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 with her mother in which the 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).
If a novel has numbered divisions, give the page number and a semicolon; then indicate the book, part, or chapter in which the passage is found. Use abbreviations such as “bk.” and “ch.”
White relies on past authors to help retell the legend of King Arthur. The narrator does not provide specifics about Lancelot’s tournament at Corbin, instead telling readers, “If you want to read about the Corbin tournament, Malory has it” (489; bk. 3, ch. 39).
When a quotation from a work of fiction takes up four or fewer typed lines, put it in quotation marks and run it into the text of your essay, as in the two previous examples. When a quotation is five lines or longer, set it off from the text by indenting one-half 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. (88)
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.
When you quote four or more lines of poetry, set the quotation off from the text by indenting one-half inch, and omit the quotation marks. Put the line numbers in parentheses after the final mark of punctuation.
In the second stanza of “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” Whitman turns the spider’s weaving into a metaphor for the activity of the human soul:
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. (6-10)
note: If any line of the poem takes up more than one line of your paper, carry the extra words to the next line of the paper and indent them an additional one-quarter inch. Alternatively, you may indent the entire poem a little less than one-half inch to fit the long line.
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 struggles with her conscience: “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 quotation by a single character in a play 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 it one-half inch from the left margin and omit quotation marks. Include the citation in parentheses after the final mark of punctuation.
Speaking to Electra, Clytemnestra complains about the sexual double standard that has allowed her husband to justify sacrificing her other daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods. She asks what would have happened if Menelaus, and not his wife Helen, had been seized by the Trojans:
If Menelaus had been raped from home on the sly, should I have had to kill Orestes so my sister’s husband could be rescued? You think your father would have borne it? He would have killed me. Then why was it fair for him to kill what belonged to me and not be killed? (1041-45)
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 and indented one-half inch 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)