Page 134 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

Presentation 133
momentarily think that you mean line numbers. The second
reference, however, can afford to gain the brevity of ‘III, 62’,
relying on the reader to have understood that the roman
numerals refer to cantos and the arabic ones to stanzas.
Notice, too, that neither reference gives the title of the poem.
This should always be included where there could be any doubt.
Here there is none because the first quotation is offered in a
sentence beginning ‘In Childe Harolde’. By contrast in offering
the quotation from Shelley’s Queen Mab, I could not
reasonably expect you to deduce from my context what work,
or even what author, I would be quoting. My reference
therefore supplies both, as well as identifying the passage’s
position in the text by line numbers.
For extracts from plays, it is safest to give the numbers of
act, scene and lines. The act is identified first in large roman
numerals (I, II, III, IV, V); then the scene in small roman
numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, etc.); finally the line numbers in
arabic numerals: ‘Lear himself has described the division of the
kingdom as a “darker purpose” (I. ii. 36)’. Where your context
leaves no possibility of doubt about which scene you mean, you
can just identify the relevant line: ‘In the very first scene of the
play, Lear calls the division a “darker purpose” (36)’. If either
of these sentences appears in an essay whose topic is clearly
King Lear, the play’s title need not be repeated within the
reference.
You might, however, momentarily need to quote King Lear
in an essay on some quite different work. Then the title, too,
would need to be included in the reference:
Hardy’s characters sometimes seem like the victims of some
cosmic, practical joker. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
remorselessly teases and tortures its heroine until the very last
page. It is only in the closing paragraph that ‘The President of
the Immortals’ is said to have finished his ‘sport’ with Tess.
She has at last escaped further torment by being killed.
Hardy’s zestfully bitter image recalls some of Shakespeare’s
bleakest lines: ‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to th’ Gods;/
They kill us for their sport’ (King Lear, IV. i. 36–7).

Note that the quotation from Hardy’s own text is here given no
reference. The context guides the reader unmistakably to Tess
of the D’Urbervilles and to that novel’s ‘last paragraph’.