Inside Literature: Reading, Responding, Arguing

by R.S. Gwynn

As a part of the Penguin Academics series, Inside Literature offers students a compact and portable volume with state-of-the-art scholarship, streamlined editorial apparatus, and an affordable price. Unlike bulky, expensive alternatives that indulge in process-oriented overkill, Inside Literature is designed for instructors who prefer to offer their students general strategies for approaching texts and generating things to say about them. Inside Literature takes a pragmatic approach. In the introductory chapters, students learn how to apply strategies for reading and responding thoughtfully to the short stories, poems, plays, and essays that follow, grouped around six engaging themes.

1408 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2006

About the author

R.S. Gwynn, known as a "new formalist" poet, received a BA from Davidson College, where he twice won the Vereen Bell Award for Creative Writing, and he earned both an MA and an MFA from the University of Arkansas, where he won the John Gould Fletcher Award for Poetry. Gwynn has also won the Michael Braude Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He is the author of several collections of poetry, including No Word of Farewell: Selected Poems 1970–2000; The Narcissiad (1982), a book-length satirical poem; and The Drive-In (1986), winner of the Breakthrough Award from the University of Missouri Press. Gwynn has taught at Lamar University since 1976. He lives in Beaumont, Texas.