literary worlds essay

Guide to the “Literary Worlds” Common Module for HSC English Extension 1

No clue what literary worlds are? If you don’t quite understand what you’re studying in the HSC English Extension 1 Common Module rubric, don’t fret!

In this article, we’ll break down the module to give you a nice overview of what it’s all about, tips and tricks. Let’s get into it! 

What texts will I be studying? What does the ‘Literary Worlds’ Common Module rubric mean? How will I be assessed? How can I prepare for Literary Worlds assessments?

What will I be studying?

The new 2019 Common Module for HSC Extension 1 English is Literary Worlds, and will likely be the first thing you study in the subject. It will take up approximately a third of your total study (15-20 out of 60 hours) in Extension 1 English.

This module requires you to study:

• A range of short texts with various forms 
• One elective option (with three prescribed and two related texts )

If you’re unsure what texts or which elective you will be studying, make sure to check with your teacher! For a full list of all the prescribed texts for each elective, check out the Extension 1 English Syllabus .

What does the ‘Literary Worlds’ Common Module rubric mean?

To really dig deep into what NESA expects from this module, let’s take a close look at the rubric. 

Remember that essay questions or creative stimuli for this module will in some way be drawn from the rubric, so it’s very important to familiarise yourself with it. Fortunately, we’ll be breaking it down in the next part so that you don’t have to do it by yourself!

Notice the highlighted phrases and think about what they might mean in the context of the module, Literary Worlds.

“… texts represent and illuminate the complexity of individual and collective lives in literary worlds.”

Firstly, think about the key words:

• Individual —single, separate
• Collective —relating to a group

In the context of the rubric, think of complexity as the intricacy or multifacetedness of the lives presented in the literary worlds of the text. The rubric asks you to consider how the experiences of individual or collective lives within a text may subvert or reflect the contextual conventions of their literary world. 

“… critically evaluate representations of experiences of others, including notions of identity, voice and points of view; and how values are presented and reflected in texts.”

Again, take note of the key words:

• Representations —description or portrayal in a particular way
• Values — principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life
• Identity —who a person is, the way they think of themselves and how they are viewed by the world
• Voice —a particular opinion or attitude expressed

This particular statement asks you to consider the way that a composer portrays ideas and people in their text. Consider how these ideas are represented—’ through experiences, notions of identity, voice and points of view’ —and the way contextual values may be reflected. 

The portrayal of other people’s experiences ( or lack of ) can indicate how values are presented in a text. For example, a lack of a woman’s voice or perspective can present patriarchal values, which may have been prevalent during the composer’s time (think context).

“… private, public and imaginary worlds… explore new horizons and offer new insights”

Consider the ideas that are constructed with the lens of these different literary ‘worlds’, and how they might differ from each other as a result.

• Private —a state which is not observed by other people; memoir, biography
• Public —of or concerning people as a whole; text that offers commentary on society
• Imaginary —existing only in the imagination; fiction

For your prescribed text, list out prominent ideas or themes and then identity what literary worlds are constructed (there may be more than one!). From there you’ll be able to start fleshing out ‘new’ insights that are offered through considering ideas or themes within the three categories.

“… how context influences [student’s] responses to diverse literary worlds.”

Consider the way that your own context and values shape your response to a text and the literary world it constructs—do you love it? Hate it? 

The rubric asks you to consider how your own context influences your response to a text, and how this may be different from the responses of the audience at the time. This part of the rubric indicates a level of personal insight that is needed in responding to the module and its texts.

To develop your personal response, think about the ways that literary worlds are presented in texts to represent contextual values and how these values may have changed over time.

What is a ‘Literary World?’ 

Just to summarise in case it’s still unclear (because it is a difficult topic to wrap your head around!), a literary world refers to the setting, themes, characters, and other elements that make up the fictional universe created by an author within a particular literary work.

It encompasses the entire imaginative landscape constructed by the writer, which readers explore and analyse to understand deeper meanings and insights within the text. Here are two famous examples of literary worlds:

• Middle-earth in “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien:  Middle-earth is a vast and intricately detailed fictional world inhabited by various races like hobbits, elves, dwarves, humans, and orcs. It includes diverse landscapes like the Shire, Rivendell, Mordor, and the Misty Mountains. The literary world of Middle-earth is rich in history, languages, cultures, and mythologies, providing a complex backdrop for the epic journey of Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship of the Ring.
• Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood:  Gilead is a dystopian society set in a near-future America where a totalitarian regime has taken control. It is a world marked by strict social hierarchies, oppression of women, and theocratic rule. The literary world of Gilead is bleak and oppressive, serving as a reflection of contemporary societal issues such as gender inequality, political extremism, and the abuse of power. Through the lens of Gilead, Atwood explores themes of freedom, resistance, and the consequences of authoritarianism.

How will I be assessed?

The rubric fleshes out how you can be assessed in this module—and how you can prepare to maximise your marks! You will be marked on…

“… critical and creative compositions” and “… how language features and forms are crafted to express complex ideas”

Internal Assessment (In-school)

Your school can assess you through critical (i.e. essay, persuasive) and creative responses (i.e. imaginative piece; short story, poetry) to various texts or stimuli. 

Depending on your teacher, it could be an imaginative response assignment (often paired with a reflection statement) or an in-class essay.

Your school will likely have two internal assessments for the Literary Worlds Common module rubric—one during the year and another during trials.

External Assessment (HSC)

The HSC Extension 1 English exam will consist of two sections; Section I: Common Module—Literary Worlds and Section II: Electives. 

Section I is where this module will be assessed, and there will be one question in response to a stimulus and/or unseen text . The question can potentially be in two parts—for example an imaginative response and then a reflection—and can require a creative or critical response, or both. 

Want to get a sneak peek of how your final HSC exam will look? Here’s our master list of HSC English Past Papers for you!

How can I prepare for the ‘Literary Worlds’ module?

Tip #1: know the rubric well.

The  “Literary Worlds” Common Module rubric contain everything that you need to know to do well in this module! 

Read through the rubric carefully and highlight key terms and phrases that you can later practice responding to by rewriting them as critical response questions . 

This module requires a lot of conceptual thinking, so it’s a good idea to practice responding to the rubric itself in preparation for your assessments.

The HSC exam involves responding to unseen material (such as text extracts)—so it is very important to have a solid understanding of the rubric to be able to compose a sophisticated Band 6 response.

Tip #2: Know your forms and features!

Familiarise yourself with literary features , especially ones that holistically convey how a composer constructs a text to communicate their ideas and values. Think big picture when it comes to literary worlds! 

The HSC may involve unseen texts extracts from a speech to a poem, so be sure to know literary features for a whole range of textual forms.

Tip #3: Write heaps!

Remember that you can be assessed with a creative response , so it is equally important to exercise your creative writing muscles.

Practice writing creatively every day! The more you practice, the quicker you will be able to write and develop sophisticated ideas in relation to Literary Worlds. 

Unsure of where to start? Go back to the rubric and come up with composition ideas for each phrase that you’ve highlighted. That way, you’ll be well prepared for whatever they may throw at you during an exam.

Bonus Tip: One of the best ways to practise those creative writing muscles is to keep an English Extension 1 Creative Journal throughout the year!

Tip #4: Read even more!

If you’ve taken English Extension 1 as a subject, there’s a large change that you really like to read. Whether or not that’s the case for you, be sure to expand your reading list past what you’re prescribed! 

The more you read, the more literary features, plot devices and ideas that you will expose yourself to. Don’t forget to take note of them and try it out in your own writing!

Kill two birds with one stone and analyse whatever you read through the lens of the rubric . You’ll be able to improve your creative writing and practice responding to unseen texts while drawing on your knowledge of the Literary Worlds module.

And that wraps up our breakdown of the English Extension 1 Common Module rubric for Literary Worlds! Good luck!

Got your HSC Exam coming up soon? Bookmark our 7-Day Study Plan for English Extension 1 to use!

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Millicent Tai hopes to one day become a full-time teacher and is currently studying a Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Science at UNSW. She enjoys tutoring students at Art of Smart in English and Maths and has loved reading and writing for as long as she can remember. In her spare time, you can find her avidly reading Christian biographies or fishing in Animal Crossing.

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• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

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The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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HSC English Extension 1

Questions and answers for the HSC English Extension 1 exam

Former chief examiner of English Extension 1, Felicity Plunkett, answers questions from students studying for their HSC in the lead up to the 2021 exams.

The common module, Literary Worlds, provides the overarching framework for English Extension 1, within which you have studied the particular ‘worlds’ of your elective. Studying Literary Worlds, you are looking at the ways texts ‘represent and illuminate’ the complexity of lives – individual and collective.

As your question implies, the common module question may be a creative one (but, as in the 2020 exam, it may not be). Practise creative flexibility, as described above, so that you’ve written in different voices, from different points of view, a range of characters and settings and so on.

Whatever the genre of the texts you are writing about, remember to balance your discussion of themes with analysis of some of the ways the composer uses language to express these. When selecting related texts, consider how they work as a suite with the set texts you’ve studied.

This is a good question about an important part of exam technique. Allocate your time in the exam according to the marks awarded per question. For example, spend twice as long on a question worth 10 marks as you would on one worth five.

If two questions are worth the same mark, devote an equal amount of time. Practically, you may find it helpful to write a note to remind yourself of the time you’ll need to move on to the next question. Don’t be tempted to ignore your own advice, even if you are on a roll with a particular response. You could build in a few minutes so that you have a moment to round off the response you’re working on. 

Practising timed responses as part of your revision will help you get familiar with what you can do within the timeframe. Some people find it works to start with a question they feel confident about, to boost confidence and momentum. It makes a lot of sense to spend a bit of time planning your response. Yes, nerves can make us want to jump straight in and start writing, but planning will take the pressure off by collecting the main ideas you’ll write about, and it will help you start strongly, giving your marker a good first impression of your response. 

Invest time in reading the questions carefully, making sure you’ve seen all the instructions. In Extension 1, there are likely to be several components to the questions. Respond to each of these.

Clarity is crucial. The exam context means relatively quick writing and responding, so lean, clear syntax is an asset. Have a look at the length of your sentences.

While long sentences may work in an essay you draft and redraft, they can sometimes detract from clarity, especially when there’s the pressure of time. You are aiming to convey each observation clearly and succinctly, so excess wordage may not be an ally. Don’t be afraid of simplicity. A very long sentence may be three shorter, clearer sentences. Have a look at writing you’ve found compelling and clear, and see what techniques its writer uses – rhythm, pace, number of points per sentence etc. Another aspect of expression may relate to voice, and the sense of your own views is important. Feel confident in owning your observations. If you draw on other critics’ views, say what you think about them. You won’t always agree. Think of your reader, marking lots of responses. If your writing is tangled or wordy, it can mean your reader has to dig around to understand what point you are making. In the exam context, aim to convey your ideas in ways that don’t give the marker a lot of extra work. Practise all this. If you can, work as a group or in pairs to mark swiftly written opening paragraphs. Assess how much has been conveyed, and how much ease and momentum there was in the response.

There is, as you suggest, a lot to juggle. In your response, depending on the nature and specifics of the question, you’ll also be drawing on particular stimulus material and instructions. It’s important to remember that whatever you write, you’ll have a sense of how much more you might have written, in another context.

Everyone has this, because you’ve spent a year reading, writing and thinking deeply. However, none of this care and attention is wasted – it shows up in your work. In this context, practically, consider a list on your planning page, so you include everything. 

Try to plan so that you devote equal time to each text, and budget your time according to the marks. Practise economical means of expression, including catalogues and analogues. Writing economically is a whole subject in itself, worthy of the thinking your question implies. You’re packing a suitcase and can only take hand luggage. Careful planning and technique is an asset and creative challenge.

Exam committees are made up of lovely, intelligent educators who know the course well. If you can, imagine them as the teachers from whom you’ve learnt the most. They are deeply committed to fairness and equity in many ways, including across the paper. It can be tempting to consider that other students have had easier questions, but it’s wise to cultivate a positive sense of the examiners and the exam, and even to look forward to the creative challenge of the particular question. There are also lots of checks and balances in place to ensure equity in the marking process, so proceed with confidence.

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Sunday, June 23, 2019

Extension english 1: literary worlds.

10 comments:

Great resource, but it looks like you've attached the PowerPoint twice and not the booklet.

You are a wonderful teacher and collaborator Luke. Thank you for all you do for the profession.

How wonderful Luke - this looks fabuous

Truly amazing work here, Luke! Thanks so much for sharing your resources so selflessly. I'm teaching 12 Ext 1 for the very first time and your work is proving invaluable. Bless you!

Thank you, that's heartening to hear :)

Very Grateful that you are so thoroughly immersed in the content and that you can share your insights and convey complexity with ease.

Thanks so much Luke. You are very generous.

Wow. This is highly informative and highly engaging. It's so evident how much work you've undertaken. A wonderful resource.

I cannot thank you enough for being so generous, Luke. These resources are a huge help!!

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{{item.title}}, my essentials, ask for help, contact edconnect, directory a to z, how to guides, english k–12, common module – literary worlds.

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Worlds of upheaval

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Reimagined worlds

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3 Literary Worlds

• Published: November 2012
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This chapter discusses the common use of the term “world” in literary studies that speaks to the relation between literature and worlds, and has nothing to do with world-systems or world literature. We speak of “Balzac's world,” or “Hawthorne's world,” or “Rushdie's world” in ways that rely on two fairly conventional understandings of the word, neither of which is captured by the current world literature debates. In one use the word names the general social and historical space within which an author lived and worked. In its other use the phrase means something like the unity of form, diegesis, and feeling composed by the rough totality of a work: the world of the work of art.

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Featuring joan didion, rachel kushner, hanif abdurraqib, ann patchett, jenny diski, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

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2. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Knopf)

14 Rave • 12 Positive • 6 Mixed Read an excerpt from Let Me Tell You What I Mean here

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4. Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury)

16 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Girlhood here

“Every once in a while, a book comes along that feels so definitive, so necessary, that not only do you want to tell everyone to read it now, but you also find yourself wanting to go back in time and tell your younger self that you will one day get to read something that will make your life make sense. Melissa Febos’s fierce nonfiction collection, Girlhood , might just be that book. Febos is one of our most passionate and profound essayists … Girlhood …offers us exquisite, ferocious language for embracing self-pleasure and self-love. It’s a book that women will wish they had when they were younger, and that they’ll rejoice in having now … Febos is a balletic memoirist whose capacious gaze can take in so many seemingly disparate things and unfurl them in a graceful, cohesive way … Intellectual and erotic, engaging and empowering[.]”

–Michelle Hart ( Oprah Daily )

5. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told by Jenny Diski (Bloomsbury)

14 Rave • 7 Positive

“[Diski’s] reputation as an original, witty and cant-free thinker on the way we live now should be given a significant boost. Her prose is elegant and amused, as if to counter her native melancholia and includes frequent dips into memorable images … Like the ideal artist Henry James conjured up, on whom nothing is lost, Diski notices everything that comes her way … She is discerning about serious topics (madness and death) as well as less fraught material, such as fashion … in truth Diski’s first-person voice is like no other, selectively intimate but not overbearingly egotistic, like, say, Norman Mailer’s. It bears some resemblance to Joan Didion’s, if Didion were less skittish and insistently stylish and generated more warmth. What they have in common is their innate skepticism and the way they ask questions that wouldn’t occur to anyone else … Suffice it to say that our culture, enmeshed as it is in carefully arranged snapshots of real life, needs Jenny Diski, who, by her own admission, ‘never owned a camera, never taken one on holiday.’” It is all but impossible not to warm up to a writer who observes herself so keenly … I, in turn, wish there were more people around who thought like Diski. The world would be a more generous, less shallow and infinitely more intriguing place.”

–Daphne Merkin ( The New York Times Book Review )

6. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)

12 Rave • 7 Positive Listen to an interview with Rachel Kushner here

“Whether she’s writing about Jeff Koons, prison abolition or a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, [Kushner’s] interested in appearances, and in the deeper currents a surface detail might betray … Her writing is magnetised by outlaw sensibility, hard lives lived at a slant, art made in conditions of ferment and unrest, though she rarely serves a platter that isn’t style-mag ready … She makes a pretty convincing case for a political dimension to Jeff Koons’s vacuities and mirrored surfaces, engages repeatedly with the Italian avant garde and writes best of all about an artist friend whose death undoes a spell of nihilism … It’s not just that Kushner is looking back on the distant city of youth; more that she’s the sole survivor of a wild crowd done down by prison, drugs, untimely death … What she remembers is a whole world, but does the act of immortalising it in language also drain it of its power,’neon, in pink, red, and warm white, bleeding into the fog’? She’s mining a rich seam of specificity, her writing charged by the dangers she ran up against. And then there’s the frank pleasure of her sentences, often shorn of definite articles or odd words, so they rev and bucket along … That New Journalism style, live hard and keep your eyes open, has long since given way to the millennial cult of the personal essay, with its performance of pain, its earnest display of wounds received and lessons learned. But Kushner brings it all flooding back. Even if I’m skeptical of its dazzle, I’m glad to taste something this sharp, this smart.”

–Olivia Laing ( The Guardian )

7. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan (FSG)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 5 Mixed • 1 Pan

“[A] quietly dazzling new essay collection … This is, needless to say, fraught terrain, and Srinivasan treads it with determination and skill … These essays are works of both criticism and imagination. Srinivasan refuses to resort to straw men; she will lay out even the most specious argument clearly and carefully, demonstrating its emotional power, even if her ultimate intention is to dismantle it … This, then, is a book that explicitly addresses intersectionality, even if Srinivasan is dissatisfied with the common—and reductive—understanding of the term … Srinivasan has written a compassionate book. She has also written a challenging one … Srinivasan proposes the kind of education enacted in this brilliant, rigorous book. She coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order.”

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8. A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

13 Rave • 4 Positive Listen to an interview with Hanif Abdurraqib here

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–Gene Seymour ( Bookforum )

9. On Animals by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press)

11 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed Listen to an interview with Susan Orlean here

“I very much enjoyed Orlean’s perspective in these original, perceptive, and clever essays showcasing the sometimes strange, sometimes sick, sometimes tender relationships between people and animals … whether Orlean is writing about one couple’s quest to find their lost dog, the lives of working donkeys of the Fez medina in Morocco, or a man who rescues lions (and happily allows even full grown males to gently chew his head), her pages are crammed with quirky characters, telling details, and flabbergasting facts … Readers will find these pages full of astonishments … Orlean excels as a reporter…Such thorough reporting made me long for updates on some of these stories … But even this criticism only testifies to the delight of each of the urbane and vivid stories in this collection. Even though Orlean claims the animals she writes about remain enigmas, she makes us care about their fates. Readers will continue to think about these dogs and donkeys, tigers and lions, chickens and pigeons long after we close the book’s covers. I hope most of them are still well.”

–Sy Montgomery ( The Boston Globe )

10. Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South  by Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions)

9 Rave • 5 Positive Read Margaret Renkl on finding ideas everywhere, here

“Renkl’s sense of joyful belonging to the South, a region too often dismissed on both coasts in crude stereotypes and bad jokes, co-exists with her intense desire for Southerners who face prejudice or poverty finally to be embraced and supported … Renkl at her most tender and most fierce … Renkl’s gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations , is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart … Any initial sense of emotional whiplash faded as as I proceeded across the six sections and realized that the book is largely organized around one concept, that of fair and loving treatment for all—regardless of race, class, sex, gender or species … What rises in me after reading her essays is Lewis’ famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that—and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them.”

–Barbara J. King ( NPR )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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World literature and the creation of literary worlds

• Published: 09 July 2011
• Volume 38 , pages 341–348, ( 2011 )

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• Martin Puchner 1  

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Based on the author’s work as general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature , the essay develops an approach to world literature centered on world creation. The creation of literary worlds can be understood within the framework of possible worlds theory as developed by Thomas Pavel, Lubomir Dolezel and others. Taking its point of departure from possible worlds theory, the essay then focuses on specific genres that foreground the capacity of literature to create whole worlds, including world creation myths and science fiction. Three terms are used to analyze this body of literature: reference; scale; and model. While the category of reference accounts for the status of the worlds to be found within literary works, scale and model capture the particular challenges world creation literature faces.

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Dialogue, Movement, and World Entanglement: Towards a Reconceptualization of World Literature

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Acknowlegments

I would like to thank a number of people who have been helpful in the formulation of these thoughts, especially the participants of the fifth Sino-American Symposium on Comparative Literature, organized by Wang Ning and David Damrosch in Shanghai, August 2010, but also my co-editors and collaborators on the Norton, including Wiebke Denecke, Emily Wilson, Suzanne Akbari, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Levine, Pericles Lewis, Vinay Dharwadker, and Gottfried Hagen.

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Department of English, Harvard University, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

Martin Puchner

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Puchner, M. World literature and the creation of literary worlds. Neohelicon 38 , 341–348 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-011-0101-1

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Published : 09 July 2011

Issue Date : December 2011

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-011-0101-1

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