Chapter 1. The world is a book: some snapshots
1.1. The Confidence Man: His Masquerade
1.2. More on the word ‘reading’
1.3. Observing a character: Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood
1.4. More on the construction of meanings
1.5. Opening up a text: an exemplary discussion
1.6. Modes of discourse
Chapter 2: Literature, genre and the elements of form
2.1. What is literature
2.2. Genre
2.3. The elements of form
2.4. Diction: passages for analysis
Chapter 3. Closing in on poetry
3.1. Preliminary considerations
3.2. Narrative poetry: the ballad
3.3. Exploring feelings: the lyric
3.4. Didactic poetry: satire
Chapter 4: The art of the short story
4.1. The elements of story
4.2. At your elbow: the omniscient narrator
4.3. Perspectives on the action: irony
4.4. Stories and scenes
Chapter 5: The play’s the thing
5.1. Drama as an audio-visual spectacle
5.2. The dramatic imagination: The Crucible
5.3. Tragedy: Shakespeare’s King Lear
5.4. Realism: A Doll’s House
5.5. Banishing the fourth wall:The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Chapter 6: The novel: making sense of the big story
6.1. The cultural context of the writer
6.2. The cultural context of the reader
6.3. The reading experience: point of view
6.4. The weave of language: texture
6.5. ‘There are places I remember…’ (John Lennon)
6.6. Characters and characterisation
6.7. The shape of a novel