本教材以理论与实践相结合的编写宗旨，强调对于文本的阅读与分析。全书按照小说、诗歌、戏剧三大文学体裁分类编排，取代传统文学课程中以国别或年代为脉络的梳理。本书编写体例如下：小说、诗歌、戏剧各为一章，每一章又按照文学要素分成小节，每节内容分为要素讲解、文学名篇、原文注释、思考题这样几个板块。书中每一章节首先用英语简单明了地解释文学要素，为学生阅读文本提供一种可行的视角和分析模式，然后提供英美文学名篇让学生使用学到的文学批语基本知识欣赏文本并做分析练习。为帮助学生理解原著，所选文本均配以原文注释。另外，为开阔学生思路、引导学生深入思考，在每篇作品后面皆附有思考题，供学生课堂讨论或课后学习。

本书也可作为我国高校公共外语选修课教材，或作为自考英语教材、以及有一定英语水平的文学爱好者的英语文学读本。

本教程根据北京外国语大学国家级精品课程编写而成，供高校英语专业本科文学导论课程使用，旨在培养学生阅读、欣赏英语文学原著的能力，使其掌握文学批评的基本知识和方法，拓宽知识结构。本书也可作为高校公共英语选修课教材、自考英语教材或有一定英语水平的文学爱好者的英语文学读本。本书有如下特点：

编排合理：按照小说、诗歌、戏剧三大文学体裁分类编排，结构清晰，内容全面。

深入浅出：文学要素和文学原理的阐释简明易懂，为学生阅读文本提供一种可行的视角和分析模式。

注重实践：强调文本阅读，精选英美文学名篇：理论与实践相结合，指导学生利用所学文学批评知识欣赏、分析文本。

Part I Fiction

 Chapter 1 Plot

The Story of an Hour Kate Chopin

The Girls in Their Summer Dresses Irwin Shaw

 Chapter 2 Character and Characterization

Astronomer's Wife Kay Boyle

Everyday Use Alice Walker

 Chapter 3 Theme

I Want to Know Why Sherwood Anderson

A Rose for Emily William Faulkner

 Chapter 4 Point of View

Haircut Ring Lardner

A Little Cloud James Joyce

 Chapter 5 Style, Tone, and Irony

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Ernest Hemingway

The Black Cat EdgarAIlan Poe

 Chapter 6 Symbol

The Fly Katherine Mansfield

The Lottery Shirley Jackson

 Chapter 7 Types of Fiction

The Mark on the Wall Virginia Woolf

Lost in the Funhouse John Barth

Part II Poetry

 Chapter 1 Alliteration, Assonance, and Rhyme

Full Fathom Five William Shakespeare

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind William Shakespeare

To -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Splendor Falls Alfred Tennyson

God's Grandeur Gerard Manley Hopkins

Toads Revisited Philip Larkin

 Chapter 2 Rhythm and Meter

Song John Donne

Virtue George Herbert

The Oak Alfred Tennyson

When I Was One-and-Twenty A.E. Housman

Oh, Who Is That Young Sinner A.E. Housman

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost

The Voice Thomas Hardy

 Chapter 3 Closed Form and Open Form

To Be or Not to Be William Shakespeare

On What Foundation Stands Samuel Johnson

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night Dylan Thomas

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time Robert Herrick

Sonnet 75 Edmund Spenser

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer John Keats

With Music Strong I Come Walt Whitman

Digging Seamus Heaney

L(a] E. E. Cummings

Me Up At Does E.E. Cummings

 Chapter 4 Diction

This Is Just to Say William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheel Barrow William Carlos Williams

Metamorphosis Wallace Stevens

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud William Wordsworth

It Is a Beauteous Evening William Wordsworth

A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing Alexander Pope

Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave? Thomas Hardy

London William Blake

Disillusionment often O'Clock Wallace Stevens

Fire and Ice Robert Frost

 Chapter 5 Figures of Speech

The Eagle: A Fragment Alfred Tennyson

Metaphors Sylvia Plath

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? William Shakespeare

A Red, Red Rose Robert Burns

It Dropped So Low--in My Regard Emily Dickinson

To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell

Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint John Milton

Death Be Not Proud John Donne

 Chapter 6 Image and Symbol

Anecdote of the Jar Wallace Stevens

Heat H.D.

The Victory Ann Stevenson

I Heard a Fly Buzz--When I Died Emily Dickinson

A Noiseless Patient Spider Walt Whitman

The Sick Rose William Blake

The Road Not Taken Robert Frost

The Boston Evening Transcript T.S. Eliot

Up-hill Christina Rossetti

The Second Coming William Butler Yeats

 Chapter 7 Tone and Speaker

Loveliest of Trees A.E. Housman

My Papa's Waltz Theodore Roethke

The Chimney Sweeper William Blake

On Stella's Birthday Jonathan Swift

My Last Duchess Robert Browning

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot

 Chapter 8 Types of Poetry

I Sing of Warfare  Virgil

The Wife of Usher's Well Anonymous

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Christopher Marlowe

In Time of"The Breaking of Nations" Thomas Hardy

Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost

Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley

We All Behold with Envious Eyes Jonathan Swift

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Thomas Gray

Part Ill Drama

 Chapter 1 Plot and Character

Oedipus the King Sophocles

 Chapter 2 Dialogue, Staging, and Theme

Trifles Susan Glaspell

 Chapter 3 Types of Drama

The Dumb Waiter Harold Pinter

Literary Terms

Bibliography