get done that way either? Pressure comes from control. It is a natural human thing to have a need for control. We want to control everything from our appearance to the way people act around us. Gilead controls its women because they want them to behave exactly how they wish. Control forces a lot of pressure which in turn could cause either fear or rebellion. Either way, it is not a healthy society. Power is faced everyday and pressure makes it hard to move around and be flexible. What ways do you see the women of Gilead cracking under the pressure?

Gilead: A Logical Conclusion

In an interview with Margaret Atwood about her book, The Handmaid's Tale, she explains that "This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions. For example, I explore a number of conservative opinions still held by many - such as a woman's place in the home. And also certain feminist pronouncements - women prefer the company of other women, for example. Take these beliefs to their logical ends and see what happens." In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood demonstrates what could happen if the generalizations, stereotypes, and opinions of women in the past and present society were applied to the future society at an ultimate extreme. By writing about this in her book, do you think that she was demonstrating a point about the corruption of today's society? What might some other issues be that Atwood addresses in The Handmaid's Tale? What are other casually held areas and issues in today's society that, if blown extremely out of proportion, could create an oppressed and heavily controlled society like Gilead? What might that society look like?

In our society, we view women and men have specific duties that they perform. These duties have changed and developed over the years. In the early years, women were thought to only be in the kitchen and at home with the children while men were supposed to go to work and provide for his family. Now, women are able to have the same jobs that men can have while it is acceptable for a man to stay at home with his children. But, there are still very drastic views about men and women. For instance, a man can sleep with a lot of women and be considered "lucky" and a "stud." If a women were to sleep with a lot of men, she would be considered a "slut" and "loose." Are these generalizations correct? What other unfair comparisons do you notice in todays society? What gender rules are implied in The Handmaid's Tale?

Rights

Over the years, the roles of women have significantly changed. On June 4th of 1920, women were given the right to vote in the United States. Throughout history, men have had more rights than women. In the Handmaid's Tale, women have very specific roles in society. They have very few rights in this futuristic society. Rights are a main reason that people immigrate to our country. We often take our rights for granted. We all have gained rights in our country over the years. How have the roles of women changed over the years? What has caused these changes? Do we take these rights for granted? Do you think that citizen's of other countries enjoy the rights that we do? How do you predict that our rights will change in the future of our country?

October Outside Reading Selections

Well, here are your choices for your next outside reading project for AP English Literature and Composition.  In conjunction with our study of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, I would like you to select another celebrated work of dystopian fiction for the month of October.  Please choose one of the following (which you haven’t previously read) as your text:

1984 by George Orwell

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Brave New World  by Aldous Huxley

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  by Ken Kesey

Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut 

 

If you have difficulty locating a text, I have copies of many.  Enjoy!!! (Seriously, they're great books.)

 

A Satirical View

We all know that the satire in "A Modest Proposal' by Jonathan Swift is meant to shock the reader. He uses this strategy so that his other proposal now seem much more reasonable and productive. It is also used as a wake up call for all the people. The outrageous makes them shy away form even the idea of eating babies, so they start to think of any other solution that this extreme. What other ways does Swift use to illustrate the problem in his Modest Proposal? We are all writing a satirical piece for this class, so how is this satire useful? How is it detrimental? What causes it to be so effective, and what are the dangers of it being effective? Authors use satire to make a point. Is there easier ways to get their point across? Sure! Then way use satire and run the risk of others not understanding that it is indeed satire?

Satire is a criticism of politics, movies, literature, etc. through exaggeration, reversal, incongruity, and parody. Satires have become so popular that movies and literature have created their own separate group for satires. An example of a satire is "Too Late to Apologize a Declaration." This song takes the original "Too Late to Apologize" and parodies it. They uses the chorus and the beat, but change the lyrics to follow that course of making the Declaration of Independence. This satire was addressing the issue of the Declaration. Do you think that all satires have an underling meaning of politics, or do they occasionally have a mocking underline? Are satires informational? Are there any modern satires that deal with our political issues today? Do you think that all satire are sociable acceptable, or do you think that some satires should be banned?

The Death Penalty Then and Now

During the period when "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is set, the death penalty was largely by hanging, as it is used in the story, with some by firing squad. Now, only a few states allow hanging as a death penalty, Idaho being one, while more states prefer to use lethal injection, firing squads, or the electric chair. Why do you think that death by hanging has declined in popularity over the years? Do you think that governments prefer to keep death penalties more secretive instead of stringing someone up out in the open? The media already has coverage of it and will cover it anyway, so why keep it secretive anyway? What do you feel is an appropriate way to carry out the death sentence? Or do you agree with it?

Books vs. Movies

So, in our discussions on "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," we have brought up the fact that there are movie adaptions of this short story. Books and pieces of writing are often transformed into motion media. Does our society respect this, or is it offended when good books are mounted on motion picture? Often times, movies adapted from books are frowned upon because they did not do the book justice by some opinion. Many people become harsh critics when it comes to movie adaptions. They read amazing stories, their minds and hearts invested into the souls of the tales. When a movie comes out, they become so excited to see their favorite story come to life, but then they often leave disappointed. Sometimes this is because they had pictured it differently in their head, or the movie strayed too much from the plot of the book. Something to realize is that the mechanism of books varies immensely compared to the way a movie works. Directors must broaden the story so that all audience members, even the ones who have not read the book, can understand. A book and a movie are two completely different works, even if they are based off of the same story. Finding the differences between books and movies can even be a great literary exercise. Foster would be proud to see people connecting the dots to discover that this book over here is not exactly the same as its movie. What are some other thoughts about books versus their movies? Do you think that books should be transformed into movies? It is pointless to make a movie out of a book? Is it simply to make more money on popular stories? 

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

If you had any trouble finding the short story you are supposed to read over the weekend ("An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce), here is a link to it  on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/375/375-h/375-h.htm.

Don't forget to journal anything you see from How to Read Lit. in the story.  Enjoy.

Go Quest, Young Man (or Woman!)

Well, that was quite the power outage, eh?  I was about to post this when the power went out and just finally got internet back now.  Fortunately, the website saved it, though, so I didn't have to retype the whole post.

For our first blog post of the semester, I would like to keep pursuing the idea of place and its influence on identity and bring in the first chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor.  I want you to discuss a "quest" of your own, an instance when you gained self-knowledge during some sort of trip.  Remember the criteria that Foster establishes for a quest: a quester (ie. you), a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, the real reason to go there.

For example, this summer, as I mentioned in class, I took my family on a trip through the Pacific Northwest in our orange Volkswagen van.  A word of disclaimer: Whenever one goes on a long trip with three kids and a 30-year-old Volkswagen bus, one is guaranteed challenges and trials.  That said, the main reason my wife and I wanted to go was to take our children to the ocean, which they had never experienced - quester(s), place to go, stated reason to go there, check.  A couple challenges and trials that we faced were living and sleeping in the van for three weeks without much space or "alone time" and finding places to camp/sleep for the night. These, of course, added to the adventure and allowed us to see and experience many places that we otherwise would not have, while contributing to the "real" reason to go there: I realized on the trip that there are few people I would want to be in that close of proximity with for that long, and even fewer who would put up with me.  And that is what we call self-knowledge.

Okay, questers, your turn.  If you can include a picture of where you went on your trip, that would be a bonus.  Here is one of us near Forks and La Push, Washington, where much of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series takes place (neither a stated nor a real reason to go there, but an interesting discovery we made along the way and which should provide a nice segue to chapter 3 on vampires). :)

AP Reading List

Okay crew, here it is, the list of suggested works for the AP Literature and Composition free response question since 1971, which will serve as our outside reading master list:

Updated from an original list by Norma J. Wilkerson.

Works referred to on the AP Literature exams since 1971 (specific years in parentheses)

A

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner (76, 00, 10, 12)

Adam Bede by George Eliot (06)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (80, 82, 85, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 05, 06, 07, 08,11)

The Aeneid by Virgil (06)

Agnes of God by John Pielmeier (00)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (97, 02, 03, 08, 12)

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (00, 04, 08)

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (00, 02, 04, 07, 08, 09, 11)

All My Sons by Arthur Miller (85, 90)

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (95, 96, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11)

America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan (95)

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (81, 82, 95, 03)

American Pastoral by Philip Roth (09)

The American by Henry James (05, 07, 10)

Angels in America by Tony Kushner (09)

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (10)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (80, 91, 99, 03, 04, 06, 08, 09)

Another Country by James Baldwin (95, 10, 12)

Antigone by Sophocles (79, 80, 90, 94, 99, 03, 05, 09, 11)

Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (80, 91)

Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (94)

Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (76)

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (78, 89, 90, 94, 01, 04, 06, 07, 09)

As You Like It by William Shakespeare (92 05, 06, 10)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (07, 11)

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (02, 05)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 02, 04, 07, 09, 11)

B

Beloved by Toni Morrison (90, 99, 01, 03, 05, 07, 09, 10, 11)

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul (03)

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (89)

Billy Budd by Herman Melville (79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 99, 02, 04, 05, 07, 08)

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (89, 97)

Black Boy by Richard Wright (06, 08)

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (94, 00, 04, 09, 10)

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (94, 96, 97, 99, 04, 05, 06, 08)

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (07, 11)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (95, 08, 09)

Bone: A Novel by Fae M. Ng (03)

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan (06, 07, 11)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (89, 05, 09, 10)

Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh (12)

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (79)

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos (09)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevski (90, 08)

C

Candida by George Bernard Shaw (80)

Candide by Voltaire (80, 86, 87, 91, 95, 96, 04, 06, 10)

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (06)

The Caretaker by Harold Pinter (85)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (82, 85, 87, 89, 94, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 11)

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (01, 08, 11)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (00)

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (94, 08, 09)

The Centaur by John Updike (81)

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (94, 96, 97, 99, 01, 03, 05, 06, 07, 09, 12)

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (71, 77, 06, 07, 09, 10)

The Chosen by Chaim Potok (08)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (06, 08)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 05, 08, 09, 12)

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje (01)

Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (09)

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (10)

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (85, 87, 91, 95, 96, 07, 09)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski (76, 79, 80, 82, 88, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 09, 10, 11)

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (09)

The Crucible by Arthur Miller (71, 83, 86, 89, 04, 05, 09)

D

Daisy Miller by Henry James (97, 03, 12)

Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel (01)

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (78, 83, 06)

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (86)

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (86, 88, 94, 03, 04, 05, 07, 12)

Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty (97)

Desire under the Elms by Eugene O’Neill (81)

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler (97)

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (06)

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (95)

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (79, 86, 99, 04, 11)

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (10)

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (71, 83, 87, 88, 95, 05, 09)

The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnot (91)

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (01, 04, 06, 08)

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (03)

Dubliners by James Joyce (97)

Dutchman by Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (03, 06)

E

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (06)

Emma by Jane Austen (96, 08)

An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen (76, 80, 87, 99, 01, 07)

Equus by Peter Shaffer (92, 99, 00, 01, 08, 09)

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (80, 85, 03, 05, 06, 07)

The Eumenides by Aeschylus (in The Orestia) (96)

F

The Fall by Albert Camus (81)

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (99, 04, 09)

The Father by August Strindberg (01)

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (90)

Faust by Johann Goethe (02, 03)

Fences by August Wilson (02, 03, 05, 09, 10)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (03)

Fifth Business by Robertson Davis (00, 07)

The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (07)

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (03, 06)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (89, 00, 03, 06, 08)

A Free Life: A Novel by Ha Jin (10)

G

A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines (00, 11)

Germinal by Emile Zola (09)

A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee (04, 05)

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (00, 04)

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (71, 90, 94, 97, 99, 02, 08, 09, 10, 12)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (10, 11)

Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien (01, 06, 10)

The Golden Bowl by Henry James (09)

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford (00, 11)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (95, 03, 06, 09, 10, 11, 12)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (79, 80, 88, 89, 92, 95, 96, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 10, 12)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (82, 83, 88, 91, 92, 97, 00, 02, 04, 05, 07, 10)

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (83, 88, 90, 05, 09)

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (87, 89, 01, 04, 06, 09)

H

The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill (89, 0994, 97, 99, 00)

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (88, 94, 97, 99, 00)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (03, 09)

Hard Times by Charles Dickens (87, 90, 09)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (71, 76, 91, 94, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 06, 09, 10, 11, 12)

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (71)

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (79, 92, 00, 02, 03, 05)

Henry IV, Parts I and II by William Shakespeare (80, 90, 08)

Henry V by William Shakespeare (02)

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes (08)

The Homecoming by Harold Pinter (78, 90)

Home to Harlem by Claude McKay (10)

A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipul (10)

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (95, 06, 09)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (04, 07, 10)

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (89)

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (08, 10)

I

The Iliad by Homer (80)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (06)

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (10)

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien (00)

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (05)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12)

J

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (78, 79, 80, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 00, 05, 07, 08, 10)

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (99, 10)

J.B. by Archibald MacLeish (81, 94)

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson (00, 04)

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (97, 03)

Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding (99)

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (71, 76, 80, 85, 87, 95, 04, 09, 10)

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (82, 97, 05, 07, 09)

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 09)

K

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (08)

King Lear by William Shakespeare (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 08, 10, 11, 12)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (07, 08, 09)

L

Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde (09)

A Lesson before Dying by Ernest Gaines (99, 11)

Letters from an American Farmer by de Crevecoeur (76), 11)

The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (85, 90, 10)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (08)

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill (90, 03, 07)

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (10)

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (77, 78, 82, 86, 00, 03, 07)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (85, 08)

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (89)

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (95)

Lysistrata by Aristophanes (87)

M

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (83, 99, 03, 05, 09)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (80, 85, 04, 05, 06, 09, 10)

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane (12)

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (87, 09)

Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw (79, 96, 04, 07, 09, 11)

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (81)

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (03, 06)

Master Harold...and the Boys by Athol Fugard (03, 08, 09)

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (94, 99, 00, 02, 07, 10, 11)

M. Butterfly by David Henry Wang (95, 11, 12)

Medea by Euripides (82, 92, 95, 01, 03)

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (97, 08)

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (09)

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (85, 91, 95, 02, 03, 11)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (78, 89)

Middlemarch by George Eliot (95, 04, 05, 07)

Middle Passage by V. S. Naipaul (06)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (06, 12)

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (90, 92, 04)

The Misanthrope by Moliere (08)

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (89)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 89, 94, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 09)

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (76, 77, 86, 87, 95, 09)

Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao (00, 03)

The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (07)

Mother Courage and Her Children by Berthold Brecht (85, 87, 06)

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (94, 97, 04, 05, 07, 11)

Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw (87, 90, 95, 02, 09)

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (97)

Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (76, 80, 85, 95, 07, 11)

My Ántonia by Willa Cather (03, 08, 10, 12)

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (03)

N

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (09, 10)

Native Son by Richard Wright (79, 82, 85, 87, 95, 01, 04, 09, 11, 12)

Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee (99, 03, 05, 07, 08)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (09, 10)

1984 by George Orwell (87, 94, 05, 09)

No Exit by John Paul Sartre (86, 12)

No-No Boy by John Okada (95)

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevski (89)

O

Obasan by Joy Kogawa (94, 95, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10)

The Octopus by Frank Norris (09)

The Odyssey by Homer (86, 06, 10)

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (77, 85, 88, 00, 03, 04, 11)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (01)

Old School by Tobia Wolff (08)

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (09)

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (05, 10)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (01, 12)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (89, 04, 12)

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (06)

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (94)

The Orestia by Aeschylus (90)

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (04)

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Othello by William Shakespeare (79, 85, 88, 92, 95, 03, 04, 07, 11)

The Other by Thomas Tryon (10)

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (90)

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (86, 97, 09)

Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen (06)

P

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (01)

Pamela by Samuel Richardson (86)

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (71, 77, 78, 88, 91, 92, 07, 09, 12)

Paradise Lost by John Milton (85, 86, 10)

Passing by Nella Larsen (11)

Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (06)

Père Goriot by Honore de Balzac (02)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (90, 05, 07)

Phaedre by Jean Racine (92, 03)

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (96, 99, 07, 08, 10, 12)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (02)

The Plague by Albert Camus (02, 09, 12)

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (97)

Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal (02, 08)

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (10, 11, 12)

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James ( 88, 92, 96, 03, 05, 07, 11)

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (76, 77, 80, 86, 88, 96, 99, 04, 05, 08, 09, 10, 11)

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (95)

Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (96)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (09)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (83, 88, 92, 97, 08, 11, 12)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (90, 08)

Push by Sapphire (07)

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (03, 05, 08)

R

Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (03, 07)

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (87, 90, 94, 96, 99, 07, 09, 12)

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (81)

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (08)

Redburn by Herman Melville (87)

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (00, 03, 11)

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie (08, 09)

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (07)

Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco (09)

Richard III by William Shakespeare (79)

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean (08)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (10)

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (10)

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (76)

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster (03)

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (90, 92, 97, 08)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (81, 94, 00, 04, 05, 06, 10, 11)

S

Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw (95)

The Sandbox by Edward Albee (71)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (71, 77, 78, 83, 88, 91, 99, 02, 04, 05, 06, 11)

Sent for You Yesterday by John Edgar Wideman (03)

A Separate Peace by John Knowles (82, 07)

Set This House on Fire by William Styron (11)

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (97)

Silas Marner by George Eliot (02)

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (87, 02, 04, 09, 10)

Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (10)

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (91, 04)

Snow by Orhan Pamuk (09)

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (00, 10, 12)

A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller (11)

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (81, 88, 96, 00, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10)

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (77, 90)

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron (09)

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (77, 86, 97, 01, 07, 08)

The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence (96, 04)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (11)

The Stranger by Albert Camus (79, 82, 86, 04)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (91, 92, 01, 04, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11)

The Street by Ann Petry (07)

Sula by Toni Morrison (92, 97, 02, 04, 07, 08, 10, 12)

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (05)

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (85, 91, 95, 96, 04, 05, 12)

T

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (82, 91, 04, 08)

Tarftuffe by Moliere (87)

The Tempest by William Shakespeare (71, 78, 96, 03, 05, 07, 10)

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (82, 91, 03, 06, 07, 12)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston (88, 90, 91, 96, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (91, 97, 03, 09, 10, 11)

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (04, 09)

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (06)

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (11)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (08, 09, 11)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (77, 86, 88, 08)

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (90, 00, 06, 08)

Tracks by Louise Erdrich (05)

The Trial by Franz Kafka (88, 89, 00, 11)

Trifles by Susan Glaspell (00)

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (86)

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (92, 94, 00, 02, 04, 08)

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (85, 94, 96, 11)

Typical American by Gish Jen (02, 03, 05)

U

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (87, 09)

U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos (09)

V

The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (06)

Victory by Joseph Conrad (83)

Volpone by Ben Jonson (83)

W

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (77, 85, 86, 89, 94, 01, 09, 12)

The Warden by Anthony Trollope (96)

Washington Square by Henry James (90)

The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot (81)

Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman (87)

The Way of the World by William Congreve (71)

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (06)

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (07)

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka (12)

Who Has Seen the Wind by W. O. Mitchell (11)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (88, 94, 00, 04, 07, 11)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (89, 92, 05, 07, 08)

The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen (78)

Winter in the Blood by James Welch (95)

Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare (82, 89, 95, 06)

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor (82, 89, 95, 09, 10)

Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (91, 08)

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor (09, 10, 12)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (71,77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 99, 01, 06, 07, 08, 10, 12)

Z

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee (82, 01)

Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez (95)

 In addition, most other books by the authors listed here should be fair game as well (books, not short stories).

Source: http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/AP/APtitles.html