Integrating quotations from a literary text can lend vivid support to your argument, but keep most quotations fairly short. Excessive use of long quotations may interrupt the flow of your interpretation. (The examples in this section use MLA style for citing sources. See 56a for details.)
Introducing literary quotations
When introducing quotations from a literary work, make sure that you don’t confuse the author with the narrator of a story, the speaker of a poem, or a character in a story or play. Instead of naming the author, you can refer to the narrator or speaker—or to the work itself.
inappropriate
Poet Andrew Marvell describes his fear of death like this: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
appropriate
Addressing his beloved, the speaker of the poem argues that death gives them no time to waste: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
appropriate
The poem “To His Coy Mistress” says as much about fleeting time and death as it does about sexual passion. Its most powerful lines are “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
In the last example, you could mention the author as well: Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” says as much. . . . Although the author is mentioned, readers will not confuse him with the speaker of the poem.
Providing context for quotations
When you quote the words of a narrator, speaker, or character in a literary work, you should name who is speaking and provide a context for the quoted words. In the following example, the quoted language is from Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.”
When a neighbor suggests that the lottery should be abandoned, Old Man Warner responds, “There’s always been a lottery” (284).
Avoiding shifts in tense when quoting
Because it is conventional to write about literature in the present tense (see 7e) and because literary works often use other tenses, you will need to exercise some care when weaving quotations into your own writing. One student’s draft of an essay on Nadine Gordimer’s short story “Friday’s Footprint” included the following awkward sentence, in which the present-tense main verb sees is followed by the past-tense verb blushed in the quotation.
tense shift
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, “she blushed, like a wave of illness” (159).
When revising, the writer considered two ways to avoid the shift from present to past tense: to paraphrase the reference to Rita’s blushing and reduce the length of the quotation or to change the verb in the quotation to the present tense, using brackets to indicate the change. (For advice on using brackets to indicate changes in a quotation, see 39c.)
REVISION 1
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, she is overcome with embarrassment, “like a wave of illness” (159).
REVISION 2
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, “she blushe[s], like a wave of illness” (159).
Citing quotations
MLA guidelines for citing quotations differ somewhat for short stories or novels, poems, and plays.
Short stories or novels To cite a passage from a short story or a novel, use a page number in parentheses after the quoted words.
The narrator of Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” remembers a conversation in which her mother described guilt as something one could “shrink” and “compress.” After a time, according to the mother, “you can blow it off your body like a speck of dirt” (12).
When a quotation is five lines or longer, set it off from the text by indenting one inch from the left margin; when you set a quotation off from the text, do not use quotation marks. Put the parenthetical citation after the final mark of punctuation.
Sister’s tale begins with “I,” and she makes every event revolve around herself, even her sister’s marriage:
I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking “Pose Yourself” photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. (46)
Poems To cite lines from a poem, use line numbers in parentheses at the end of the quotation. For the first reference, use the word “lines”: (lines 1-2). Thereafter use just the numbers: (12-13).
The opening lines of Frost’s “Fire and Ice” strike a conversational tone: “Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice” (1-2).
Enclose quotations of three or fewer lines of poetry in quotation marks within your text, and indicate line breaks with a slash, as in the example just given. (See also 39e and item 25 in 56a.)
When you quote four or more lines of poetry, set the quotation off from the text by indenting one inch and omit the quotation marks. Put the line numbers in parentheses after the final mark of punctuation.
Plays To cite lines from a play, include the act number, scene number, and line numbers (as many of these as are available) in parentheses at the end of the quotation. Separate the numbers with periods, and use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) unless your instructor prefers roman numerals.
Two attendants silently watch as the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth subconsciously struggles with her guilt: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.50-51).
If no act, scene, or line numbers are available, use a page number.
When a quotation from a play takes up four or fewer typed lines in your paper and is spoken by only one character, put quotation marks around it and run it into the text of your essay, as in the previous example. If the quotation consists of two or three lines from a verse play, use a slash for line breaks, as for poetry (see above). When a dramatic quotation by a single character is five typed lines or longer (or more than three lines in a verse play), treat it like a passage from a short story or a novel (see above): Indent the quotation one inch from the left margin and omit quotation marks. Include the citation in parentheses after the final mark of punctuation.
When quoting dialogue between two or more characters in a play, set the quotation off from the text. Type each character’s name in all capital letters at a one-inch indent from the left margin. Indent subsequent lines under the character’s name an additional one-quarter inch.
In the opening act of Translations, Friel pointedly contrasts the monolingual Captain Lancey with the multilingual Irish:
HUGH. . . . [Lancey] then explained that he does not speak Irish. Latin? I asked. None. Greek? Not a syllable. He speaks—on his own admission—only English; and to his credit he seemed suitably verecund—James?
JIMMY. Verecundus—humble.
HUGH. Indeed—he voiced some surprise that we did not speak his language. (act 1)
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