Study Guide Library

Explore an ever-expanding selection of titles ranging from classic texts to contemporary works. SuperSummary Study Guides feature detailed summaries plus analyses of major themes, symbols, characters, and important quotes—all written by literature scholars and experts. Browse titles alphabetically or by genre.

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All TitlesModern FictionClassic FictionNonfictionPlaysEssaysPoetryMiddle Grade/YA
Theology
Ted Hughes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1961

The Lovers of the Poor
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

Ballad
Sonia Sanchez

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2007

Blackberry Picking
Seamus Heaney

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1966

Jerusalem
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1994

They Feed They Lion
Philip Levine

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1972

If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890

For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1860

Poem about My Rights
June Jordan

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

Good Bones
Maggie Smith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016

On the Move
Thom Gunn

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1994

September Suite
Lucille Clifton

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

The World as Meditation
Wallace Stevens

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1952

Woodchucks
Maxine Kumin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1972

In the Park
Maxine Kumin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1989

The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1839

The Soul unto itself
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1891

Song of a Second April
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

Out, Out—
Robert Frost

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1916

Poem for Haruko
June Jordan

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

Swan and Shadow
John Hollander

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1966

My Last Duchess
Robert Browning

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1842

Me and the Mule
Langston Hughes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1959

The Imaginary Iceberg
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1946

Whose cheek is this?
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1859

Shoulders
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1994

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1817

Amoretti XXXV: "My hungry eyes, through greedy covetize"
Edmund Spenser

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1595

Between Walls
William Carlos Williams

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1938

Crossing the Bar
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1889

The Song of Hiawatha
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1855

Mowing
Ada Limón

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Joy Harjo

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

The Colonel
Carolyn Forché

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1981

Living in Sin
Adrienne Rich

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1954

First They Came...
Martin Niemöller

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1946

A Complaint
William Wordsworth

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1807

A Wicker Basket
Robert Creeley

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

Childhood
Margaret Walker

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1989

Emplumada
Lorna Dee Cervantes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1981

Punishment
Seamus Heaney

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1975

The Goose Fish
Howard Nemerov

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

To Helen
Edgar Allan Poe

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1831

On the train the woman standing
Claudia Rankine

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1891

Myth
Natasha Trethewey

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2007

What Soft — Cherubic Creatures
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1896

[you fit into me]
Margaret Atwood

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971

Ave Maria
Frank O'Hara

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1964

Leda and the Swan
William Butler Yeats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1924

Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
Maya Angelou

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2006

Remember
Joy Harjo

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1982

Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890

The History Teacher
Billy Collins

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

To My Mother
Edgar Allan Poe

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1849

Life
Naomi Long Madgett

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1993

Prayer
Dana Gioia

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

The Schooner Flight
Derek Walcott

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1979

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Rainer Maria Rilke

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1910

Aubade with Burning City
Ocean Vuong

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

Joy in the Woods
Claude McKay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

The Windhover
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

Arrival at Santos
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1952

Crusoe in England
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971

Homeric Hymns
Anonymous

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult

London, 1802
William Wordsworth

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1807

Theories of Time and Space
Natasha Trethewey

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2006

The Red Shoes
Sheila Black

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

The Vision of Sir Launfal
James Russell Lowell

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1848

Venus and Adonis
William Shakespeare

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1593

The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957

The Eve of St. Agnes
John Keats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1820

The Fly
Karl Shapiro

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2003

Young
Anne Sexton

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1962

A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1896

Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1819

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1648

Beware Soul Brother
Chinua Achebe

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1972

Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1915

alternate names for black boys
Danez Smith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

If I Could Tell You
W. H. Auden

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1940

She Walks in Beauty
Lord George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1814

Sonnet 18
Francesco Petrarch

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1330

Walking Down Park
Nikki Giovanni

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1996

Night
William Blake

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1789

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1847

The Blue Terrance
Terrance Hayes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2006

To make a prairie
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1896

Poem For A Lady Whose Voice I Like
Nikki Giovanni

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1996

America
Allen Ginsberg

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1956

Spring and All
William Carlos Williams

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1923

Mutability
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1816

Ariel
Sylvia Plath

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1965

Endymion: A Poetic Romance
John Keats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1818

Lot's Wife
Anthony Hecht

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

Telephone Conversation
Wole Soyinka

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

Death Be Not Proud
John Donne

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1633

La Belle Dame sans Merci
John Keats

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1819

Mirror
Sylvia Plath

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963